Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass got a rude awakening on Sunday morning.
While she and her family were reportedly at home at Getty House, the official residence of the Los Angeles mayor, an intruder smashed a window at approximately 6:40 a.m., according to the Los Angeles Police Department.
Officers arrived at the home, located on South Irving Boulevard in Windsor Square, roughly five miles west of Los Angeles City Hall, and the suspect was apprehended without incident, Fox News Digital reports. No motive has been disclosed, and the investigation is still ongoing.
“This morning at about 6:40 AM, an intruder broke into Getty House through a window,” Deputy Mayor of Communications Zach Seidl said in a statement. “Mayor Bass and her family were not injured and are safe. The Mayor is grateful to LAPD for responding and arresting the suspect.”
(Video: YouTube)
As with so many of America’s liberal-led cities, Los Angeles has long been plagued with crime, homelessness, and drugs.
“Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón barred prosecutors from pursuing advanced punishments for gang members,” according to Fox News Digital. “As the county’s top prosecutor, Gascón also enacted a series of criminal justice directives since taking office in 2020 that have drawn scorn from opponents and many in law enforcement, such as barring prosecutors from attending parole hearings, promoting zero-cash bail and efforts to end the prosecution of juveniles as adults, even for violent crimes.”
Last month, Bass‘ administration looked at cutting 2,000 vacant city job positions — roughly 5% of the total — to balance Los Angeles’s growing budget crisis, BizPac Review reported. Jobs on the chopping block would potentially include vacant roles at the Transportation Department, Parks and Recreation Department, the Bureau of Sanitation, police departments, and fire departments.
City Controller Kennet Mejia also recommended that Bass and the city raise fees for basic services such as trash collection, sewage control, and public infrastructure such as streetlights, according to the Los Angeles Times.
“Even the elimination of up to 2,000 positions will not be enough to bring anticipated expenditures in 2024-25 aligned with projected revenues,” Mejia wrote in a letter to Bass on March 18. “Consequently, across-the-board reductions to department accounts are likely to be needed to balance the 2024-25 budget which on top of positions being eliminated will severely impact department operations.”
“Meanwhile, Los Angeles continues to struggle with heightened public safety concerns,” BizPac reported. “Violent crime and homicide rates fell in 2023, but the number of murders and gunshot victims that year was still higher than it was in 2019, according to the Times. The number of property and auto thefts rose in 2023; the number of robberies fell in 2023 but most of them involved firearms.”
In January, LAPD Chief Michael Moore argued that the problem isn’t crime, it’s the “perception” of crime.
“The perception of safety remains a concern across this great city,” Moore said during a press conference. “Our commitment is to address that perception, as well as the increased gun violence that we see far too much of still on our streets.”
The “perception” of Los Angeles’s abnormally high homeless population has placed the city at number five out of 48 major cities for most homeless people per capita, according to The Brookings Institute. Roughly 47,000 homeless people are living in Los Angeles, and the city spends over $1 billion per year to try to address the crisis.
And, amid the chaos, the city’s residents are dying of drug overdoses.
The number of overdose deaths resulting from fentanyl use in Los Angeles jumped from 109 in 2016 to more than 1,900 in 2022, representing a 1,652% increase, according to county data. A report released in 2023 found overdose deaths in the homeless population from the use of all drugs jumped 105% from 2019 to 2022.
The city has in some instances provided individuals suffering from addiction with drug paraphernalia so that they can consume substances safely
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Author: Melissa Fine
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