By Libor Jany
Los Angeles Times
LOS ANGELES — Los Angeles has so far this year recorded double-digit percentage declines in homicides, non-fatal shootings and slayings stemming from gang feuds, according to police data released Tuesday. City officials touted the numbers as proof that public safety is improving after concerns about crime motivated voters in November’s election.
Mayor Karen Bass highlighted the numbers Tuesday at an early morning at Watts Labor Community Action Committee Center, a jobs and social services nonprofit. Bass said that through the first week of December, there were 266 people killed citywide, a decline of 15% compared to the number slain the same period in 2023.
The decrease was even more dramatic — a 28% drop — when measured against numbers from 2022, when violence ebbed after the first two years of the pandemic. The latest figures show that shootings in which someone was struck but not killed fell by nearly 19% when compared to 2023, while gang-related homicides fell by more than 50%.
The mayor attributed the declines to growing collaboration between LAPD officers and community members in neighborhoods hit by violence. She also credited proactive enforcement efforts, such as the creation of a smash-and-grab retail crime task force that has led to hundreds of arrests and the recovery of more than $60 million in stolen merchandise.
“What we’ve shown this year is that when a crime is committed here in the city, we don’t wait, we take action,” Bass said, also praising the work of interventionists and community programs such as Summer Night Lights that work to quash gang beefs and prevent violence.
New LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell said he was heartened by the declining crime statistics, which come despite the department’s staffing woes.
“These numbers represent lives saved, families preserved and communities being given the opportunity to heal and thrive,” he said.
Watts Gang Task Force president Donny Joubert said that the sustained levels of calm were being particularly felt in some of the area’s public housing developments, where briefings by police leaders that used to be dominated by updates on recent gun violence are now focused on more mundane crimes.
“We talk about maybe a couple cars got broken in, that’s huge. No shootings,” he said.
Similarly dramatic declines in violent crime from early pandemic highs were reported in nationwide surveys and data from 500 to 1,000 local police departments.
Even with statistics that show killings and other serious crimes trending downward, recent election results show the public remains concerned about safety — or the perception that cities are unsafe. Voters ousted progressive prosecutors in L.A. and Alameda counties after campaigns where crime was a central issue, and also resoundingly approved the tough-on-crime measure Proposition 36, which extends prison sentences for some thefts and drug offenses.
Criminologists point out that the reasons why crime rises and falls are complex, with police data only offering a snapshot in time.
LAPD officials have themselves cautioned that year-over-year comparisons are nearly impossible for certain types of crimes since the department switched over to a new record-keeping system earlier this year.
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