Los Angeles Needs More Cops; City Squanders Money Elsewhere
In an exclusive interview with the California Post, LAPD Chief McDonnell Talks About How Understaffed His Department Truly Is...
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Los Angeles Needs More Cops—While the City Squanders Money Elsewhere
My latest California Post column looks at the widening gap between the police force Los Angeles has and the one its own chief says the city needs—and what that gap reveals about City Hall’s priorities.
The LAPD currently has 8,551 officers.
Chief Jim McDonnell says Los Angeles needs 12,500.
That is not a minor staffing shortage. And with the department continuing to lose officers, the city is moving in the wrong direction.
How did America’s second-largest city get here?
For years, Los Angeles politicians debated how much policing the city could do without. Now, with the 2028 Olympic Games approaching, the consequences of those choices are becoming harder to ignore.
In my full California Post column, I examine the political decisions behind the LAPD’s depleted ranks, the city’s claims that it cannot afford more officers, and what the mayoral candidates are—or are not—proposing to do about it.
Budgets are choices. So are priorities.
The question is whether protecting lives, property and public order still comes first at Los Angeles City Hall.
And is there really any hope for a city when neither candidate for Mayor apparently want to make public safety their top priority…