"LAFD Command Staffer Made Homicidal, Suicidal Threats During '21 Domestic Violence Attack" by Daniel Guss
"LAFD Command Staffer Made Homicidal, Suicidal Threats During '21 Domestic Violence Attack" by Daniel Guss
Abuser told victim LAPD will ignore 911 call. Mayor Bass, City Hall, LAFD Chief silent.
Simultaneously, three of them, Mayor Karen Bass, Councilmember Monica Rodriguez and LAFD Chief Kristin Crowley, dodged this column’s questions about disturbing videos in the LAFD’s and LAPD’s possession showing a female member of the Los Angeles Fire Department’s command staff making repeated homicidal and suicidal threats during and after a violent attack on her then-live-in domestic partner, who is also female.
In those October 2021 videos, Kristina “Kady” Kepner, then-Assistant Chief at the Los Angeles Fire Department, violently attacked her then-live-in domestic partner while repeatedly threatening to kill both of them. (The victim’s name is withheld because she is irrefutably a domestic violence victim.)
According to the videos, their dispute appears to have been sparked by Kepner’s rage at the victim for speaking with LAPD Detective Scarlett Martinez, with whom, the victim believes, Kepner had a side relationship and says may be Kepner’s current domestic partner.
After Kepner’s violent attack, the victim’s dated medical records show photos of large bruises on her body and lists a multitude of sustained injuries with the cause listed as domestic violence.
In another disturbing recording, the victim pleads with Kepner to stop harming herself as Kepner is seen with a significant vertical knife-like wound on her chest as a large kitchen knife lays on the ground a few feet away. As she writes a purported suicide note, a copy of which the LAFD and LAPD reportedly have, Kepner tells the victim that calling 911 to save her is futile because the LAPD will believe her rather than the victim. Kepner then mockingly described what she would tell the LAPD over the phone to dissuade the police from investigating the 911 call and how the police will think that the victim is crazy. Kepner then described the graphic way she intended to end her life.
Ironically, a publicly available LAFD roster lists Kepner as a member of its mental health peer support team, with the title “A/C SPECIAL DUTY PSD,” or Assistant Chief, Special Duty Professional Services Division, which is the agency’s internal affairs group that oversees things including the victim’s complaint about Kepner. That would be an obvious conflict of interest whether or not Kepner was reassigned during its investigation.
Regardless, Crowley powered ahead and promoted Kepner, again, to Deputy Chief.
Evidence shows that Crowley made other questionable moves, including putting now-disgraced Armando Hogan in-charge of the victim’s complaint. Hogan, who Crowley also promoted to Deputy Chief, abruptly resigned earlier this year after The Guss Report exclusively exposed in October that he was under investigation for sexual harassment.
Evidence further shows that the victim expressed concerns to Crowley that an internal LAFD investigation would be biased because of the command staff clique, and should instead be conducted by an impartial third party. Also worth noting is that, according to a Gallup study last month, while just seven percent of Americans now identify as LGBTQ, as much as 50% of LAFD command staff identifies as such, including Crowley; a 700% disparity that raises the question of whether LAFD promotions and investigations are biased, and focused more on equity and favoritism rather than equality, skills, merit and fairness.
The LAPD eventually referred the matter to District Attorney George Gascon’s office, which declined to file. (The Guss Report has made public records requests for a copy of the LAPD’s referral to determine what it did — and did not — contain.)
Like recorded homicidal and suicidal threats, not to mention a violent assault.
Back at City Hall on International Women’s Day, as Bass, Crowley and Rodriguez celebrated, I asked the LAFD whether it was aware of the victim’s allegations.
The LAFD issued an untruthful response, denying any knowledge:
When I responded to the LAFD that there’s evidence that Chief Crowley, PSD and others knew about the recorded attack and threats, the LAFD quickly changed its tune, providing considerable, if untruthful, detail:
That’s a far cry from the LAFD’s response just an hour earlier.
The LAFD did not respond when I asked whether Crowley denies that Kepner made homicidal and suicidal threats toward the victim during and after the attack. Odd, since the videos speak for themselves and call into question the LAFD’s claim that it conducted a “full and thorough investigation.”
When I reached out to the LAPD, it responded only that it is currently investigating an alleged domestic violence incident between Kepner and Martinez, so it couldn’t respond further. That, too, is a dishonest response since my question referred to Kepner, Martinez “and/or anyone else.” The LAPD also failed to provide the requested information on its earlier investigation into problems between Martinez and Kepner. And the LAPD, forever struggling with transparency, lied by omission by not disclosing its referral to the District Attorney.
According to the victim, the LAPD told her during an interview last week that it “re-opened” its Martinez/Kepner investigation. If true, that means the police agency kept that matter on the down-low, as well, until I started asking questions and making public records requests. This is more serious than just an alleged domestic violence incident between Martinez and Kepner, who appeared in an LAFD Zoom meeting with a black eye, around the time of her alleged scrap with Martinez.
It could also mean that Martinez may have violated her sworn duty as a police officer to ensure that this, and all, domestic violence victims are taken seriously. It is unclear whether the LAPD also required Martinez to report her own alleged physical run-in with Kepner, and what the consequences are if she failed to report any instance of domestic violence.
There’s more to come, like what did the LAFD Commission know and when did it know it? And just when you think that the LAFD test-cheating scandal, which was exclusively reported in this column, is over, the agency now refuses to respond to questions about another one.
May I suggest an emergency meeting where Crowley, the LAFD and LAPD explain why she and Kepner shouldn’t be fired and why their investigative units shouldn’t be disbanded?
Crowley, Martinez, Kepner, Bass, City Council president Paul Krekorian and Councilmember Monica Rodriguez, who chairs the city’s Public Safety Committee, did not respond to inquiries.
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(Daniel Guss, MBA, was nominated for three 2022 LA Press Club awards and was a runner-up in 2021 and 2020. He is City Editor for the Mayor Sam network, and has been a featured contributor for CityWatchLA, KFI AM-640, iHeartMedia, 790-KABC, Cumulus Media, KCRW 89.9 FM, KRLA 870 AM, Huffington Post, Los Angeles Daily News, Los Angeles Magazine, Movieline Magazine, Emmy Magazine, Los Angeles Business Journal, Pasadena Star-News, Los Angeles Downtown News and the Los Angeles Times in its sports, opinion, entertainment and Sunday Magazine sections among other publishers.)