Embattled Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley has been accused of harassment and retaliation by a former top city official who claims she was fired for calling out her alleged misconduct and ‘failures of leadership,’ DailyMail.com can reveal.
Crowley, who earns $654,000-a-year in compensation and benefits, is already at the center of a recent public spat between LA Mayor Karen Bass as pressure mounts on city leaders to address the failures and mishandled response to the catastrophic wildfires that have ravaged the Los Angeles area.
Now, DailyMail.com can reveal Crowley has been named in a 14-page legal complaint filed against the City of Los Angeles in December by former LAFD Fire Administrator Jenny Park.
Park, a former deputy city attorney who rose to become the highest-ranking woman in the LAFD other than Crowley. claims the chief wrongfully fired her in December 2023 out of fear ‘of being exposed’ after she complained and reported her ‘improper acts,’ according to a court filing
One of those acts, alleges divorced mom-of-three Park, 55, is that Crowley ‘failed to repay the city for a significant overpayment she had received in error’.
Crowley, was allegedly overpaid ‘around $37,000,’ and Park repeatedly reminded the fire chief about paying back the cash – but was ‘ghosted’. Park’s attorney Martin Aarons, exclusively told DailyMail.com
‘Chief Crowley got paid a significant amount of money that was an overpayment – thousands of dollars – and, to our knowledge, never repaid that money,’ he told us. She just refused to do so. Ms. Park would routinely remind her about it and she just ghosted her.’
Park is described in the lawsuit as an ‘over 40-year-old Asian American’ who was promoted to Fire Administrator in 2018. The complaint notes Crowley is the LAFD’s ‘first female and gay fire chief’ who was appointed in a ‘closed-door process’ in March 2022.
Former LAFD Fire Administrator Jenny Park, seen during her appointment in 2018, is suing the City of LA claiming she was unjustly dismissed by LAFD Fire Chief Kristin Crowley in 2023
Crowley has already been at the center of a recent public spat between LA Mayor Karen Bass as pressure mounts on city leaders to address the failures and mishandled response to the wildfires that have ravaged the Los Angeles area
Crowley is named alongside Deputy Chief Orin Saunders in the legal complaint in which Park accuses the two of waging a campaign of harassment, intimidation, subterfuge, and retaliation against her.
Saunders is described as ‘an African-American gay male’, who was appointed by Crowley to the second-highest ranking position in February 2023.
According to the filing, Park – who oversaw the agency’s budget, revenue, audits, accounting, payroll, risk management, human resources, and other admin divisions – had expressed her concerns and complained about ‘numerous decisions and actions’ by Crowley and Saunders during Saunders’s command of the Administrative Operations.
Among her complaints were Crowley allegedly not promoting people on merit, failing to consistently enforce rules and regulations impartially, badgering and neglecting civilian staff, and violating city contract procedures and ethics rules.
Park claims Crowley and Saunders then began ‘retaliating’ against her by trying to embarrass her in front of command staff to ‘intimidate her into silence’, ordering her colleagues not to engage with her, and blaming her for payroll system problems.
‘Chief Crowley’s and Chief Saunders’ harassment and retaliation caused enormous stress and anxiety for Ms. Park, harming her physical health, mental well-being and financial security,’ the filing says.
The matter came to a head in September 2023 when Park learned Saunders was allegedly attempting to award a contract to a third-party vendor that presented a conflict of interest, the paperwork adds.
She then met with a deputy city attorney to report her concerns and later with a city ethics commission special investigator and ‘expressed her fear of retaliation’ by Saunders for ‘having exposed and blocked the proposal’.
Crowley (right) is named alongside Deputy Chief Orin Saunders (left) in the legal complaint in which Park (left) accuses the two of waging a campaign of harassment, intimidation, subterfuge, and retaliation against her
Park – who oversaw the agency’s budget, revenue, audits, accounting, payroll, risk management, human resources, and other admin divisions – claims she was fired after she expressed her concerns and complained about ‘numerous decisions and actions’ by Crowley and Saunders
Amid this, Park was also meeting Saunders to complain about Crowley’s ‘harassing and retaliatory behavior’ and asked the official why he had not supported her despite witnessing it. She also complained about his own similar behavior and asked for it to stop, the filing says.
‘Ms. Park had been sharing her distress and frustration with colleagues regarding ongoing harassment and retaliation and informed several former and current high-ranking members of the department that she had filed a complaint direct with Chief Sanders,’ it continues.
However, on December 18, 2023, Saunders told Park that Crowley had decided to fire her. She was told not to come into the office.
‘Ms. Park believes the termination was substantially motivated by her protected activity,’ says the filing.
Protected activity in a workplace is when an employee asserts their rights to be free from discrimination or harassment if they oppose unlawful conduct.
Park’s lawsuit claims whistleblower retaliation, wrongful termination in violation of public policy, and retaliation in violation of the Fair Employment and Housing Act.
She is demanding damages for loss of income, emotional anguish, and loss of reputation among other reasons.
‘Fearful of being exposed, especially as being hailed as the first female to lead the LAFD, Fire Chief Kristin Crowley and her right-hand Chief Deputy Orin Saunders terminated Ms. Park, an exemplary employee with the LAFD and its highest-ranking Asian and female civilian for speaking out against violations,’ the filing begins.
‘While the outside world saw curated and filtered snippets, those on the inside were left to deal with Crowley’s and Saunders’ failures of leadership and had to endure silently or risk retaliation.
