LA Fire Cpt. Breaks Down in Tears on Camera, Warned 'Someone Will Die' Just 1 Month Ago at City Commission Meeting
Nobody who could do anything about it would listen.
Shortly before wildfires ravaged Southern California, many people were sounding the alarm about this exact nightmare scenario because of bureaucratic incompetence, according to CNN.
“Less than a month before fires swept across Los Angeles, a group of longtime firefighters gathered at City Hall to plead for more resources. They were at a ‘breaking point,’ one said,” the outlet reported.
“Another revealed that million-dollar fire trucks sat idle because budget cuts had shrunk the number of mechanics available to fix them,” the report added.
One of those was Freddy Escobar, a longtime firefighter and president of the Los Angeles firefighters union. “I’m going to say what people can’t say,” Escobar remarked on Dec. 17 to those gathered for the Los Angeles Board of Fire Commissioners meeting.
“If we cut one position, if we close one station … the residents of Los Angeles are going to pay the ultimate sacrifice, and someone will die,” Escobar warned.
When CNN’s Kyung Lah repeated those words back to Escobar on Tuesday, he broke down in tears knowing his prescient warning went unheeded.
“It’s eerie listening to your words, because that’s what occurred,” Escobar said, his voice quivering.
Escobar asked to “take a minute” to compose himself as he walked away from the reporter. “You’re not supposed to make me cry,” Escobar said.
Lah shared footage of the interview to her X account.
“A @CNN analysis of the 10 largest US cities shows the @LAFD is less staffed than almost any other major city, leaving it struggling to meet both daily emergencies and larger disasters such as wildfires,” Lah said in the post.
A @CNN analysis of the 10 largest US cities shows the @LAFD is less staffed than almost any other major city, leaving it struggling to meet both daily emergencies and larger disasters such as wildfires. @UFLAC @annamajaCNN @YahyaGhazala @pdicarlocnn pic.twitter.com/Sm29fovTdA
— Kyung Lah (@KyungLahCNN) January 15, 2025
Because of a failure of leaders more concerned with diversity, equity, and inclusion than with saving lives, LAFD was woefully unprepared for the disaster that began to unfold last week.
So far, the infernos have taken 24 lives, burned up 12,000 structures, and consumed some 40,000 acres of land.
As the city scrambles to cobble together support from the Los Angeles County Fire Department, which includes fire-ravaged Altadena, and other departments from around the state, officials are grappling with the knowledge that this was all foreseeable.
“Time and time again, elected leaders in Los Angeles have failed to make meaningful investments in our public safety, and as a result, Angelenos are suffering the consequences,” City Councilmember Traci Park said at the same meeting with Escobar last month.
As CNN noted, “Just 21 days later, the Pacific Palisades community within Park’s council district ended up as the epicenter of one of the fires.”
This was not some surprise catastrophe that caught officials off guard — to the contrary, all of the pieces were already in place for such a disaster long before the first fire ignited.
California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom slashed $101 million from the state budget for wildfire and forest resilience just seven months before the fires, literally laying the groundwork for an inferno.
Los Angeles Department of Water and Power CEO Janisse Quiñones, who makes a cool $750,000 salary, was more interested in putting “an equity lens” on water distribution than properly supplying fire hydrants.
Not to be outdone, LAFD’s Assistant Chief Kristine Larson prioritized diversity in the department over other qualities, such as the ability to pull people out of burning buildings whether or not they put themselves in the “wrong place,” as she famously charged.
Mayor Karen Bass, who grins like a supervillain while talking about the devastation, was in Ghana even as warnings about high winds rolled in, neglecting to focus on gathering resources beforehand.
Had any one of these officials — or the countless others who draw their paychecks from taxpayers — listened to voices like those of Escobar and Park, perhaps the devastation could have been mitigated, if not avoided entirely.
Instead, they held fast to their DEI priorities and left-leaning social engineering that’s as useless as they are.
Now, the woke rot that has driven hordes of sane people out of the state has also directly led to devastating loss of life and property.
This tragedy was no innocent mistake or oversight — it was a dereliction of duty and a breach of the public trust by the very people with a duty to protect and serve the public. Shame on them all.
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