Crime drops for the 10th consecutive year
Lowest per capita crime rate
LOS ANGELES, Calif.—Crime in the city dropped for the 10th consecutive year in 2012, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Police Chief Charlie Beck announced today.
The pair attributed the 1.4 percent reduction in crime from 2011 to continued police hiring despite the city’s large budget deficit. Villaraigosa said he would keep police hiring as a top priority in the city’s next budget, his last as mayor. Villaraigosa will be termed out of office and replaced by a new mayor July 1.
“Cities in California that have stopped hiring (officers) or cut back on their police force have seen crime spikes. In L.A., we’ve seen crime continue its long downward trend,” Villaraigosa said. “We continued hiring police officers even as we weathered the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.”
The mayor made expanding the police force a campaign promise when he won election in 2005. That year, sworn police officers numbered 9,284, according to department statistics. Today the force sits at 10,023 officers. Since 2005, the number of violent and property crimes dropped a total 27.2 percent, according to the department.
Villaraigosa said he hoped the next mayor would commit to expanding the police force further.
The number of homicides in the city remained below 300 for the third year in a row in 2012, down from 1,096 murders a year two decades ago.
The overall decrease in crime included a small increase in property crimes, which Beck attributed to a spike in thefts of electronic devices like cell phones and computers.
The officials said the drop in crime last year gave Los Angeles the lowest per capita crime rate of any city over 2 million people—lower than Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia and New York City.
Beck used the morning news conference, the last such announcement Beck and Villaraigosa will make together, to praise the mayor’s focus on reducing gang crime. He cited a 47.5 percent reduction in gang crime since Villaraigosa took office and a record-low 152 gang homicides in 2012.
“That is the lowest number of gang homicides in decades. Our level of gang crime, while still unacceptable, still requires much much work, has beenchanged forever,” Beck said. “It wasn’t very long ago that we were the homicide capital of the nation and the undisputed, undisputed source of gang misery worldwide. Because of this mayor, we’ve changed that. Now we’re the source of the solution.”
Police Chief Charlie Beck said Thursday that the city had the fewest number of crimes last year since 1957 and overall crime was down for the ninth consecutive year, but there was one more homicide than the previous year.
A total of 104,215 violent and property crimes were logged in 2011, the lowest per capita since 1952, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said.
Beck and Villaraigosa attributed the decline to the size of the police force—9,963 officers—which had been threatened by budget cuts early last year.
LOS ANGELES, Calif.—Police officers in riot helmets arrested 292 people today and, in a mostly peaceful operation, dismantled the tent city that sprang up Oct. 1 outside Los Angeles City Hall as a western outpost of the Occupy Wall Street movement.
The park where the encampment was set up was fully cleared by 5:10 a.m., about five hours after the operation began, Los Angeles police Officer Cleon Joseph said.
LOS ANGELES, Calif.—The shift of thousands of state prisoners to Los Angeles County custody will increase crime and reduce overall public safety unless the state gives Los Angeles and other cities money to respond, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and law-enforcement officials said today.
Starting this morning, people convicted of non-violent, non-serious, non-sex offender crimes will be sent to county jails instead of state prisons.
LOS ANGELES, Calif.—City officials began a weekend of Sept. 11 memorial events at City Hall this morning.
Council President Eric Garcetti presented a panel of the city’s senior religious leaders in City Council chambers to preview “One Light,” a memorial event at City Hall Saturday night.
Religious congregations from across the region will light 500 lanterns on the steps of City Hall.
LOS ANGELES, Calif.—Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced today the expansion of his 3-year-old Summer Night Lights program, which keeps some public parks open at night during the summer to give teens a place to go and keep crime down.
