Total positives (red dots) and deaths (black dots) | Daily new reported positive cases |
LB Hospitalizations (from Apr. 20): Red bars = Snapshot 12:01 a.m. Blue bars = Updated daily |
(June 5, 2020, 9:05 a.m.) -- Within a little over six weeks - April 15 through May 31 -- Long Beach had 20 shooting crime scenes [persons hit (including a homicide) and pesons-not-hit (vehicles or buildings damaged/hit)]. 17 of the 20 shooting crime scenes disproportionately impacted working class areas in LB's 1st and 6th Council districts.
Over the course of several months. the two Council districts have also had the city's highest number of shootings and homicides. In some months, their per capita shootings and/or homicides have exceeded that of Chicago (LBREPORT.com coverage here and here and here and here) LB's 1st and 6th Council districts are represented by incumbents either recently elected (1st dist Zendejas) or repeatedly re-elected/now facing re-election (6th dist. Andrews) with the financial support of the LB Police Officers Ass'n PAC and LB Mayor Robert Garcia (who has cited "citywide" instead of Council district-focused crime stats in stating "crime is down.". LBPD crime stats don't separately report shootings. Like many law enforcement agencies, LBPD includes shootings within "aggravated assaults," which satisfies federal reporting standards but makes it difficult to access data on LB shootings. This is a discretionary action enabled without objection for years by the LB City Council. (In L.A., LAPD does provide shooting crime stats in its publicly released stats.) LBREPORT.com independently tracks shootings after confirming each one with LBPD. [Scroll down for further.] |
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In the 1st district, Mary Zendejas was elected to the City Council in a November 2019 no-runoff special election with over $100,000 in campaign contributions from corporate/development interests, government-affairs lobbyists and organized labor (reported in LBREPORT.com's Follow the Money coverage here, here, here, here, and here). Those sums were amplified by $30,000 from the LB Police Officers Ass'n PAC, Mayor Garcia and immediate past 1st dist. Council incumbent (now state Senator) Lena Gonzalez, who bypassed LB's voter-enacted contribution limits to candidate campaigns by giving $10,000 each to the LB Firefighters Ass'n PAC which then used the sum to run an "independent expenditure" campaign (not legally bound by candidate contribution limits) to support electing Zendejas. Mayor Garcia then appointed newly-elected Zendejas (with Council voted approval) to chair the Council's "Elections Oversight Committee" where she recently proposed increasing the amounts candidates can raise during election cycles. Zendejas will face 1st dist. voters in March 2022 (with fundraising slated to begin in March 2021. In the adjacent 6th Council district, Council incumbent Dee Andrews (first elected in 2007, named by the Council as its Vice Mayor in mid-2018) supported by the LB Police Officers Ass'n PAC, Mayor Garcia and corporate/development interests. His opponent, Suely Saro, is supported by organized labor.
LBREPORT.com has repeatedly described the disproportionate number of shootings and homicide experienced by families and businesses in LB's predominantly working class 1st and 6th Council districts as a "tale of two cities" and LB's worst chronic inequity.
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