LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell denied allegations that his department has shared data with federal immigration agents, calling the accusations by mayoral candidate Nithya Raman untrue.

McDonnell made the statements in an ABC7 interview that aired Thursday, Oct. 29, five days before the Nov. 3 election between Mayor Karen Bass and Councilmember Raman.

Raman has vowed to fire McDonnell if elected. One of her central criticisms: the LAPD's relationship with federal immigration enforcement during President Donald Trump's second term.

"There has been reports, credible reports, that LAPD has actually shared information with ICE, including information from our fingerprint databases and through Flock cameras that has endangered Angelenos," Raman told ABC7.

McDonnell rejected the accusation directly.

"Not at all. In fact, we're prohibited by state law in sharing information like that," he said. He pointed to the department's decision to walk away from its contract with Flock Safety, the company that had supplied the LAPD with automated license plate readers. "We're the ones who backed away from Flock because they weren't providing us with the comfort level we needed."

The LAPD suspended its Flock Safety contract in July, according to Knock LA, citing concerns over privacy and data ownership. Axon Enterprise has since taken over as the department's license plate reader vendor, LAmag reported.

But the denial runs up against a June 2025 investigation by CalMatters. That investigation, based on a database of queries obtained by anti-surveillance group Oakland Privacy, found that Southern California law enforcement agencies violated state law more than 100 times in a single month by searching license plate readings on behalf of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection. The LAPD was among the agencies that searched the Flock Safety database with ICE or CBP listed as the search purpose, according to CalMatters. CalMatters reported that the LAPD declined to respond to its questions about the search records at the time.

California's Senate Bill 34, a decade-old law, bars state law enforcement agencies from sharing license plate reader data with federal entities.

On the fingerprint question, McDonnell said the LAPD is required by state penal code to share booking fingerprints with the California Department of Justice, which then feeds them into a national database. He said that process is not the same as working with ICE.

"If somebody were to kill somebody in New York or Georgia or wherever and came to Los Angeles, when we run them through the system, we wouldn't know that they were a fugitive from justice" without the national database, McDonnell told ABC7.

Bass backed her police chief. "It is not true. I mean, she said that they were working on behalf of ICE. That is not true," the mayor told ABC7. Former LAPD Chief Bill Bratton also defended McDonnell, writing on X on Oct. 17 that McDonnell "has been doing an outstanding job" and that replacing him before the end of his term "would create additional crises of monumental proportions."

The friction over McDonnell predates the campaign. When the City Council approved his nomination in late 2024 on an 11-2 vote, Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez was one of two no votes. In a statement on his council website, Soto-Martinez cited McDonnell's record as L.A. County sheriff, saying he "worked with ICE to deport undocumented Angelenos, and opposed a sanctuary policy at the state level." That opposition referred to McDonnell's stance against Senate Bill 54, the 2017 measure that declared California a sanctuary state, according to LAmag.

When told Raman believes he has not built trust with the immigrant community, McDonnell pushed back. "That's kind of painful because that's not the read that I get now or the read that I've gotten in the 45 years I've worked … in policing in Los Angeles, Los Angeles County," he said.

Raman has not publicly confirmed who she would appoint as police chief if she wins and follows through on firing McDonnell.