Officer Michael McMahon, who maintains he is a 14-year veteran of the LAPD, said today in the video posted to social media that he had just been “relieved of duty” for refusing the city’s vaccination mandate for all employees, including police.
“I did just leave the captain’s office a few minutes ago,” said McMahon in a 4-plus minute video taken on what appeared to be a police rooftop parking lot with the downtown L.A. skyline in the background. “I did refuse everything. I will not acquiesce to testing or the mandate to get vaccinated. So I was subsequently relieved of duty.”
McMahon then went on to detail the fallout.
“I turned in my gun, my badge, my police ID. All of my police powers [have] been suspended and I have been assigned to home pending what is essentially a board of rights…for what is essentially going to be an insubordination charge and what will ultimately result in termination from the department,” he said.
An LAPD spokesperson confirmed the department does, indeed, have a Michael McMahon in its employ, but could confirm no other details, referring Deadline instead to LAPD Chief Michael Moore’s statement on the mandate earlier this week.
In that statement, Chief Moore made his stance clear. If an employee does not submit information on their vaccination status, Moore said, “the department, myself, will initiate disciplinary proceedings against the employees, civilian or sworn.”
“Ultimately, our goal is to have to a 100% fully vaccinated workforce,” he said.
Moore said that 1,357 department employees had not submitted their vaccination status as of last Friday, and each commander has received a list of their names to begin enforcement of the mandate.
Moore also told the Police Commission the department currently has a total of 9,473 sworn personnel and 2,670 civilian personnel. A “majority” of those who haven’t reported their status were sworn employees, according to the chief, but Moore said he did not have the exact number.
Even if every single one of those noncompliant LAPD employees was from the sworn ranks, the department would have an 85.6% vaccination rate, which is considerably better than that of the public-at-large and twice that of the LASD, whose leader has taken a decidedly different stance on L.A. County’s vaccine mandate.
This afternoon, McMahon said he was given no timeline for his case within the department, but maintained his stance would not change.
“I will not comply. I will not comply at all. The only thing mandatory for me right now is non-compliance,” he said.