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| Photo Credit: AP. |
The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) is cutting its homicide division detectives to just 10 people amid rising crimes in a move possibly linked to “defund the police” scheme.
The legendary
LAPD have investigated some of the most complicated homicide and murder cases
ranging from – the Black Dahlia, the Hillside Strangler, the Onion Field
murders, and the Charles Manson family murders, Washington Examiner reports.
An LAPD insider
told the Washington Examiner that detectives have been reduced in the vaulted
Robbery Homicide Division due to a “defund the police” mindset that did not
just start after George Floyd death in 2020 but way back before the incident.
LAPD homicide detectives shrink from 100 to 25 people. Why defund the police?
The Department
had no fewer than 100 people, with 25 assigned to handle homicides, a decade
before Chief Michael Moore took office in 2018, Washington Examiners quoted one
of its members. All these is happening at a time when crime rate has surged and
homicides rose to a 15-year high.
“When I come
to LA, I’m carrying my gun 24/7 — I’m not going to be a victim,” said the
detective, who declined to be named out of fear of repercussions, according to the
Washington Examiner. “It’s a scary time in L.A. I’ve never seen it this bad in
my decades as a police officer, not even after the ‘92 riots.”
More people killed in first half of 2022 in Los Angeles - a 15 year high
More people
were killed during the first half of 2022 than in any of the same time periods
of the past 15 years, a study by Crosstown, a nonprofit news organization based
at the University of Southern California showed, according to Washington
Examiner. 181 deaths are recorded this year compared with the 397 murders last
year, the highest since 2007.
Most of the
crimes involved guns mostly centered in Los Angeles’s low-income inner city.
Police are killers - Mayor Eric Garcetti
Mayor Eric
Garcetti denounced the police as “killers” at a church event after Floyd was
killed.
“It starts
someplace, and we say we are going to be who we want to be or we’re going to
continue being the killers that we are,” Garcetti said in 2020, referring to
his plans to cut the LAPD’s budget, according to the Washington Examiner.
The downsizing
is also felt at the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, which patrols
unincorporated areas and contracts with numerous cities. 25% of the detective
division is missing because county lawmakers have cut the budget and installed
a hiring freeze, according to Washington Examiner.