Police arrive at Ron’s place.
Category: Cops
And yet, cities in the state aren’t necessarily safer than anywhere else in the nation.
Despite that, the chief of the LAPD blames…wait for it…guns.
Thirty-four people were shot in Los Angeles last week, a bloody spike in what is already shaping up to be a violent month and year in the City of Angels, according to authorities.
The bulk of the shootings — 23 — of them occurred in a “remarkably small area” of the Los Angeles Police Department’s 77th Street and Southeast divisions, Chief Michel Moore told the Los Angeles Police Commission Tuesday. Moore called last week a “troubling week,” in a year when violent crime has increased 7.1% year-to-date. So far this year, the LAPD has responded to 575 more violent crimes than this time last year.
Barely halfway through the month, 70 people have already been shot in Los Angeles, up from 55 during the same period last year. There have been 107 homicides so far in 2022, while at this point in 2021 there were 109.
While the number has decreased slightly in 2022, Moore said it represents a 37% increase over a two-year period. Overall, violent crime — aggravated assaults, street robberies, and commercial robberies — have climbed 15.2 percent over a two-year period.
…
“The problem that we have throughout Los Angeles is too many guns in too many hands,” Moore said, reiterating a belief he frequently shares with the commission. The added enforcement in the 77th Street Division resulted in 16 gun arrests involving 20 firearms, including “a number of assault rifles,” Moore said.
So, the issue is guns in the most heavily gun-controlled state in the nation?
Sounds to me an awful lot like all the copious amounts of gun control has managed to accomplish is just make the state more hostile toward law-abiding gun owners, rather than actually do much to curb gun possession by violent criminals.
This isn’t much different than the gang heyday of the 1990s when LA was the epicenter of criminal culture.
Since then, the state has passed tons of gun control, ostensibly to impact those same criminals.
As we can see, it worked like a charm.
Look, I get the desire to do something. I also get that people think the problem is the wrong people having guns. I’m not going to argue about armed criminals.
But the laws on the books were designed to stop precisely them from having them, yet it doesn’t appear to have accomplished a blasted thing. Meanwhile, Californians who want to comply with the law are treated like criminals for even wanting a firearm.
It’s just not right.
Then again, it’s never been right to restrict the rights of the ordinary citizen because of the actions of a handful of criminals.
Yet when the LAPD chief talks about too many guns in too many hands rather than the wrong hands, what do you think he’s proposing? Is he acknowledging that gun control has failed the state, or do you think he’s suggesting more of the same?
Well, since he says the problem is “too many hands” and nothing about criminals in possession, it’s clear where he stands on the issue.
It’s also clear that more of the same isn’t going to make things better.
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By the way, 77th Station is right in the middle of the meanest, toughest Gang Neighborhood in Southern California. I should know as I got a lot of students from there for my class in Juvenile Hall. Grumpy
THE NORTHERN TERRITORY POLICE didn’t like the way the NT Local Court dealt with the recent self-defence case, so they decided to take the law into their own hands.
PLAIN CLOTHED AND UNIFORMED POLICE in the NT have raided the house of Ron Sterry, who recently beat police against gun charges after he went to his neighbour’s aid.
The raid was carried out with the support of the drug squad when he was interstate.
They even tried to open Ron’s safe by drilling it because the keys were not in the house – until they were stopped by his lawyer.
The police walked away without any guns. Instead they took his chilli oil and vinegar.
See the video version of this story on NSCTV to get this, and other video content, before it appears here.
All funds raised go towards growing NSCTV into the video channel shooters have been wanting for ages.
Click here to check it out or go to nsctv.com.au.
RON’S ‘LAWFUL’ BEHAVIOUR
Readers might recall that Ron faced five gun charges, three of which were dropped before he went to trial. He was found not guilty of the fourth, and found guilty of a fifth charge (carrying a weapon in public) but he got a good behaviour bond for that.
The magistrate hearing the case saw through the police case and described Ron’s actions as being a ‘lawful excuse’, and ordered the immediate return of his licence, firearms and ammunition.
This was a big win for the Australian shooting community because it showed where protection with firearms was legitimate. Our story was shared on Facebook over 1,000 times and seen by more than a quarter of a million readers.
These are huge numbers – and we think this new story will reach even more people.
SOUR GRAPES
Unhappy with the result, police went to seize Ron’s guns again.
The basis for this is not clear but it seems to be directly related to the court case in that he was found guilty of one of the charges – even though the court dealt with that at the time. It’s relevant to note that the police made no application for his guns to be taken – and you’ll recall the magistrate specifically ordered their return.
The female senior constable leading the raid first went to Ron’s workplace, then to his house where they had no response to a knock on the door.
The officer then called Ron saying ‘she had paperwork for him’ and demanded he came to the front door when he politely told her he was in Adelaide.
