Commissioner Erroll Southers, far left, leaves the Los Angeles Police Commission meeting after it was cut short following 45 minutes of public comment on Oct. 7. Southers has submitted his resignation, effective Oct. 21.
Photo by Stephen Oduntan
By Stephen Oduntan
Contributing Writer
LOS ANGELES — Erroll Southers, a former FBI agent and longtime public safety official whose reappointment to the Los Angeles Police Commission triggered months of vocal opposition, has resigned from the civilian body that oversees the Los Angeles Police Department.
Southers is the only Black currently serving on the commission. His departure comes just weeks after his reappointment was quietly processed through a 45-day City Charter provision that allowed him to retain his seat without a City Council vote. His final meeting as a commissioner is scheduled for Oct. 21.
The announcement immediately reverberated across Los Angeles’ activist circles. Members of Black Lives Matter Grassroots, who had spent two years campaigning against Southers’ reappointment, framed the resignation as a hard-won victory. Their public statement — “When we fight, we win” — echoed through social media and neighborhood networks by mid-morning Oct. 11.
Movement leaders said the decision reflected sustained pressure on city officials and signaled that the political calculus around police oversight may be shifting.
A spokesperson for the Police Commission, Sarah Bell, said Southers stepped down to spend more time with family and pursue other professional opportunities. Baba Akili, a veteran organizer with Black Lives Matter Grassroots, called the resignation “a success” for the movement.
“We’ve protested him almost every week for two years,” Akili said. ‘From his reappointment sliding through under the 45-day rule to his role in USC’s commencement controversy, we made sure his record was exposed. There’s more to this than ‘spending time with family.’”
He pointed to Southers’ background in counterterrorism — including writings linking Black and Muslim communities to “radicalization” and past exchanges with Israeli security officials — as emblematic of what he called “a policing lens that treats dissent like a threat.” That, he argued, made Southers’ continued presence on the commission untenable in the eyes of many Black and Muslim Angelenos.
Akili also signaled that the group is closely watching the next appointment.
“They’re already floating Jeff Skobin,” he said, referring to the son of former commissioner Alan Skobin. “From what we know, he looks like more of the same — not the kind of community voice this city needs.”
The five-member commission has already been operating with one vacant seat, and Skobin’s nomination was scheduled for a City Council committee hearing Oct. 15. He currently works in public relations and, according to activists, has little history of community organizing or civilian oversight advocacy.
Pastor James Thomas, president of the San Fernando Valley NAACP and co-founder of Clergy for Black Lives Matter, said the resignation opens a door for real civilian leadership — if city officials are willing to use it.
“I hope that [Mayor Karen Bass] will appoint someone who is truly a civilian,” Thomas said. “Someone who isn’t looking for power or trying to climb the ranks, but who understands what happens on the ground in our communities and will actually fight for accountability.”
Thomas said his organization has been in talks with Black Lives Matter to ensure Black voices are not sidelined in the next appointment process.
“This is not just about one man stepping down,” he added. “It’s about whether the city will stop stacking the commission with law enforcement insiders and finally let the community lead.”
Underlying much of the pushback is Southers’ career identity. He is USC’s associate vice president of safety and risk assurance, overseeing the departments of public safety, environmental health and safety, as well as fire safety and emergency planning. He is also professor of the practice in national and homeland security at USC’s Sol Price School of Public Policy.
Southers was deputy director for critical infrastructure of the California Office of Homeland Security, assistant chief of homeland security and intelligence with the Los Angeles World Airports Police Department, assistant vice president for visitor services and chief of protective services for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, an FBI special agent and a Santa Monica Police Department officer.
He received a doctorate of policy, planning and development from USC.
Bass, who first appointed him to the commission in 2023, is among his many supporters who praise him as a seasoned public safety expert. But activists viewed that same résumé as a red flag — evidence of a security-first orientation that undermined trust in civilian oversight.
Black Lives Matter Grassroots members said their protests will continue as the mayor weighs a replacement.
“The Police Commission is too important to be a rubber stamp,” Akili said. “Whoever takes that seat needs to answer to the people — not to the police.”
Stephen Oduntan is a freelance writer for Wave Newspapers.
