When Mineappolis law enforcement murdered George Floyd in 2021, thousands of Americans nationwide took to the streets to protest police violence against people of color. In LA, a big part of that movement centered around calls to defund the Los Angeles Police Department.
Three years later, that hasn’t happened. The police budget is bigger than ever, and Mayor Karen Bass is working to increase the ranks of officers. Last week, the City Council approved a police labor contract that would add $384 million over four years to hike police pay.
Meanwhile, many Angelenos’ feelings about law enforcement remain ambivalent, according to annual polling conducted by the The Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University.
Fernando Guerra, director of the center, says that while Angelenos support the LAPD as a whole, they have big questions about how many increases are being allocated to the department, and oppose increasing the budget.
“People believe that too much is being spent, and they would support the reallocation of resources and budget to social workers mental health care and other social services,” says Guerra.
Melina Abdullah, co-founder of Black Lives Matter LA, says regular surveys by the People’s Budget LA Coalition reflect similar sentiments.
“What we see is the overwhelming number of Angelenos want to divest from policing and parking enforcement, and invest in the things that actually keep communities safe,” she says.
Abdullah says that decisions by public officials to continue to inflate police spending shows that the city is “out of step with what the people say that they want,” and places some of the blame on intense lobbying by the Los Angeles Police Protective League (LAPPL), the union that represents city police.
“We know that many of these elected officials don't want to face the wrath of LAPPL when they run for reelection,” says Abdullah.
She praises the actions of a new bloc of progressive councilmembers, including Hugo Soto-Martinez, Eunisses Hernandez, and Nithya Raman, for voting no on the recent contract that would dedicate nearly $1 billion to LAPD raises and bonuses.
“City Council members should be courageous, especially when other city workers are having to go out on strike,” she says. “Especially when we talk about intervention workers and prevention workers who work for the city making close to minimum wage. We cannot be giving away another what's estimated to be $1 billion in contracts to LAPD.”
Guerra says despite improvements, the LAPD still has a long way to go when it comes to rebuilding trust with certain groups in LA.
“This police department has to make itself more trustworthy in different communities,” he says. “We all understand that in the Black community of Los Angeles, in the Latino community, they don't trust the police to the same degree that [they do] in other communities.”
Abdullah, meanwhile, says reform is not the answer — finding a new system of public safety is.
“I don't want police in the park playing basketball with my kids. That's not what they need to be doing. Where the trust needs to be built is among park workers, among youth workers. We need to invest in those things.”