(July 29, 2021, 9:30 a.m.) -- Less than 48 hours after a shooting in the 10th St./Cedar Ave. Willmore City neighborhood wounded a man while he was sitting in his backyard, the same CD 1/Zendejas Willmore City area had another shooting, this time in the 900 block of Maine Ave. (four blocks east of LA River, roughly one block south, half a mile west of July 27 shooting.)
In preliminary information, LBPD Public Information Officer Richard Mejia tells LBREPORT.com that on July 29, 2021 at roughly 4:07 a.m., officers responded to a shooting call in the 900 block of Maine Avenue and found a man (adult) with a non-life-threatening gunshot wound. LBFD responded amd treated the victim who said he was sitting near a bench at a park in the 900 block of Maine Avenue when he heard yelling nearby, followed by presumed gunfire, which resulted in the victim being shot. The suspect fled before officers arrived. No suspect information nor motive is available...and LBPD's investigation is ongoing. CD 1/Zendejas has had the highest number of shootings (fatal + wounding + casings found) in Long Beach since Jan. 1, 2021. The City of Long Beach (LA County's second largest city) has a thinner per capita police level than Los Angeles, roughly the equivalent of cutting over a third of LA's police officers (based on FY21 Long Beach budgeted citywide deployable non-contracted officers.) The City's police level is set by the City Council. In September 2020, the Council defunded 48 officers on top of roughly 180 officers that a previous Council erased in budgets from 2009-2014. Amid calls by some to reduce LBPD's funding further, on July 20, 2020, the City Council voted (8-0, Austin absent) to adopt a Mayor/Mgmt-supported "safety recovery plan" that will spend roughly $8.6 million items including backfilling/maintaining LBPD's current level but not restoring any of the now roughly 230 budgeted officers that Long Beach had but no longer has. The remainder of the plan allocates sums to non-police spending (including Parks and Rec items labeled by city management as "prevention.") . [Scroll down for further.] |
At the July 20 Council meeting, a number of speakers (including those supporting a self-described "Peoples Budget") called for reducing LBPD's budget still further. No groups spoke in support of restoring the now-roughly 230 officers that LB had and no longer has.
The City of Long Beach (LA County's second largest city) currently provides its taxpayers with a significantly lower level of per capita police than Los Angeles, Santa Monica and Signal Hill and no longer has its former field anti-gang unit.
The chart above displays LB's FY 20 budgeted police level. In Sept. 2020, the City Council voted to approve a FY 21 budget that defunds 48 officers, leaving LB with a FY21 budgeted sworn police level for routine citywide deployment of roughly 1.5 officers per thousand residents. (The ratio reflects citywide deployable officers, doesn't include officers limited to and paid by Port/Airport/LBCC/LBUSC/LBTransit/Metro; if contracted officers are included, ratio would still be roughly 1.75 officers per thousand.) By comparison, Los Angeles provides its taxpayers with roughly 2.47 officers per thousand residents, and Signal Hill delivers 3.15 sworn officers per thousand residents for its taxpayers.
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