As Los Angeles battles its worst fireplace in historical past, fireplace division’s highly-paid variety head is dealing with an inferno of backlash after a weird remark surfaced during which she seems defend DEI hiring by blaming victims.
In a video defending the division’s DEI hiring practices, Deputy Chief Kristine Larson — who heads the Fairness and Human Sources Bureau — addressed accusations that feminine firefighters aren’t sturdy sufficient carry a person out of a burning constructing.
Her response: “He got himself in the wrong place if I have to carry him out of a fire.”
The video went viral on social media after the hearth division was caught off-guard and ill-prepared when an outbreak of wildfires started to tear by way of the Pacific Palisades — one of many oldest and wealthiest neighborhoods within the metropolis — final week.
The Palisades Fireplace, essentially the most devastating fireplace in California historical past, has already incinerated 26,000 acres, together with a few of the costliest actual property within the nation.
Early price estimates for all of the wildfires in Southern California are $135 billion to $150 billion — which might prime the injury from any hurricane to hit the US besides Katrina.
Critics argue that LAFD had been too preoccupied with DEI vainness initiatives to correctly employees and equip its firefighters — initiatives that Larson was paid $307K to handle in 2023, in keeping with wage database Clear California.
“Los Angeles Fire Department Assistant Chief Kristine Larson says when people’s houses are burning down, they want a firefighter to show up who looks like them. Hot take: People just want someone to show up who will stop their house from burning down,” wrote conservative influencer Collin Rugg in an X submit containing the notorious video.
“It sounds like parody. People are dying and losing their homes, right now, because of people like this,” commented one person.
In the meantime, one other picture has gone viral displaying Larson standing subsequent to 2 different ladies: Coaching and Assist Bureau Commander Jaime Brown and Fireplace Chief Kristin Crowley, who’s brazenly lesbian.
These are the one ladies on the 14-member senior management workforce, however they’ve develop into emblematic of LAFD’s variety push.
“This is the leadership team at the Los Angeles Fire Department,” an X account known as “Libs of TikTok” wrote alongside the picture in a submit shared greater than 10,000 instances.
The wave of DEI hires and variety initiatives got here after years of alleged harassment and discrimination throughout the division.
In 2017, six black members of the Fireplace Prevention Bureau sued the division for discrimination after they allegedly confronted racially motivated retaliation for alleging rampant corner-cutting and lax oversight.
In 2021, a gaggle of firefighters and social justice advocates known as for the resignation of Fireplace Division Chief Ralph Terrazas over “rampant sexism, racism, harassment and abuse” — within the phrases of 1 veteran firefighter — particularly towards ladies, reported the LA Instances.
Kristin Crowly was promoted to fireplace chief the next yr — the primary lady to carry the highest spot.
