(July 15, 2015, 9:40 a.m.) -- LBREPORT.com provides extended VIDEO coverage below of a July 14 rally and press conference organized by the One Long Beach Alliance for Better Communities & Schools in response to recent shootings (non-fatal and fatal) in parts of Long Beach. The group, which includes community advocates, grassroots residents, church leaders, parents and young people advocated what they described as a [release text] "comprehensive plan for community safety" and urged [release text] "a commitment from City leadership to address the root causes of violence in our communities."

LBREPORT.com has extended video coverage on our Facebook page at this link (www.Facebook.com/LBReport).

Among those speaking were Jessica Quintana (Exec. Dir. Centro CHA), Rev. Leon Wood (Church One and member of LB Minister's Alliance) and Lydia Hollie, J.D., the now-former chair of LB City Hall's now-former Youth & Gang Violence Prevention Task Force whose nephew was murdered in a Dec. 2014 midafternoon drive-by shooting in the area of PCH/Lemon Ave.

In an accompanying flier, the One Long Beach Alliance stated in pertinent part:

"We need an initiative that is aligned with President Obama's and local city ordinance on "My Brother's Keeper." This is an initiative that promotes solutions to improve the social and economic upward mobility of our low-income neighborhoods that are predominately communities of color. We need to change the narrative for low income youth of color who are most impacted by violence. We must offer solutions that directly impact on heir health, long-term quality of life and future.

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In its Call to Action in the flier, the group advocated:

1. Ongoing Funding To Implement The Long Beach Be SAFE City Wide Violence Prevention and Youth Development Initiative (flier text: "...set in local park neighborhoods highly impacted by crime and violence during the summer and when school is out of session")

2. Implementation of a Year Round School Safe Passages Initiative (flier text: "Children are unable to fulfill their highest potential while living and attending schools in unsafe environments. Safe Passages is a program that communities across the country have used with great success to ensure that their children are able to safely travel to and from school.") [LBREPORT.com note: As we reported earlier this year, Cabrillo High student Keshawn Brooks was stabbed to death in an attempted robbery along busy Santa Fe Ave. while walking home from school in March; LBPD arrested a suspect, whom the DA's office has charged with murder committed in association with a criminal street gang; he has pleaded non-guilty.]

3. Jobs: Implement Economic Opportunities (flier text: "Create 1000 Jobs and entrepreneurship opportunities for extremely low-income adults, youth and reentry population living in the impacted communities of 90802, 90804, 90805, 90806, 90810 and 90813.")

4. Mayoral Leadership on Preventing Violence (flier text: "the Mayor's office should oversee the SAFE LB Violence Prevention Plan." Also seeks to "revitalize" City Hall's former "Public Safety Advisory Commission."

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A number of the items sought closely parallel policies (and some grant funded programs) supported by City Hall...but the group's "comprehensive plan" didn't mention restoring LBPD's now-former field anti-gang unit (20 officers + 2 sergeants) which Mayor Garcia and the Council (without dissent) failed to fund last year and (under Mayor Foster) the year before.

Then Vice-Mayor/Councilman Garcia was former Mayor Foster's choice to chair the Council's Public Safety Committee from mid-2010 to mid-July 2014...and didn't hold Committee meetings on Foster's recommended budgets which first sought to eliminate the field anti-gang unit starting in August 2012. Former Councils initially sought to retain the unit at reduced strength, but eventually eliminated funding entirely and the unit is now gone (short chronology of events also below.)

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Accordingly, LBREPORT.com was curious about the group's failure to include restoration of the field anti-gang unit among items sought in its "comprehensive plan" for community safety. LBREPORT.com asked about this during Q & A at the conclusion of the event. We asked if any members of the group would urge Mayor Garcia and Councilmembers to restore funding for all or part of LBPD's field anti-gang unit in the budget Garcia is now preparing to release and the Council will enact in the coming weeks.

No member present at the event offered an affirmative "yes"...but none said "no" either. We pressed further, and two members of the group (Quintana and Hollie) indicated [rough paraphrase/summary] they'd only support restoring the anti-gang field unit if it were coupled with the measures advocated by the group (above.) Some of the group's proposed measures are already favored by the Mayor and Councilmembers, so allocating some sums for them (which may already be partially grant funded) likely wouldn't meet resistance. However, to prioritize spending to restore LBPD anti-gang officers that the Mayor and Council last year voted not to fund might receive a different Mayor/Council response.

Our questions and member responses are included in LBREPORT.com's extended video coverage near the end of the event, visible on our Facebook page at this link.

After the rally/press event, the group entered the Council Chamber and several supporters spoke during the period for public comment on non-agendized items. LBREPORT.com provides on-demand audio of their testimony here, which was eloquent and passionate.

Ms. Hollie spoke of the loss of her nephew and said the type of programs on which she'd worked, which are no longer funded, had worked. Rev. Wood said he would devote his time and efforts to the programs. Pedro Jimenez, now an LBCC student, described the challenges he faced and overcame growing up in a North Long Beach gang environment. Roma Griego, whose son was murdered in the summer of 2002, pleaded with the Council to support summer youth programs.