She then accused him of lying and said she ‘knew he was in there’ and was watching her on his security cameras. That’s true, because we’ve got over 30GB of footage covering the raid.
Searching at the rear of his place
Going through Ron’s bins, before the search warrant arrives
She said he (Ron) was “making this really difficult”, before hanging up on him. Unhappy, the police went back to his workplace where Ron’s boss went to Ron’s house with a key to let them in.
COPS REASON FOR A SEARCH WARRANT
When Ron’s boss arrived, the drug squad was already there, armed with a search warrant.
While details are a bit sketchy, it would seem the police first on the scene looked through the windows of Ron’s house and saw part of an off-the-shelf chemistry set.
That’s because Ron has an interest in chemistry and has in fact applied to do a degree in chemistry (which is why he was in Adelaide at the time). He was intending to start his degree last year, but this was delayed by the earlier trial.
To be clear, Ron did not have anything in his possession that is illegal or was a precursor to anything illegal – just the kit.
Yet the police saw what he had as a precursor to the manufacture of Methamphetamine. We understand they seized some of the vinegar, which, if the drug squad tried hard enough, would allow them to make nail polish remover.
Police drill into Ron’s safe
POLICE GO AFTER RON’S GUNS
It was during this time the senior connie called Ron a second time, demanding to know where the keys to the safe were.
Ron said they were with him in Adelaide. This resulted in the cops pulling out their drills to get his guns.
Or at least they tried to, until Ron’s lawyer, Jon Bortoli, stepped in to stop them continuing because the police had failed to follow the correct process.
The treatment of Ron follows the recent negative publicity that the NT Police drummed up for themselves over their treatment of fellow officer, Zachary Rolfe, who was cleared over charges for fatally shooting a 19-year-old in the remote community of Yuendumu.
COPS’ HOT TASTE
Among the several items the police seized were several quantities of unidentified liquids, one of which, according to Ron, is a vial of chilli oil – a common ingredient in Chinese and Asian foods.
Among his experiments has been the extraction of caffeine from tea and coffee, acetone from vinegar (which we understand police also took), and other extractions from common household products.
Chilli oil
HELPING RON
We stood by Ron before, and we’ll do it again.
This is likely to become a more interesting fight because the basis for the raid is pretty thin and seems to cover matters that the courts have already dealt with.
In the meantime, Ron needs our help – again. We’ve already re-engaged Jon Bortoli as his lawyer and are working hard to see if we can have this addressed through whatever means may be possible.
We want to send a powerful message to the NT Police not to interfere with a shooter who has done nothing wrong, so have started a new fighting fund to help Ron out.
Plus, we might even send a chemistry kit to the NT Police Commissioner.
Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva, joined by sheriffs from two other southern California counties, said Saturday he hopes there’s a referendum on “wokeism” in 2022, arguing so-called “defunders” have wreaked havoc on public safety as evidenced by the worsening homeless and crime crisis.
In the past ten years, Los Angeles County has spent a conservative estimate of some $6.5 billion in addressing the homelessness issue, only to see the number of homeless people living in the county increase from about 39,000 people to more than 83,000 in that time frame, Villanueva said.
There are some 5,700 homeless living on trains in Los Angeles, and last week, a dead man’s body remained riding through the MTA system for a six-hour time frame, Villanueva said.
“Woke-ism is on the ropes. Let’s put it out of its misery in 2022,” Villanueva said Saturday. “My only goal is to make LA livable again.”
Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva gives details surrounding a weeklong, statewide operation aimed at combatting human trafficking, at a press conference held in Hall of Justice on Tuesday, Feb. 15, 2022 in Los Angeles, CA. ((Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images))
Speaking on stage during a tri-county sheriff’s forum, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco and San Bernardino County Sheriff Shannon Dicus both said that unlike Villanueva, they have healthy working relationships with their Boards of Supervisors. But in Los Angeles County, the board in recent months has usurped Villanueva’s authority for refusing to enforce the county’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
The move, the sheriff reiterated Saturday, jeopardizes the jobs of some 4,000 Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department members amid the crime wave and homeless crisis.
Villanueva said he expected Los Angeles County to soon issue 45-day notices that pay will be suspended, accusing the county of bending state law to “suit their own needs.”
“The tragedy of Los Angeles besides their suicide pact they have going on with the city and the county is that they are not building capacity for mental health treatment, residential and substance abuse treatment,” Villanueva said. “We have one quarter of the nation’s entire homeless population is in my county. I call that a problem. I just can’t convince the Board of Supervisors or City Council to understand it the same way.”
A jogger walks past a homeless encampment in the Venice Beach section of Los Angeles. A dead body was discovered on fire Tuesday morning near downtown Los Angeles. ( (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez, File))
An off-duty deputy attending the forum told Fox 11 Los Angeles that like Villanueva, he feels the “profession is under siege.”
