Freddy Escobar has long served as head of the City Firefighters League amid the political fires in Los Angeles with his dazzling brown eyes, a bicycle beard, gravel sound and construction of the NFL defensive end.
He’s on my face Rick Caruso campaign ceases in 2022complaining about him is my overly negative coverage of the big developers running for mayor. Recently, Escobar blows up Mayor Karen Bass Kristin Crowley, head of Los Angeles Fire Department After the Palisade fire.
“We manage and work together,” the 55-year-old told me during an hour-long interview at Westlake’s joint headquarters. [Crowley] Used as a scapegoat. We deleted a large champion for us. ”
Escobar has served as the city of Los Angeles United Firefighter president for two years since 2018 before he retired. During his tenure, LA firefighters have experienced some tough times: Severe special infectious pneumonia. Palisade Hell. The fire department was less than 1960, when the population was much lower than the nearly 4 million today. Scandal involved The union of the past Leader.
After all, when I asked the firefighters about it, Escobar replied: “The members of the field performed well.” After all.
He sat in an armchair, thick glasses and a long-sleeved shirt softened the look. Souvenirs of his 35-year firefighting career surround us: family photos. Helmet and hat. Lanyard. Wine bottle. Santa Claus dressed up as a firefighter. Dozens of adhesives filled with reports.
He said of his colleagues, “You will never hear them complain.” The complaints were left to him.
“What we do every day is not sustainable on the field – I don’t care how young you are,” Escobar said a few seconds later. “This is a band-aid that has been around for years. We need to fix it.”
Escobar has been everywhere since Palisades opened fire: CNN tour. Request for it in the United States today LAFD is “dangerous, understaffed”. Appears in Crowley’s Town Hall The ultimate failed campaign Let the city council restore her.
“She was the first chief to really take our advice. I said, ‘Hey, I’ll stay with you until the end.”
Freddy Escobar is among his Los Angeles City Office Joint Firefighters.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
Born in Ecuador, Escobar is an Ecuadorian mother and father of Colombia, he moved to Pico-Union at the age of four and then to Lynwood because the “gang comes in”.
In his fourth grade at Roosevelt Elementary School, firefighters responded to the fire at his school. Not long after, his class visited a fire station, which was a career.
“You’re just a kid,” Escobar recalled. “You’re in awe–they’re your heroes, you know.’ Oh, these guys are bigger than the guys upstairs.'”
He participated in a fire explorer program at Downey High and then joined the LAFD after serving in the Marines. His first mission: Pico-Union’s 11th. Escobar became the butler of a shop, but it wasn’t until the early 2000s when the driver crashed into his idle fire truck twice that he wanted to get involved in labor leadership.
“There are chap there, we call them them,” he said. graduate – Guatemalans. Escobar began to guide his Inner Nury Martinez. “They like to drink during the day and at night. They drink a lot. They drive to the car and drive. So I got beaten twice by chatting.”
His casual insult to the important parts of the LA fabric is so ubiquitous that I just stared forward and let him move on.
He said he complained to colleagues that his union representatives did not defend him enough in an investigation into the crash, eventually causing him to clear the wrongdoing.
The colleague encouraged him: “Six months later, it’s the time for the election, and he said, ‘Hey, big mouth. You’re gone. Do you want to make a difference? Make a difference.
Escobar followed closely behind and won a post on the executive committee of the union of 10 people. After years of experience, what he calls “a stage of crying” rather than “usually maintaining one’s strength” rather than helping ranks and archives, he held the highest position and won.
During the pandemic, the league is Refused to sign an authorization That city employee was vaccinated or risked unemployment. Escobar received a common vaccine, but felt he had to respect the will of members who did not want to shoot.
He said the battle was “a lot separated” politically, but internal hatred largely disappeared after fighting the fires in Palisade. When I warned Escobar’s eyes were gleaming, the month before, if LAFD resources were cut further, “someone would die.”
The Palisade fire lit on January 7, destroying nearly 7,000 buildings and killing 12 people after forecasters warned of catastrophic winds.
A TIMES investigation found LAFD officials chose not to order about 1,000 firefighters to take the second shift on duty in the wind, which would double the staff at hand. Bass quotes people who failed to get these firefighters on duty As one of the reasons for firing Crowley.
Escobar dismissed the Times findings because “having its own agenda” is too dependent on former LAFD employees. He did not directly answer my question about whether he thought Crowley had done his best, and he asserted that she was a stand-in without a formal investigation.
He argued that the Palisades disaster could have been better met if the LaFD was underfunded – he wanted to take bonds for the fire department in the 2026 vote.
Freddy Escobar spoke at a February 2025 press conference after Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley was spoken by Mayor Karen Bass.
(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)
He refused to speculate why the bass fired Crowley, who publicly criticized the mayor a few days after the fire in Palisade began Allegedly shortened her department.
He said the two were once “as thick as thieves.” “Bass wore Crowley’s brush coat and helmet and all the fire.
He did not apologize for his aggressive public role: “They wanted to call it grinding and become a bully.
The conversation then turned to diversity in LAFD.
Earlier, EscobarThe Act ended in 2002).
Now, he criticized the Fire Commission – the Civil Commission that oversees LAFD – which is said to “want[ing] Have an invalid college in the name of reflecting urban demographics”.
“We have a lot of people of color [and] Gender may- Should represent the city of Los Angeles without lowering the standards. “But if you’re a woman and you want it, you can go to Laguna Beach, Newport Beach, Huntington Beach and still have a great career instead of the phone we’re going to do.”
He believes that in LAFD, white and black firefighters “whatever means, they represent overrepresentation, while whites are beneficiaries of “all-white departments” and black representatives, reflecting “how many black people are in the community.”
Whites make up 28% of Los Angeles’ population, 43% of urban firefighters, while blacks make up 9% and 11% of firefighters.
Only 7% of women with LAFD. Another big gap is Latinos, accounting for 47% of the population, but only 31% of the LAFD.
“It’s not for everyone, they want to be footballers!” Escobar said.
Earlier, he said his trial with La Galaxy failed because “I’m not a professional football player. Doing fire. Fire is not for everyone.”
I laughed at his joke, but reminded him of his own trajectory.
He replied that LAFD has a “good” recruitment program, but ultimately “you have to like working with your hands. … a new generation of fun things. They all want to be famous for Instagram. They will want to make a lot of money and don’t wake up.”
Escobar sometimes tenderly during our chat, admitting that it was “sad” and that he wasn’t present more to his wife and children. He doesn’t think he’s pushing for more resources to “fail.”
But his evasive explanation of why there are no more Latino firefighters in Los Angeles, coupled with his anti-sighted thoughts, makes him a kind of Angeleno I know: when they get them, he refutes that powerful Latino of his own.
Escobar held talks with the crew of Station 26, who was head of the Los Angeles Fire Staff Union for nearly 20 years in 2018.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
Finally, we headed to an old haunt in Escobar: Station 26, with the motto “Anytime, anywhere,” and he climbed to the captain and to the captain.
Captain Al Ballestra at the station praised Escobar for still covering the holiday fire transition. Although his job as union president is full-time, Escobar has about four shifts a month.
“That’s what any member wants to have in their union leaders,” the 18-year veteran said. “People with boot experience stay connected with us.”
Escobar then signed up for a rookie training course in the recreation room. I asked the group what they thought of the union leader.
Engineer Gordon Wilson raised his hand and the room became quiet. He got rid of all the bureaucracy that intersected with Los Angeles firefighters – Inside, Fire Commission, City Council, Mayor. He pointed at Escobar.
Wilson shouted: “This gentleman is here, with the peculiar ability to communicate with everyone.”