None of the speakers mentioned, or asked Councilmembers, to restore all or part of LBPD's field anti-gang unit in the upcoming budget.

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Responding to the speakers' testimony, Mayor Garcia said that in the budget he would be recommending in the coming weeks "I think you're going to find...items and a direction in there that I think will please you and I think will be a great starting point for a lot of the conversations you're having tonight"...and he didn't mention restoring any part of the field anti-gang unit.

For our readers' reference, LBREPORT.com provides a timeline of Mayor/Council actions related to the LBPD field anti-gang unit. LBPD continues to maintain a conventional gang unit (often working indoors on investigations and the like) but L.A. County's second largest city no longer has the field anti-gang unit that the City had in full until September 2012.

• Aug. 2012: Mayor Bob Foster recommends a city management proposed FY13 budget that would entirely eliminate LBPD's field anti-gang comprised of 20 officers + 2 sergeants.

• Aug. 2012: The Council's Public Safety Committee, chaired by Vice Mayor Robert Garcia (chosen by Mayor Foster) holds no meetings to address the public safety impacts (police or fire) of Mayor Foster's recommended FY13 budget.

• Aug. 2012: The Council's Budget Oversight Committee (chair DeLong) recommends (on motion by DeLong and Lowenthal) a roughly $1 million increase to the PD budget sum recommended by Mayor Foster.

• Sept. 2012: Councilman Patrick O'Donnell makes a Council floor motion, approved without dissent, to budget a roughly $1 million more beyond what the Budget Oversight Committee recommended, to give the Chief discretion to fund up to half of the former anti-gang field unit (10 officers plus one sergeant) for one year using "one time" money.

• Aug. 2013: Mayor Foster recommends what he said would be his final budget (of which he said he is "most proud") for FY14. It includes no sums to replace the expiring "one time funds" approved by the Council in Sept. 2012 that kept up to half of the field anti-gang unit afloat.

• Aug. 2013: The Council's Budget Oversight Committee learns through chair DeLong's questioning that LBPD's field anti-gang unit has shrunk to only roughly 7 sworn officers through exits/attrition.

• Aug. 2013: The Council's Public Safety Committee, chaired Vice Mayor Garcia, holds no meetings to address the public safety impacts (police or fire) of Mayor Foster's recommended FY14 budget.

• September 2013: A few taxpayers take the time and effort to speak at Council budget hearings urging restoration of LBPD's field anti-gang unit. They include veteran NLB community advocate Laurie Angel. To hear Ms. Angel's words, click here. No LB business or neighborhood group publicly calls for restoring the anti-gang field unit. The Council enacts a FY14 budget without structural budgeted funding to restore LBPD's anti-gang field unit.

• Feb. 2014: Mayor Foster endorses Vice Mayor Garcia for Mayor. The Long Beach Police Officers Ass'n PAC ultimately endorses Garcia for Mayor, as well as Council candidates Gonzalez, Price, Uranga and Richardson.

• May 2014: LBREPORT.com learns and reports that LBPD management has managed to staff a skeleton field anti-gang unit by drawing personnel from budgeted positions in LBPD's Patrol Calls for Service divisions. Since the Gang assignment created vacancies in the Patrol Divisions, LBPD management backfilled the vacant Patrol positions by using overtime funded by the City Council.

• July 2014: Exiting Mayor Foster recommends a FY15 budget with no funding for a field anti-gang unit.

• July 2014: Entering Mayor Garcia recommends a FY15 budget with no funding for a field anti-gang unit.

• August 2014: The Council's Public Safety Committee (now chaired by Councilwoman Price) holds no meetings on the Foster/Garcia recommended FY15 budget's public safety impacts and doesn't address restoring LBPD's anti-gang field unit.

• Sept. 2014: The Council adopts a FY15 budget without structural funding for an LBPD field anti-gang unit.

• Dec. 2014: The nephew of the now-former chair of LB City Hall's now-former Youth & Gang Violence Prevention Task force is murdered in a midafternoon drive-by shooting in the 1100 block of E. PCH.

• Jan. 2015: a drive-by shooting occurs in the neighborhood just west of Santa Fe. Ave. and three blocks south of Spring St. By LBREPORT.com's unofficial tally, it was the seventh shooting in West Long Beach (of which LBREPORT.com is aware) within the past roughly ten months (one of which was fatal.)

• March 2015: Keshawn Brooks is fatally stabbed while walking home from Cabrillo High in the busy 2800 block of Santa Fe Ave. The LA County District Attorney alleges that the crime was "committed in association with a criminal street gang."

On January 13, 2015, Mayor Robert Garcia delivered his first "State of the City" message in which he stated, "Violent crime has dropped to its lowest level in more than 40 years. And progress in public safety can be seen in every neighborhood in Long Beach, including our downtown."

Less than sixty days later, 15 year old Keshawn Brooks was fatally stabbed while walking home from school through neighborhoods where violent crime had increased.

Developing.