Inglewood Mayor James T. Butts faces calls to resign over an alleged groping of a teenage girl, reviving years of disputed claims and City Hall controversies.
Butts was accused of grabbing the girl’s butt as she posed for a photograph with him at a community event inside Inglewood City Hall.
His office denied misconduct. Residents and activists called for his resignation after the allegation surfaced Wednesday, one day after the reported encounter.
The Post reported that the girl was a teenager but did not identify her. The account also did not say whether a photograph or video captured the alleged contact.
The new claim remains an allegation. But it has renewed attention on earlier accusations, lawsuits and disputes involving the mayor, some dating back more than three decades.
Butts, a former Santa Monica police chief and former security chief for the Los Angeles International Airport authority, won election as Inglewood mayor in 2011.
The oldest matter involved a 1993 criminal referral that accused Butts of molesting his young daughter. A local district attorney declined to file charges and cited insufficient evidence.
The allegation came from Minnie Butts, his then-estranged wife and a police sergeant. She said their daughter had described sexual contact by her father.
Minnie Butts also alleged that he choked her until she lost consciousness in 1991. The account does not identify a criminal charge or court finding tied to that claim.
Those distinctions matter. Allegations must not be treated as convictions, and a decision not to prosecute must be stated plainly. But public officials also cannot expect serious, repeated claims to vanish from public scrutiny.
Another dispute centered on Melanie McDade-Dickens, who volunteered on Butts’ mayoral campaign in 2010 and later became his executive assistant.
McDade-Dickens filed a wrongful-termination lawsuit in 2021. She claimed that Butts stripped away extra assignments and cut her pay after their personal relationship deteriorated.
The lawsuit alleged that she tried to end the relationship in 2018 and that stalking and obsessive conduct followed. It also accused Butts of making hundreds of calls and demanding foot massages as often as four times per day.
Pay figures described in the lawsuit listed McDade-Dickens’ compensation at $135,069 in 2013 and $349,077 in 2019. She was fired at the end of 2019.
At a 2021 press conference, McDade-Dickens described continuing to perform her job despite the personal dispute, as the Post reported:
“I showed up at work every single day, I didn’t miss an assignment, I was at every meeting that he eventually allowed me to be in. I still maintained all of my daily activities, I never slacked. I would close my door sometimes and cry and bite my tongue, but I compartmentalized my work and my relationship.”
The city’s attorney called the case “frivolous from the start.” A court threw it out in November of last year after McDade-Dickens failed to oppose a motion asking the judge to rule without a trial.
That outcome ended the case, but the stated reason was procedural: She did not file the required opposition. The available account does not describe a trial that settled each underlying allegation.
Butts also faced a dispute with Wanda Brown, Inglewood’s former longtime treasurer. Her attorney said she suffered retaliation after raising concerns in 2020 about city finances and spending.
Brown had spoken about a falling cash balance, higher deficit spending, a growing negative fund balance and the city’s use of outside consultants, her attorney said.
The Inglewood City Council then cut Brown’s monthly salary from $8,355 to $1,404 and removed her reports from council agendas.
Her case reached the California Supreme Court last year. The court ruled that Brown could not use the specified workplace retaliation protections because she was an elected official, not a state employee.
That ruling addressed whether those legal protections covered Brown. It did not turn the mayor’s broader record into a closed subject for voters or taxpayers.
In 2012, one year after Butts became mayor, Inglewood awarded a $100 million waste-management contract to a company that had hired his brother months earlier.
The company and the brother were not identified in the account. Nor did it describe a court finding that Butts broke the law in connection with the contract.
Still, the sequence presents a basic public-trust question. Taxpayers deserve clear rules and full disclosure whenever a city contractor employs a close relative of the mayor.
Butts has defended his record by saying the only controversial thing about him is that he gets “[expletive] done.” Before his 2011 election, he argued that Inglewood needed someone with executive and public-safety experience rather than “just a politician.”
Results do not erase the duty to answer serious questions. Executive experience should bring stricter standards for conduct and clean government, not a lower bar.
The mayor’s office denied wrongdoing involving the teenage girl, but the account does not include a personal response from Butts. It also does not identify the city event or provide an exact time for the alleged contact.
The Post said it contacted Butts’ campaign for comment but did not state that the campaign responded. No released photograph or video was identified.
Those gaps limit what can be concluded about the latest accusation. They do not relieve City Hall of its responsibility to give residents a direct, complete account of what happened at a public event.
Public office demands due process for the accused and straight answers for the public. Inglewood residents are entitled to both.
