Karen Bass is everything we thought Rick Caruso would be

I’m not even a resident of Los Angeles and its clearly obvious that newly elected Mayor Karen Bass’ election strategy was to ensure her election victory by courting and securing the growing “progressive” base of the Democratic Party or as the former Sheriff refers to them as the “woke” left by making promises that sounded good on the campaign trail but from a legislative standpoint and a policy position she couldn’t even begin to formulate and even humanly impossible to keep.

To put it simply Los Angeles residents got played by Karen Bass and her shape-shifting policy on an initial stamps or footprint and/or ‘transformation’ of the LAPD in her first term as the first Black female Mayor of Los Angeles resembles nothing of the grand words of a brand new day at the LAPD but in fact, her new public safety mandate as reported by the Los Angeles Times in their most recent article Mayor Bass calls for overhaul of LAPD discipline system, more detectives to work cases is that Bass’ policy contradicts promises she made on the campaign trail and that she put the needs of her wealthy donors above the needs of her most vulnerable constituents in the Black and Brown community who cries for intervention from a law enforcement agency with a long and storied history of violating the rights of minorities with impunity and seemingly and although publicly for public relations purposes expresses anger and disgust when “routine” encounters with the LAPD turn violent or deadly as been the standard trend with LAPD and law enforcement agencies across the country.

Karen Bass wasn’t complicated and keeping in mind that the former congresswoman was on the shortlist to become the Vice President of the United States she used an old tried and true principle that’s applied in seeking the most coveted and most powerful seat in the world which is being the President of the United States “campaign in poetry but govern in prose ” which simply means in layman’s term say things that tickle or pleases the voting bases ears to earn a particular demographics campaign donations and/or support.

Meaning we shouldn’t be surprised by Karen Bass’ tepid support of LAPD Chief Michel Moore because although she campaigns as a progressive she needs to legislate as a D.C. moderate if she has any chance to win re-election in 2026 because her donors can’t justify financing her re-election campaign if homelessness, lawlessness, and crime plague Los Angeles right before the planned arrival of the 2028 Olympics.

It all makes sense and as the old political adage goes this common law marriage so to speak between Bass and Moore is by convenience as politics makes strange bedfellows and in this case, and according to her own words as she is quoted in the Los Angeles Times is that the “LAPD faces a culture and leadership problem”.

Bass told The Times last week that she wants to see broad change in the Police Department, but her focus at the moment is on goals that are realistic given where the department and city are today.

“One of the things that I believe needs to be changed is the culture, and I don’t think you can legislate that. I think that’s a leadership issue,” she said Thursday.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass

Are you serious? A culture and leadership problem?

So you are telling me that the standard of culture and leadership doesn’t begin with the Chief of Police and studies from most seasoned law enforcement professionals will tell you that culture and leadership start with the Chief and are usually based on the Chief’s own personal morals, characters and values and if Karen Bass who is clearly struggling with the defense of her supporting the Chief’s five-year term, despite his record arguing otherwise, then she can’t make that correlation.

She’s either clearly inept and/or unqualified to be Mayor of Los Angeles or she sold the Black community a bold-faced lie in which she clearly misled the Black community about what realistic changes she would bring to the LAPD without ignoring the cries of seemingly endless acts of abuses and murders by the hands of LAPD officers and compromising the safety of the residents of Los Angeles as a whole.

With that being said I don’t expect perfection from Karen Bass and Black elected officials for that matter but this matter of policing and her conflicting messaging is problematic.

If the Chief of Police embodies a spirit of leadership that’s counterproductive to civil rights reform and more importantly to the Black constituency that elected her then why would she support a new five-year appointment for Chief Moore that based on her own words, which is subject to interpretation may I add, proves he is uniquely unqualified to lead the LAPD at this moment in time because as the benchmark and/or goal maybe a “smooth” Olympics but without drastic changes that balances reform first with public safety I’m afraid Los Angeles is marching towards an unavoidable march towards civil unrest where the undeliverable promises of the woke left will finally face their consequences.

The sad thing is the ‘woke left’ knew this day was coming or maybe not. I mean how could one take the eerie silence of Councilmembers Marqueece Harris-Dawson, Curren Price, and Heather Hutt who also offered repeated silence to the Los Angeles Times when asked their opinions about Chief’s Moore reappointment or why hadn’t they asserted themselves more in challenging Moore’s reappointment despite his poor reputation in the African-American communities and amongst civil rights groups?

Newly elected police critics Eunisses Hernandez and Hugo Soto-Martinez who scream “abolish the police” were also silent. According to David Zahniser’s article yesterday, the five of them would have been able to stop Moore’s reappointment and force a discussion on the matter.

Why is former LAPD Commissioner Eileen Decker being hailed as the “great White hope” to fix the Sheriff’s department when her record serving LAPD says she doesn’t have a clue either? A teen was killed in a dressing room, a neighborhood was blown up, and officer-involved shootings haven’t stopped so excuse me if I question the “genius” of Eileen Decker. She voted for Moore’s reappointment.

I mean how can we not ignore the difference between Bass’ and Rick Caruso’s safety plans?

Didn’t Rick Caruso say he would hire more cops and isn’t Karen Bass actually doing it?

Wasn’t it Karen Bass and Rick Caruso by all intent and purposes indicating they would seek a change at Chief at the LAPD?

What changed? We need answers.

Marvin McCoy is a lifelong Inglewood resident and can be reached at therealmccoymarketinggroup@gmail.com or on Twitter @MarvinM83905936