For the seventh straight year, crime dropped in Los Angeles in 2009. The former homicide capital of the nation shows few signs of the dark, dangerous place depicted in countless end-of-the-century movies.
Indeed, the 314 homicides logged last year in this city of nearly 4 million people was the lowest in more than four decades. Violent crimes of all sorts were similarly down.
What makes this all the more astonishing is that the crime rate declined even as the population and, in the last year, unemployment grew.
Part of this downward crime trend can be attributed to the continuing demographic shifts of the nation's second-largest city. In the last decade, the depressed core of the city has been repopulated by middle-class professionals and artists, gentrifying many formerly crime-ridden neighborhoods into blocks of mod lofts and hipster cafes. The shift has pushed the poor - and the associated crime - to cities and communities on the outskirts of Los Angeles County.
But another factor cannot be discounted. The reduction in crime also coincides with a concerted effort by the mayor and Police Department to increase the police force by 1,000 officers to about 10,000 officers - a goal the mayor has come tantalizingly close to reaching in recent months. While there's no concrete link between the two, it is the result that Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa promised when he sold a hike in trash fees to Angelenos to pay for more cops. You give me another $24 a month in trash fees, he said, and I'll give you safer streets.
From all appearances, it seemed to have worked. Credit goes to the mayor for making good on this promise. But now both he and his new police chief need to protect this winning formula, to keep the City Council from halting new officer hiring and sending the city back into the dark ages - the 1990s.
Villaraigosa was able to stick to his commitment of putting more police on the streets with the help of a polished politician, then-police Chief William Bratton. Bratton stood firm against a poaching council when it wanted to use money earmarked for training new cops to help ease the budget crisis. And now with Bratton gone, the current class of Police Academy recruits could be the last if the City Council tries to use new recruiting funds to plug other budget holes.
This is likely to be new Chief Charlie Beck's biggest challenge as he leads the Los Angeles Police Department into the new decade.
By all accounts, Beck is a cop's cop. That means he's popular with the rank-and-file officers. And, as a veteran LAPD officer, he understands the inner workings of the department. But it's unclear yet if he possesses the political skill to fend off the fiscal advances of a determined City Council.
Beck, who told the Daily News that he would like to see the department reach 12,000 cops, must resist the pressure from both the City Council and the police union (which supports raises for existing cops before hiring new ones) and continue the commitment that the mayor made to make Los Angeles the safest large city in America. We encourage him to tap into his inner Bratton if he must and find the strength to do what's right for the city - even if it means taking the political bullets.
