In only one year as DA, the George Soros DA of L.A. should be proud—400 killings—more than in past 15 years. Note the city officials did not mention as a cause of the murders illegal aliens or refusal to prosecute by the D.A.
“The 397 killings the city saw last year was the most since 2006 when there were 480 homicides, according to the numbers Mayor Eric Garcetti and LAPD Chief Michel Moore detailed in a presentation in the courtyard of the 77th Street Station in South L.A.
That was 42 more than in 2020, which similarly bucked a 12-year trend of decreasing homicides.
Behind last year’s increase were the same culprits as the year before, Garcetti and his police chief said: More guns on the street, shorter tempers, and a lack of services getting to the people who need them most. All were results of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, they said.
Where is Chief Jack Mannion when you need him?.
LA had nearly 400 killings in 2021, most in last 15 years
By JOSH CAIN, NATHANIEL PERCY, Los Angeles Daily News, 1/13/22
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There were nearly 400 killings in the city of Los Angeles in 2021, the most in a single year over the last 15 years, officials said Thursday in their annual look at crime statistics.
The 397 killings the city saw last year was the most since 2006 when there were 480 homicides, according to the numbers Mayor Eric Garcetti and LAPD Chief Michel Moore detailed in a presentation in the courtyard of the 77th Street Station in South L.A.
That was 42 more than in 2020, which similarly bucked a 12-year trend of decreasing homicides.
Behind last year’s increase were the same culprits as the year before, Garcetti and his police chief said: More guns on the street, shorter tempers, and a lack of services getting to the people who need them most. All were results of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, they said.
Much of the killing was over personal or gang disputes: Young people with easy access to guns shooting at each other over slights on social media, or fights over territory, sometimes hitting their intended targets, other times hitting innocent bystanders.
“Every police officer here will tell you — it’s the ready availability of guns, and the lowering of civility, or the willingness to resort to guns,” Moore said.
“And listening to our advocates, and hearing from our interventionists, the greatest ask is to shut down social media, because of the violence it invokes. People who seemingly have no future who are insulted by a post, so they go out and hunt, and prey and shoot and kill another individual over something that’s said in a Facebook post or on Instagram.”
The city’s most vulnerable were also again among the most targeted: At least 88 homeless people were among those killed, an increase of 22 from the year before.
Garcetti said people living in encampments across the city were especially vulnerable to retaliation and threats of violence, sometimes from gang members, other times from other homeless people.
“Often it’s around drugs. Often it’s around gangs — sometimes there are gang members themselves who are unhoused, living in our toughest encampments,” the mayor said. “We’ve seen stabbings over, just, personal conflicts.”
There were far more victims shot in L.A. over the last two years. In 2020, the number of people shot was 1,337; last year, it was 1,459. That’s compared to 2019, when 946 people were shot.
To deal with the onslaught of gun violence, LAPD formed a task force that specifically targeted the source of the guns. As a result, police seized more guns than ever last year — 8,661 firearms taken in stops and raids, according to the numbers.
Among those, 1,921 were unregistered, often homebuilt firearms. Dubbed “ghost guns,” they’ll never pop up in federal databases because they lack registration numbers. Many are built using kits found online, with simple tools that complete the guns from parts bought separately. Some ghost gun rings use 3D printers to manufacture the weapons to be sold on the street: Moore said LAPD seized four such printers in raids last year.
Overall, crime was up in Los Angeles last year over 2020. But the increases were mostly a return to the crime rate of two years ago.
From last year, all Part 1 crimes — murder, manslaughter, sex offenses, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, motor vehicle theft, and arson — went up 4.6%. Property crimes were up 4.2%, and violent crimes were up 3.9%.
But compared over two years, property crimes were actually down more than 5%. Taken together, all Part 1 crimes were down more than 3% over the same period.
Only the most violent crimes were up over two years: Nearly 4% since 2019.
And compared to the violence of the 1980s and 90s, the last two years were still among the safest in the city’s history. LAPD on Thursday released numbers going all the way back to 1992 — every category of crime is down about 65% since that year.
Both Garcetti and Moore fretted over fewer officers patrolling the streets after hiring freezes left LAPD with about 500 fewer sworn police than two years ago.
Amid an ongoing battle over LAPD’s funding following historic anti-police protests in 2020, the department’s budget still went up last year. And Garcetti noted the department made up the difference in police officers with more overtime pay for more hours deployed for the officers they do have.
Whether having fewer police is actually contributing to a one-year crime increase wasn’t clear from the city’s numbers. Instead, Moore pointed strongly to the disastrous fallout of COVID-19, hitting L.A. residents both financially and psychologically, which increased the need for all types of services for those being left behind.
City and county services are still struggling to meet that need. Typically placid and analytical, Moore spoke with frustration about the cycle of people being arrested, sent to jail, then released without any services to keep them from returning right back to the street.
“They tell (the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation) when they’re released — they have no home. Somehow that’s acceptable,” Moore said. “They have no resources. They have no jobs. They have to return to that life.”
