(April 10, 2015, 6:05 p.m.) -- A number of businesses within a roughly half mile area of E. Aneheim Street (2800-3500 blocks) were victims of commercial burglaries within the past 30 days...and last night (April 9) a business in the 2900 block of E. Anaheim St. was victimized by an armed robbery (suspect with a gun.)

Although businesses incur crime-related losses in other parts of Long Beach (and other large cities), nine commercial burglaries, an attempted commercial burglary plus an armed robbery within barely 30 days within half a mile are hard to ignore. What's taken place in recent weeks appears to be out of the ordinary; a quick check of crimereports.com doesn't show similar conditions in the area during 30 and 60 day periods preceding the 30 day window between March 11 and April 9.

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LBPD Public Information Officer Sgt. Megan Zabel tells LBREPORT.com that at about 9:40 p.m., officers responded to a business in the 2900 block of E. Anaheim Street regarding an armed robbery that had just occurred. Officers learned that a man (adult) suspect had entered the business, robbed the employees at gunpoint and left the business with an unspecified amount of cash. Nobody was physically injured in the crime; LBPD's investigation is ongoing.

CrimeReports.com (which is linked on LBPD's webpage) lists the following within the past roughly 30 days. Again, we saw no similar levels of commercial burglaries in the East Anaheim St. area in 30 and 60 day periods prior to the most recent 30 day period.

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The crime scene is in the 4th City Council district...where voters are currently choosing (vote by mail ballots over the past few weeks, polling place election day April 14) to choose a new Council representative (Daryl Supernaw vs. Herlinda Chico vs. Richard Lindemann) to fill the vacancy created when 4th dist. Council rep Patrick O'Donnell exited midway through his third term to pursue and win a Sacramento Assembly seat.

As previously reported by LBREPORT.com, between 2009-2014, LB City Council majorities voted for budgets (recommended by then-Mayor Bob Foster) that shrank LBPD's level of sworn officers deployable for taxpayers citywide by roughly 200 officers (over 20%), the largest police reductions within a five year period within the more than 100 year history of the City of Long Beach. Long Beach (L.A. County's second largest city) currently provides a budgeted sworn citywide deployable police level roughly equivalent per capita to cutting over 30% of L.A.P.D.'s budgeted officers.

LB's police cuts weren't publicly opposed by any Long Beach business association of which we're aware or by the Long Beach Police Officers Association's political action committee (LBPOA PAC.) The LBPOA PAC endorsed O'Donnell for Council (2012), Garcia for Mayor (2014) and endorses Ms. Chico (2015) to succeed O'Donnell. Ms. Chico is also endorsed by all current Councilmembers (except Mungo who's taken no public position in the race), all of whom voted in September 2014 for a FY15 budget that eliminated LBPD's field anti-gang unit.

In the months that followed, the Council voted to approve a transaction that avoids a public vote on building a new Civic Center, failed to put a potentially less costly City Hall seismic retrofit out to bid; approved spending $1 milllion (a cost initially concealed until reported by LBREPORT.com) to obtain a $3 million "innovation grant" for unspecified "economic development" and approved (April 7) a citywide Project Labor Agreement sought by politically active trade unions that management acknowledges will cost $280,000 annually to administer and critics say (citing several studies of PLAs) could cost million dollars more on public works projects.