RE-FUND THE POLICE: Los Angeles mayor urges hiring of over 400 police officers
In the Dec. 10 letter, Bass implored the council to approve $4.4 million in funding, without which the police department will no longer be able to hire incoming recruits.
“It will mean no new cadets in the police academy in January of 2026,” Bass wrote in the letter. “It will mean increasing overtime hours and costs as fewer officers will have greater workloads. It will mean that we strain officers’ health with longer shifts and more responsibility.”
Bass and the president of the Los Angeles City Council, Marqueece Harris-Dawson, did not respond to The Center Square for comment this week. The Los Angeles Police Department deferred questions to the city council and mayor’s office on Thursday and did not return calls and emails from The Center Square on Friday.
In her letter, Bass noted the nation’s second-largest city can’t have a police force that staffs at the same levels as 1995. She also noted Los Angeles doesn’t have enough police officers per 1,000 residents the way other large cities throughout the country do. The demands of the police department with the upcoming 2028 Olympics and 2026 FIFA World Cup, she wrote, would strain the LAPD.
Weird, the LA Times reported last summer that she’d reached a deal with the city council to restore hiring funds already.
Then there’s this from 2020:
She said police department budgets could be reduced if communities shift some of the burdens to other agencies.
“Police officers are the first ones to say they are law enforcement officers, they’re not social workers. What we have done in our country is, we have not invested in health, social and economic problems in communities. We leave the police to pick up the pieces,” said Bass, of Los Angeles. “In my city, for example, on any given night, we have over 40,000 people who are homeless. Why should the police be involved with that?”
Addressing substance abuse and similar issues, Bass asked why “police officers have to clean up society’s problems?”
She blamed it on the “lopsided” priorities of cities.
“Why doesn’t a city deal with its social problems so not so much money would have to go to law enforcement?” she questioned.
How’d that work out for you as mayor, Ms. Bass?