USC security official faces calls to step down from LAPD oversight role

By Libor JanyStaff Writer

May 7, 2024 6:46 PM PT

In the continued fallout over the law enforcement response to Gaza war protests at USC, a vocal group of activists Tuesday demanded the removal of Los Angeles Police Commission President Erroll Southers, a senior security official at the university.

The group gathered for a news conference before the commission’s weekly meeting at Los Angeles Police Department headquarters, calling on Mayor Karen Bass to remove Southers from the civilian body charged with oversight of the department.

Jody Armour, a USC law professor who focuses on racial justice, called the decision to send scores of riot-gear-clad LAPD officers and USC campus police to oversee the dismantling of an encampment “the very antithesis of what we say we are as a university.”

Nearly three dozen law professors from the university signed a letter condemning the police response to protests.

As USC’s associate senior vice president of safety and risk assurance, Southers is responsible for overseeing several offices, including the department of public safety, according to the university’s website.

It’s unclear what his role may have been in making decisions about the protest encampments at USC, but critics believe he was involved in coordinating the law enforcement response.

In response to questions sent to Southers by The Times, a USC spokesperson said in a statement that the university is “exceedingly fortunate to benefit from the unparalleled experience and expertise of Dr. Southers.”

“He is an internationally recognized security expert and scholar. We value having his leadership at our university,” the statement read.

Southers later declined to comment through a spokesperson.

In law enforcement circles, Southers has built a reputation as a leading expert in combating terrorism, testifying before congressional committees and lecturing at universities around the world. He has also taught classes as a professor of national and homeland security.

Some critics linked Southers’ academic research on homegrown extremism to the aggressive clearing of the campus encampments. Melina Abdullah, a Black Lives Matter-Los Angeles leader and professor at Cal State L.A., alleged Southers’ teachings were being used to justify the criminalization of Black and Muslim youths. Under this framework, they said, benign behavior such as someone expressing views critical of the government could be interpreted as dangerous.

“Erroll Southers has got to go,” said Baba Akili, also of Black Lives Matter-L.A. “Because to keep him in place is permission, is acquiescence, is acceptance of which is happening in Palestine, and what is happening in Palestine is genocide.”

Another speaker, who identified themselves as a USC student but kept their face covered and did not give a name saying they feared attention from law enforcement, was critical of a community advisory board started on campus by Southers, which they said excluded viewpoints that were critical of law enforcement.

Others pointed to the potential conflict of interest in Southers working in his campus role with a police force that he is charged with overseeing.

The demands for Southers’ ouster continued during the public comment portion of the L.A. Police Commission meeting. As some of his critics spoke, Southers rarely looked up from his seat. After admonishing someone in the audience for disrupting the meeting, Southers ordered a brief recess so the room could be cleared; he and his fellow commissioners filed out of the meeting to jeers and cries of “shame on you” from the audience.

Southers, a former FBI agent and onetime nominee for Transportation Security Administration administrator by former President Obama, was elected commission president by his colleagues a few months after his 2023 appointment to the five-member body. The move was praised at the time by city and police leaders, who cited his deep knowledge of policing, but drew opposition in some circles over Southers’ involvement with a controversial federal counterterrorism initiative, which critics have said unfairly targeted Muslim communities.

Southers second-guessed some aspects of the initiative in a 2017 Times op-ed. “Too often, federal employees seeking to address violent extremism parachute into a community and dictate public safety priorities to residents,” he said.

Southers is the latest public official to face scrutiny after weeks of protests at USC and universities around the country, with leaders struggling to balance campus safety and the right to protest, while at the same time addressing antisemitism and anti-Muslim hatred.

At USC, police have twice moved in to dismantle an encampment that sprung up in Alumni Park, with the latest sweep occurring as graduation activities are set to kick off this week with tens of thousands of guests on campus.

Los Angeles police arrested 93 activists — most of them USC students — on suspicion of trespassing as they cleared the encampment April 24.

In one of the most violent episodes elsewhere, a mob attacked a pro-Palestinian encampment at UCLA last week, resulting in numerous injuries. Police arrested more than 200 people after moving onto the Westwood campus to push out protesters.

Asked about the department’s response at Tuesday’s commission meeting, interim LAPD Chief Dominic Choi said the department was still working to assemble a timeline of the events the night of April 30. But based on preliminary information, he said the first call for assistance from university officials came around 11:30 p.m. Choi said that an LAPD squad from the West L.A. Division arrived on campus shortly afterward, but that it took “time to coordinate” a broader law enforcement response given the involvement of other agencies.

But he dismissed reports of widespread police use of force against protesters, saying LAPD officers did not fire any “less-lethal” rounds on UCLA’s campus and fired one 40-millimeter projectile at USC that missed its target.

“Those are also well documented. I stand by those statements,” he said.

Several City Council members this week introduced a motion asking Choi to provide an after-action report on the department’s actions leading up to and during the protests, “including disclosure and reporting of when the universities called on LAPD to intervene.” The motion also seeks “recommendations for any lessons learned and/or protocol changes for improvement in department policy.”

Times staff writers Kevin Rector and David Zahniser contributed to this report.