Red Xs=2014 murders; Blue Xs=2014 shootings, person wounded; Brown Xs=shots fired at victim(s), not hit; Purple Xs=2014 shots at occupied residence/vehicle; Green Xs=shots at unoccupied vehicle/residence. Map accounts for shootings in NLB area only.

LBPD Public Information Officer Sgt. Megan Zabel says that at about 5:46 p.m. on Sept. 19, officers responded to a "shots heard" call in the 6100 block of Linden Ave.; no one was hit and no injuries were reported...and the suspect(s) remains at large.

The shooting, which LBPD say it's investigating as gang related, comes just weeks after the City Council voted without dissent to approve a FY15 City Hall budget recommended by outgoing Mayor Bob Foster and incoming Mayor Robert Garcia that ends funding for LBPD's field anti-gang unit effective Oct. 1, 2014. Until Oct. 2012 (FY13), LBPD's field anti-gang unit put 20 officers and 2 sergeants on the street for taxpayers.

In Aug. 2012, Mayor Foster recommended a FY13 budget that proposed to eliminate the field anti-gang unit, which a former Council majority instead cut in half, funding the remaining half of the unit "one time"/non-recurring funds. A year later in Sept. 2013, the former Council approved a FY14 budget that let the field anti-gang unit shrink to single-digit size, funded by using patrol budgeted sums and backfilling with overtime. Last week, on Sept. 2 and 9, 2014, a new Council twice voted without dissent to approve a FY15 budget that no longer funds LBPD's field anti-gang unit effective Oct. 1, 2014. LBPD has officers tasked to handle gang matters, but not the 22 sworn officers taxpayers previously had deployed in the field on gang-related matters.

LBPD Chief Jim McDonnell has previously advised the Council that gang-related crimes account for most of Long Beach's shootings and violent crimes.

Prior to the Council's recent budget enactment, the new Council's incoming Public Safety Committee chaired by Councilwoman Suzie Price (named by Mayor Garcia), like the previous Public Safety Committee chaired by then-Vice Mayor Garcia (named by Mayor Foster), made no recommendations on the public safety aspects (police or fire) of the management/Mayor FY 15 proposed budget.

The new Council's Budget Oversight Committee, chaired by Vice Mayor Suja Lowenthal, made no recommendation to restore funding to LBPD's anti-gang unit OR to restore any budgeted police officers.(or LBFD resources) which LB taxpayers previously received.

During the Council's budget adoption actions, Councilwoman Price made a successful floor motion (overcoming initial resistance from Lowenthal) to allocate an additional $350,000 to LBPD to deal with increased residential burglaries.

Over the July 4th weekend, NLB had five of the shootings (one of which was a murder.) ..