Los Angeles mayor picks ex-sheriff to be city's police chief

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Former LA County Sheriff Jim McDonnell has been selected to lead the Los Angeles Police Department, taking charge of the force of nearly 9,000 officers as discontent grows among the city's residents over public safety even as violent crime numbers drop, the mayor announced Friday.

Mayor Karen Bass, who had the final say after a civilian board of Los Angeles police commissioners vetted McDonnell, said her selection of a veteran law enforcement officer was based on a need to reduce crime and make every neighborhood safer. Bass met with hundreds of LAPD officers and community leaders before making her decision.

The Los Angeles City Council still needs to approve the choice.

The pick ended debate over whether Bass would choose an “insider” or “outsider” who would shake things up and challenge the way things were done within the department’s insular culture.

“From the beginning, I have been clear: My top priority as mayor is to ensure that Angelenos and our neighborhoods are safer today than yesterday,” Bass said. “Chief McDonnell is a leader, an innovator, and a change maker, and I am looking forward to working with him to grow and strengthen LAPD.”

The incoming chief will have to make sure the department is ready for the additional security challenges of the 2026 World Cup and the 2028 Olympics.

McDonnell was elected LA County Sheriff in 2014 to oversee the largest sheriff’s department in the U.S. Before that, he spent 29 years in the LAPD and served as Long Beach’s police chief for almost five years.

McDonnell vowed to enhance public safety, grow back the force that has shrunk from about 10,000 officers in 2019, and “ensure respectful and constitutional policing practices.”

McDonnell, 65, said he was happy to come out of retirement to do the job.

“I feel like I still have gas in the tank, fire in the belly, if you will, and a desire to be able to try and be helpful," he said.

The appointment follows the surprise retirement of Chief Michel Moore in early 2024. Moore’s tenure was marked by greater scrutiny into excessive force and police killings of civilians in the nation’s second-largest city. Dominic Choi has led the department as interim chief — and the first Asian American chief — since March 2024. Bass thanked Choi for his work, and said he will continue to serve as assistant chief under McDonnell.

Some had hoped Bass, the first Black woman to be elected mayor in 2022, would use the opportunity to make history and fill the post with the first Latino or female chief. The LAPD has had two Black male chiefs in the past. McDonnell is white.

The other two candidates sent to Bass, who made the final selection, were Deputy Chief Emada Tingirides, a Black woman, and former Assistant Chief Robert “Bobby” Arcos, who is Latino. Both were reported by the Los Angeles Times as finalists for the position.

Bass said she has been a champion of inclusion for her whole career.

“I think there’s work that needs to be done in the LAPD,” Bass said. “I will continue to pay attention to representation particularly with the Latino population which we know is half of the city of Los Angeles.”

The LAPD has faced criticism through the years over its response to the George Floyd protests and several high-profile shootings by officers. It has struggled to get rid of bad cops while also struggling to recruit as more officers leave its ranks than are coming in.

The police officers' union, the Los Angeles Police Protective League, applauded the mayor's choice.

“Her selection of former County Sheriff Jim McDonnell as the next chief of police confirms the mayor’s commitment to improve historic lows in officer staffing and officer morale and to fix LAPD’s broken discipline process," the organization said in a statement. “We have every confidence in Chief McDonnell’s ability to hit the ground running to improve public safety in Los Angeles and to appoint an upper command staff that will do away with the status quo and turn a new page for the LAPD.”

John Sullivan, who retired as a lieutenant in 2018 after 30 years at the county sheriff's department, called McDonnell a “hybrid” in the insider-outsider debate.

“He grew up in the organization, he knows the organization ... but he’s also been the chief of a separate department, and he’s also been sheriff,” Sullivan said. McDonnell would bring a “fresh set of eyes” to the LAPD's problems while understanding the concerns of the rank-and-file.

At the LAPD, McDonnell held every rank from police officer to second-in-command under former LAPD chief Bill Bratton. During that time, he helped implement a federal consent decree imposed on the department largely as a result of the Rampart scandal, a corruption case involving rampant misconduct within the anti-gang unit.

When he was elected county sheriff, he inherited a department in the wake of a jail abuse corruption scandal that led to convictions against his predecessor, Lee Baca, and more than 20 other officials. Members of a civilian watchdog commission applauded McDonnell for embracing federal mandates for jail reform, including improving de-escalation training and better documentation of the use of force that has led to improved jail conditions, the Los Angeles Times reported.

In 2022, he joined the University of Southern California as director of the Safe Communities Institute, which conducts research on public safety solutions.

McDonnell also served on an advisory committee to USC's Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Threats and Emergencies, a U.S. Homeland Security department-funded institution to do research on counterterrorism, according to Sullivan. His experience with studying international security threats could be an asset as police chief.

“We have really large public events that are coming that could well be terrorist targets," Sullivan said, referring to the World Cup and Olympics. "The war in Gaza, the brewing war in south Lebanon, all that's going to have echoes or ripples here in Los Angeles.”

Newly appointed Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell listens during a news conference in Los Angeles, Friday, Oct. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, right, and newly appointed police chief Jim McDonnell share a light moment during a news conference in Los Angeles, Friday, Oct. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, right, and newly appointed police chief Jim McDonnell, center, arrive for a news conference in Los Angeles, Friday, Oct. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Newly appointed Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell listens to questions from the media during a news conference in Los Angeles, Friday, Oct. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, right, and newly appointed police chief Jim McDonnell shake hands during a news conference in Los Angeles, Friday, Oct. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, right, introduces newly appointed police chief Jim McDonnell during a news conference in Los Angeles, Friday, Oct. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, left, and newly appointed police chief Jim McDonnell listen to questions from the media during a news conference in Los Angeles, Friday, Oct. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Newly appointed Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell attends a news conference in Los Angeles, Friday, Oct. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Newly appointed Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell speaks during a news conference in Los Angeles, Friday, Oct. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks rallied Friday after a surprisingly strong report on the U.S. job market raised optimism about the economy.

