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The latest shooting comes less than a week after eight of LB's City Councilmembers (Councilwoman Price absent for a previously scheduled vacation) had a public hearing opportunity to voice their views and make motions to change aspects of the FY16 management/Mayor proposed budget for police. As currently proposed, the management/Mayor proposed budget won't restore all or any part of LBPD's field anti-gang unit and won't restore any of the roughly 200 officers available for citywide deployment previously provided to taxpayers as recently as 2009. At the August 18 budget hearing, no Councilmembers made motions, or indicated any willingness to make motions in the coming weeks, to restore funding for the field anti-gang unit. LBPD's former field anti-gang unit previously deployed 20 officers + 2 sergeants in gang impacted neighborhoods, where officers could observe conditions firsthand, work contacts and gather intelligence. LBPD still has a budgeted anti-gang unit (handling investigations, filing cases and the like) but not an anti-gang unit operating in the field as previously. [Scroll down for further.]
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Mayor Garcia concluded the Aug. 18 police/fire budget hearing by stating his understanding that as of Aug. 18, there'd been no increase in the number of murders in Long Beach, about the same as last year, perhaps give or take one or two. Chief Luna said this was true. Mayor Garcia then said last year was a historic low. Chief Luna agreed that it was. Mayor Garcia then stated: Mayor Garcia: From a murder point of view, we're still kind of facing a historic low number" to which Chief Luna replied that most of the big cities across the country had experienced significant increases. Garcia then added that it's his understanding that the increase in murder rates had jumped dramatically in many cases in a lot of urban areas. Chief Luna said he thinks the average was about 19% across the country, especially on the east coast. Mayor Garcia then stated.
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