LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles Police Commission on Tuesday reappointed Chief Michel Moore to a second term as head of one of nation’s largest police departments.
The commission’s approval, by a 5-0 vote, came during a private session at the end of its weekly meeting.
Commissioner Steve Soboroff praised Moore for steering the department through the uncertainty of the pandemic and the national crisis over policing sparked by the 2020 killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.
“Unprecedented headwinds like the pandemic, recruitment & retention issues, the availability of cheap and deadly drugs like fentanyl, the proliferation of ghost guns, attacks on officers, homeless crises, mental health and substance abuse effects, as well as horrific national instances of police brutality, are all to be considered in any evaluation, whether or not they occur in your jurisdiction,” Soboroff said in his statement.
The vote came after just a few weeks of public hearings on whether to reappoint Moore, an unusually fast timetable for a civilian body that in the past has taken months when considering a chief’s reappointment.
Before voting Tuesday, the panel heard from dozens of people who called in to the remote meeting and were overwhelmingly opposed to Moore’s reappointment.
The decision to keep Moore on had been widely expected as commission members have signaled their support for him, calling him an effective policing executive with the skills needed to run a complex organization like the LAPD. Before slowing down in the face of criticism that they were rushing the process, Commissioners William Briggs and Soboroff had wanted to schedule a vote on Moore’s reappointment weeks ago.
The commission could be overruled by the Los Angeles City Council if two-thirds of its members oppose a second term for Moore, although that seemed unlikely. In recent weeks, even progressive members of the council have released statements signaling a need to let the reappointment process play itself out.
Moore has publicly stated that he intends to serve only two or three more years, before turning the department over to a new chief ahead of the 2028 Olympic Games.
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(Los Angeles Times staff writer David Zahniser contributed to this report.)