The S&P 500 climbed 0.9% and got close to its all-time high set on Monday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 341 points, or 0.8%, to set its own record, while the Nasdaq composite clambered 1.2% higher.

Leading the way were banks, airlines, cruise-ship operators and other companies whose profits can benefit the most from a stronger economy where people are working and better able to pay for things. Norwegian Cruise Line steamed 4.9% higher, JPMorgan Chase rose 3.5% and the small companies in the Russell 2000 index gained 1.5%.

They helped stock indexes claw back losses from earlier in the week, caused by worries that worsening tensions in the Middle East could lead to disruptions in the global flow of oil. Crude prices rose again Friday, but the moves were more modest than earlier in the week, as the world continued its wait to see how Israel will respond to Iran’s missile attack.

In the meantime, the strength of the U.S. economy reclaimed its spot as the top mover of markets.

Treasury yields soared in the bond market after the U.S. government said employers added 254,000 more jobs to their payrolls last month than they cut. That was an acceleration from August’s hiring pace of 159,000 and blew past economists’ forecasts.

It was a “grand slam” of a report, according to Lindsay Rosner, head of multi-sector investing within Goldman Sachs Asset Management. She said policy makers at the Federal Reserve, who have been trying to pull off the difficult feat of keeping the economy humming while getting inflation under control, “must be smiling.”

Friday’s report capped a week of mostly encouraging data on the economy, helping to allay one of Wall Street’s top questions: Can the job market continue to hold up after the Federal Reserve earlier kept interest rates at a two-decade high?

Before Friday’s jobs report, the general trend had been a slowdown in hiring by U.S. employers. That’s not surprising given how hard the Fed pressed the brakes on the economy through higher rates in order to stamp out high inflation.

But Friday’s blowout numbers bolstered hope that the U.S. economy will keep growing, particularly now that the Federal Reserve has begun cutting interest rates to give it more juice. The Fed last month lowered its main interest rate for the first time in more than four years and indicated more cuts will arrive through next year.

Friday’s jobs report was so strong that it pushed traders to abandon bets that the Federal Reserve will deliver another larger-than-usual cut to interest rates at its next meeting. They’re now forecasting zero chance for a cut of half a percentage point, according to data from CME Group. Just a week ago, they were saying it was better than a coin flip’s chance.

“This report tells the Fed that they still need to be careful as a strong labor market along with sticky housing/shelter data shows that it won’t be easy to engineer meaningfully lower inflation from here in the nearer term,” according to Scott Wren, senior global market strategist at Wells Fargo Investment Institute.

At Bank of America, economist Aditya Bhave expects the Federal Reserve to stop cutting its target for the federal funds rate when it hits a range of 3% to 3.25%. That’s a quarter of a percentage point higher than the bottom that he was earlier forecasting. The federal funds rate is currently sitting in a range of 4.75% to 5%.

Such diminished expectations for future cuts sent the yield on the two-year Treasury shooting up to 3.93% from 3.71% late Thursday. The 10-year yield jumped to 3.97% from 3.85%.

The forced rethink about how low rates will ultimately go hurt stocks of home builders, real-estate owners and other companies that benefit from easier mortgage rates.

D.R. Horton, PulteGroup and Lennar all sank at least 2.5% for three of the biggest losses in the S&P 500. Home Depot slipped 0.8% and was the biggest single reason the Dow Jones Industrial Average lagged other indexes. During the day, the Dow went from an early gain of 300 points to a modest loss and back to a big gain.

All told, the S&P 500 rose 51.13 points to 5,751.07. The Dow gained 341.16 to 42,352.75, and the Nasdaq climbed 219.37 to 18,137.85.

Also Friday, some 45,000 dockworkers at East and Gulf coast ports returned to work after their union reached a deal to suspend its three-day strike until Jan. 15 to provide time to negotiate a new contract. That helped calm worries that a lengthy strike could have pushed up on inflation and dragged on the economy.

In the oil market, the price for a barrel of Brent crude, the international standard, rose 0.6% to $78.05 per barrel to bring its gain for the week to 9.1%. A barrel of benchmark U.S. crude rose 0.9% to $74.38, up from roughly $68 at the start of the week.

In stock markets abroad, indexes rose across much of Europe following the strong jobs report from the world’s largest economy.

In Asia, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng jumped 2.8% in its latest sharp swerve. It soared a bit more than 10% over the week on excitement about a flurry of recent announcements from Beijing to prop up the world’s second-largest economy.

AP Business Writers Yuri Kageyama and Matt Ott contributed.

FILE - Signs mark the intersection of Broadway and Wall Street in the Financial District on Oct. 2, 2024, in New York. Trinity Church is in the background. (AP Photo/Peter Morgan, File)

FILE - The entrance to the New York Stock Exchange at Wall and New Streets is shown on Oct. 2, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Peter Morgan, File)

FILE - People pass the New York Stock Exchange on Oct. 1, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Peter Morgan, File)

Currency traders work near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won, right, at the foreign exchange dealing room of the KEB Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Oct. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

A currency trader watches monitors near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), left, and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won at the foreign exchange dealing room of the KEB Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Oct. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

Currency traders watch monitors near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) at the foreign exchange dealing room of the KEB Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Oct. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)