Mel Gibson unleashed his frustrations with political leaders while standing at a podium in fire-ravaged Altadena on Wednesday.
The Oscar-winning multi-hyphenate, who lost his Malibu mansion in the Palisades Fire last month, specifically zeroed in on Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and criticized the way in which they responded to the catastrophe that decimated thousands of homes and killed 29 people. Specifically, Gibson said, “One of the most pathetic and despicable things I’ve seen” happened last week when Bass dismissed L.A. Fire Department Chief Kristin Crowley for her oversight of the response to the blazes. Bass said in firing Crowley that 1,000 firefighters could have been “on duty on the morning the fires broke out were instead sent home on Chief Crowley’s watch.”
Gibson has an issue with how that was handled and claims Bass was simply shifting the blame. “I mean, one of the most pathetic and despicable things I’ve seen was when Karen Bass, in order to shift the blame and culpability from herself, wiped it on the fire chief and threw her under the bus for speaking the truth about how the department had been defunded and were without resources,” Gibson told a crowd of reporters and residents as seen in videos that surfaced from the event.
Gibson joined Randy Economy and Bishop J.C. Mendez at the press conference at which the trio spoke about executing the next steps in fire recovery from the L.A. wildfires. The event, organized by Saving California, also focused on conservative efforts to recall Newsom, a push led by Economy.
“All of my fellow citizens who have lost their homes, they have no recourse, no insurance payouts because the carriers dropped them,” Gibson said. “Even the carriers realized that California was ill-prepared and had scant resources to deal with the inevitable fires. They knew that. So are we supposed to believe that our elected officials didn’t know that? Of course they knew that. Of course.”
He then turned his attention back to Bass. “Mayor Bass tweeted about the levels of danger days before she blew out of town, you know. And we drove around in the [Pacific Coast Highway] and into my neighborhood and various other neighborhoods. Devastating. There I saw the houses of my friends and neighbors reduced the toxic piles of smoldering rubble, much like here in Altadena.”
Gibson exited the press conference to applause from residents and other attendees, and he accepted congratulations from those in attendance for speaking out as his SUV drove away. Not long after, a dramatic scene unfolded as Bishop J.C. Mendez was wheeled out on a stretcher. As seen in a video, Mendez was escorted by professionals and police with one social media post claiming that he was suffering from a heat stroke.