Top Los Angeles police official resigns over offensive emails from previous job

On Sunday, Los Angeles County Sheriff Jim McDonnell said he has accepted the resignation of his chief of staff, Tom Angel, amid mounting criticism of racist, sexist, and anti-Muslim emails Angel had sent as the No. 2 official in the Burbank Police Department in 2012 and 2013. "This incident is one that I find deeply troubling," McDonnell said. "Despite the Sheriff's Department's many recent efforts to fortify public trust and enhance internal and external accountability and transparency, this incident reminds us that we and other law enforcement agencies still have work to do." The Los Angeles Times had obtained Angel's emails through public records request, and published 15 pages of them on Wednesday.

McDonnell, elected as a reformer in 2014, said he will begin random audits of the work emails of sheriff's department employees and meet with different community groups to "share thoughts and ideas about improving our understanding of the varied cultures and orientations and deepening our appreciation of the many ethnicities and religions that are part of the vibrant fabric of the population we serve." Several of the emails mocked Muslims, and another one was a forwarded joke about a student who did poorly on an exam: "I took my Biology exam last Friday. I was asked to name two things commonly found in cells. Apparently 'Blacks' and 'Mexicans' were not the correct answers."

Angel did not respond to requests for comment from the L.A. Times, but previously he told the newspaper that he never meant to embarrass or demean anyone and that he found it unfortunate that his work emails were subject to the state's public records law.

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