Los Angeles reduces staff in homicide division

 Washington Examiner:

Los Angeles Police Department homicide detectives are legendary, having investigated some of America’s most notorious cases: the Black Dahlia, the Hillside Strangler, the Onion Field murders, and the Charles Manson family murders to name a few.

But these storied detectives have had their ranks decimated down to just 10 people in the vaulted Robbery Homicide Division due to a “defund the police” mindset that began long before George Floyd was killed in 2020, an LAPD insider told the Washington Examiner.

LOS ANGELES SEEKS TO UNSEAT VOCAL SHERIFF IN ‘UNCONSTITUTIONAL’ MOTION

The most prestigious detective unit in the department formerly numbered about 100 people, with approximately 25 assigned to handle homicides, a decade before Chief Michael Moore took office in 2018, according to one of its former members. And to make matters worse, a crime wave is gripping the city where homicides are at 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. “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 were murdered during the first half of 2022 than in any of the same time periods of the past 15 years, according to a study by Crosstown, a nonprofit news organization based at the University of Southern California. The data show 181 deaths this year. Last year, the city had 397 murders, the highest since 2007.

“This is very, very scary for our city, and it's scary for the residents that we are supposed to protect," Sgt. Jerretta Sandoz of the Los Angeles Police Protective League told ABC7 News.

Most of the crimes involved guns and were centered in Los Angeles’s low-income inner city. As crime has continued to rise going back at least a decade, so has the LAPD’s budget — from $1.17 billion in 2010 to $1.88 billion today, ABC7 reported.

Yet Moore has decided against having his homicide unit keep pace with the murder rate. He is not an elected official and supports the policies of Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, who has publicly chastised the police, calling them “killers” at a church event after Floyd died. Moore even took a knee with Black Lives Matter supporters, creating ire among the rank and file.

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The defund the police movement is an insane response to the death of George Floyd who died of a drug overdose while in police custody.   What has already been learned from this movement is that crime explodes when the police are defunded and progressive prosecutors release criminals back into the community.  They are turning once nice places in California into hellholes.  Intelligent citizens are pushing back against this nonsense.