‘Ms. Park chose to speak up and was terminated in retaliation for complaining and reporting improper acts by the newly-appointed Fire Chief and her Chief Deputy of Administrative Operations.’
It continues: ‘Furious that Ms. Park would not simply look away at repeated violations of city rules and regulations, and other possible violations of laws, defendants waged a campaign of harassment, intimidation, subterfuge and retaliation against Ms. Park, leading up to her notice of termination merely days before Christmas.’
And it adds: ‘Chief Crowley mistakenly believed her historic appointment gave her license to engage in unlawful retaliatory conduct against another woman. She was wrong.’
Aarons also told DailyMail.com that when Chief Crowley received pushback on her actions ‘she was not capable of taking ownership where things wouldn’t go right. Experts would tell her to do something and if wasn’t something she liked, she would push them out or exclude them.’
He alleged Crowley was a ‘retaliatory boss that didn’t like being told that what she was doing was potentially violating local state regulations and laws.’
And he added: ‘People like Chief Crowley are smart enough to know that you can’t just fire someone right away. You have to slowly take away their responsibilities. And that’s what happened here.
‘After Chief Crowley started, over the course of the next 18 months it became clear that if you didn’t go along with what she wanted to do then you were all of a sudden persona non grata.’
Aarons would not specify any figures for financial compensation for DailyMail.com. He has requested a jury trial.
‘Ms Park was hoping to stay at the LA Fire Department for the rest of her work life and had hoped to retire there. So we’re looking for all of her lost wages and her future lost wages as well, which are only part of it,’ he said.
‘Because the biggest impact is the emotional toll, the human losses. Everybody wants to be able to write their own chapter at the end of their job.
Park has filed the lawsuit after receiving no response to a claim she filed in June, 2024. The effective date of her termination was February 24, 2024.
The LAFD media office responded to DailyMail.com’s request for comment on the lawsuit with: ‘We are currently in the middle of a crisis and are entirely focused on ensuring the safety and well-being of our community. Fire Chief Crowley has no media availability at this time as she is focused on mitigating the fires.’
She started her career with the City of Los Angeles as a deputy attorney, primarily assigned to represent the LAFD and was recognized for outstanding service.
Fire department hierarchy was impressed by her ‘performance and tenacity’ and encouraged her to apply for the Public Safety Risk Manager job, which she won in March 2013.
This role was to provide oversight to ensure statutes, rights, and regulations were complied with and to review and develop policies that would reduce the department’s exposure to liability.
She worked for four successive fire chiefs, ‘all of whom lauded her work and increased her span of authority in recognition of her abilities and contributions,’ says the filing.
In 2017 Park was promoted to run public safety employee relations and a year later to Fire Administrator, a civilian deputy chief position.
Crowley is now reportedly clinging to her own job by a thread amid the catastrophic wildfires that have so far killed 24
Crowley appeared to point the finger at Department of Water and Power for the insufficient water sources available to firefighters to extinguish the disastrous fires last week
LA’s fire chief admitted her department ‘wasn’t aware’ of the city’s empty reservoir and broken hydrants
‘Other than Chief Crowley, Ms. Park was the highest-ranking female in the LAFD and the only female on the Command Staff when she was terminated,’ the court paper says.
She oversaw a budget of more than $800million and was oversaw accounting, audits, billing and records, payroll, human resources, litigation and risk management.
‘During her lengthy tenure, Ms. Park was an exemplary employee and a highly regarded member of the Department Command Staff,’ the filing says.
But the problems began when ‘in March 2022, Kristin Crowley was appointed as the LAFD’s first female and gay fire chief by then Mayor Eric Garcetti in a closed-door process, i.e. there was no announcement of an upcoming vacancy, no application process and no invitation for prospective candidates to submit their interest’.
Crowley then appointed Saunders as her deputy.
Park’s attorney argues that she was entitled to be a whistleblower by reporting what she believed were violations to LAFD and the City of Los Angeles
The lawsuit says as a direct result of ‘retaliatory conduct, Park ‘suffered and continues to suffer damage to her reputation and career, physical and mental and emotional injuries, pain, distress, suffering, anguish, shame, humiliation, embarrassment and indignity, loss of enjoyment of life and other non-economic damages, and is entitled to all damages, legal costs and attorneys’ fees’.
It also claims Park has ‘suffered and will continue to suffer loss of income… earning capacity, her ability to be selected for future employment… which will affect her income and other benefits, and has caused irreparable harm to her retirement path’.
Crowley and LA Mayor Karen Bass (pictured surveying the damage with California Governor Gavin Newsom) are at the center of a public dispute as pressure mounts on city officials to address the administration’s failures
The devastation of the Palisades Fire is seen in the early morning in the Pacific Palisades
Crowley has remained in her job amid the wildfires tragedy, despite hugging staff ‘goodbye’ last week before entering a meeting with LA mayor Karen Bass.
When the fire chief returned from the meeting, she reportedly told her office staff she was ‘not fired yet’.
DailyMail.com revealed a source said: ‘When she was summoned to the meeting, it was with the direct purpose to fire her.
‘Whatever happened in that meeting, minds got changed.
‘Either Bass realized it would be suicide to fire her, and came to her senses, or Crowley talked her out of it.
‘She came back in the office briefly, told staff, “I’m not fire yet” and went into a meeting with all her chiefs.’
