Garcetti attended D.C. fundraiser as L.A. braced for Ezell Ford ruling

As Los Angeles braced for a ruling last week in the high-profile police shooting of a mentally ill black man, Mayor Eric Garcetti hopped on a plane to the nation’s capital, saying he needed to talk to White House officials about community policing and funding for homelessness programs.

“I will never stop going to Washington for the reasons that I was there,” Garcetti later told reporters when asked about the wisdom of leaving town a day before the city police commission took up officers’ controversial shooting of 25-year-old Ezell Ford. “I’ll continue fighting for this city.”

But the mayor wasn’t in D.C. solely to seek money for his city. In addition to two short meetings with Obama administration officials, Garcetti attended a reception for his reelection effort hosted by one of the Democratic Party’s most prominent fundraisers, The Times has learned.

Harold Ickes — a veteran political operative and former top campaign and White House aide to President Clinton — said in an interview that the mayor was at his home in Georgetown on the evening of Monday, June 8, for a fundraising event for Garcetti’s 2017 campaign.