Los Angeles mayor calls for 3% INCREASE to LAPD's budget - bucking 'defund the police' advocates - after shootings rise 80% this year
The Los Angeles mayor plans to increase his police department budget by three percent to $1.76 billion this year as the city struggles with an uptick in shootings and murders.
Mayor Eric Garcetti has proposed to increase the LAPD budget this coming fiscal year, which starts July 1, by allocating $1.76 billion of the city's $11.2 billion budget.
It is a three percent increase to the $1.71 billion the Los Angeles City Council had agreed upon last summer when they decided to slash the police budget by $150 million amid the BLM and defund the police protests.
Garcetti's move to increase the budget goes against defund police advocates who have been pushing for money to be diverted to provide services and programs for communities of color.
Mayor Eric Garcetti has proposed to increase the LAPD budget this coming fiscal year, which starts July 1, by allocating $1.76 billion of the city's $11.2 billion budget
According to LAPD crime statistics for last week, shootings are up 80 percent compared to the same period last year. Homicides are up 28 percent and and aggravated assaults have increased by 14 percent compared to this time last year
The slight budget increase coincides with a big rise in crime across Los Angeles.
According to LAPD crime statistics for last week, shootings are up 80 percent so far this year compared to the same period last year.
Homicides are up 28 percent and and aggravated assaults have increased by 14 percent compared to this time last year.
Car theft has also spiked 24 percent compared to 2020.
An aide for Garcetti linked the police budget increase to the recent spate of rising crime, the LA Times reports.
The mayor, however, said the LAPD needed the budget to hire more officers given a wave of retirements.
The proposed budget for 2021 would provide for a police force of 9,750 officers.
Due to a wave of retirements and resignations, the LAPD is expected to only have about 9,489 officers by June 30.
It is a three percent increase to the $1.71 billion the Los Angeles City Council had agreed upon last summer when they decided to slash the police budget by $150 million amid the BLM and defund the police protests
Garcetti released the details of his plan, which he dubbed the 'Justice Budget', on Monday night. His plan now needs to go to the City Council for approval
Garcetti released the details of his plan, which he dubbed the 'Justice Budget', on Monday night.
His plan now needs to go to the City Council for approval.
He did not mention the increase to the policing budget in his statement announcing the spending plan.
Garcetti did say his 2020-21 policing budget was based on the $1.85 billion budget for last year, prior to the cuts being introduced.
It comes after city leaders voted last July to slash the LAPD budget by $150 million, reducing the number of officers to a level not seen for more than a decade, amid nationwide protests in the wake of George Floyd's killing.
It represented an eight percent decrease from the almost $1.8 billion in last year's budget.
About two-thirds of the funding was earmarked for police overtime.
It was going to be put towards services and programs for communities of color, including a youth summer jobs program.
Protesters met outside of Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti's home on Tuesday to protest his proposed funding of the Los Angeles Police Department
Extra LAPD officers deployed around the Los Angeles Civic Center following the guilty verdict against Minneapolis policeman Derek Chauvin on Tuesday
Garcetti had initially proposed increasing it in April 2020 in a bid to reach a goal of 10,000 officers before facing intense pushback after Floyd's death invigorated a nationwide campaign to 'defund' police.
New York City's police budget was just slashed by a billion dollars and the police department in Minneapolis was abolished by its city council around the same time.
Elsewhere in his spending plan, Garcetti proposed allocating a billion dollars to help advance racial and economic justice across LA and $150 million to help residents in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Faced with an out-of-control homeless crisis, he also proposed spending nearly $1 billion to get people off the streets, build housing and clean up squalid encampments that have spread into nearly every neighborhood in the city.
When Garcetti took office in 2013, the city was spending about $10 million treating homelessness.
He said on Monday that he would propose spending $955 million this coming year, funded partly by federal dollars.
"We know the key to ending homelessness is homes. Let's rent them. Let's buy them. Let's build them brand new," the mayor said.
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