Los Angeles police are struggling to combat an increase in crime across the city this year, including a sharp spike in the number of people shot, it was reported today.
Officials said that shootings recorded by police are up 31 percent, amounting to 54 additional victims this year, the Los Angeles Times reported. Overall, the LAPD reports a 27 percent spike in violent crime and a 12 percent rise in property crime through March 21 compared to the same period last year, according to the newspaper.
Los Angeles police Chief Charlie Beck said crime levels are running at roughly the same as 2012 and that the increases are spread out across a variety of neighborhoods.
“So we are moving backward from ‘14 and obviously we’re taking steps to address that crime is up in every one of the bureaus,” Beck said in comments reported by The Times.
Police detected the trend this year and have been taking steps to add more officers into troubled areas. One strategy has been deploying officers from the elite Metropolitan Division into neighborhoods that have seen a spike in gang-related violence, The Times reported.
The department is also expanding gang intervention programs, in which police work with young people to steer them away from criminal activity, according to the newspaper. Police believe gang-related assaults are behind the increase of shooting victims.
The department is also relying more on crime data to help predict where hot spots might develop and deploy extra resources there, according to Beck.
The one bright spot in the crime statistics are homicides, which are down slightly (2 percent) compared to 2014, even though shootings are up.