Besides the board, Villanueva called out Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon as allegedly contributing to the uptick in violent crime, including follow home and smash and grab robberies.
Last year, the sheriff’s department had made arrests, conducted investigations, and presented evidence to prosecutors in 13,238 cases that the district attorney’s office later rejected because of “special orders,” not a lack of evidence, Villanueva said.
“We know very well how to fight criminals. What is unique to where we are now is we are fighting state government in our ability to be able to protect you,” Bianco said Saturday, also outlining how law enforcement faces challenges at the state-level with Propositions 47 and 64.
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Villanueva, a Democrat running for re-election in June, called on the audience to identify any “defunders” and ensure that this year regardless of party, candidates who support public safety are elected or reelected to public office at the national, state and local level in 2022.
“The main tragedy of this county and city government in LA is they only allow one ideology, only one point of view on every single thing they do,” Villanueva said. “I want to introduce conservative voices, moderate voices on both sides of the aisle, and I’m going to protect and defend the woke crowd, as confused as they may be, I’m still going to defend their right to have that ideology and opinion and I want them to have a seat at the table. They just don’t get to have every single seat.”
Why anybody would want to be a cop in this Zoo of a State is beyond me! Grumpy
SAN ANTONIO (KABB/WOAI) – A woman has been fighting the China Grove Police Department for almost four years to retrieve property she says was unfairly taken from her family.
Brandy Napier lives in Seguin, but she and her husband have family they visit in China Grove.
That’s where her husband Franklin was pulled over by a China Grove officer in August 2018 for reportedly running stop signs.
Brandy says he had just left the gun range and had three guns in the car.
The officer confiscated them, but made no arrest.
No formal report was ever given to the Napier’s, just a burglary inventory sheet typically used to document items stolen in robberies.
“She stated that she didn’t have the proper documentation to give him, so that’s why she put it on that and she let him go,” says Brandy.
Brandy showed us receipts for two of the guns listed in her name and Franklin’s along with the serial numbers listed.
The third gun she says was bought at an auction.
She’s made several attempts to retrieve those guns since, making trips to the City of China Grove office.
Every time she says she’s been told the case is pending in the District Attorney’s office and that the guns couldn’t be returned without documentation from their office.
Brandy made a last ditch effort to retrieve the guns last month.
“He said, ‘I don’t have the documentation from the District Attorney’.”
KABB/WOAI made calls a few weeks ago requesting a formal police report from Franklin’s traffic stop in 2018.
KABB/WOAI also stopped by the department Monday to ask for the report and why the guns hadn’t been returned.
We were told we had to go through the DA’s office to retrieve any information about the case.
The DA’s office sent us a letter, stating that media requests had to be processed by the Attorney General’s office.
But the Napier’s lawyer says he’s checked: it doesn’t look like a case exists with Franklin’s name at the DA’s office and at this point, it’s too late to create a case.
“If they haven’t filed a criminal case against the person by now, the statute of limitations has run,” says attorney Patrick Hancock. “A lot more than two years has gone by, so I don’t think the DA can file anything against him and I don’t believe there’s a case sitting in the DA’s office by China Grove on this matter.”
Nearly four years later, no arrest or charges have been filed, a red flag for this attorney.
“If they can’t produce the guns that were taken, the personal property of the individual that was taken and they can’t produce a public police report to even verify that a China Grove officer stopped them and took an individual’s property, then they need to be investigated by the Texas Rangers,” says Hancock.
Brandy says to some it may seem like they just lost a few guns.
But for her family, it’s about more than that.
“God forbid if it gets in the wrong hands or if it’s already gotten in the wrong hands.”
An Atlanta security guard was brutally murdered outside a restaurant on the city’s southwest side earlier this week.
Investigators say the shooting happened around 7 p.m. Monday at American Wings & Seafood. The victim, identified as 51-year-old Anthony Frazier, was shot in the back of the head.
Surveillance video released to the public shows exactly how the deadly encounter played out.
Mr. Frazier is walking up the sidewalk when the young perp sneaks up from behind him and fatally shoots the older man.
Local patron Kam Kae told WSB-TV that the victim was a standup guy.
“So attentive, he always watched the door. Why would somebody do that to him?” she asked.
“For the most part, they’re very wholesome people, the owners themselves. Usually, they’re always on point, very attentive with orders. I know that they hire security just for their safety as well as the consumers safety. He was a good guy,” she added.
Along with the suspect who was wearing a black Nike ball cap and carrying a camouflage backpack, police want to speak with several witnesses, one of which saw the incident but declined to intervene or administer aid to the victim.
Several others showed up after the shooting and appear to rifle through Mr. Frazier’s clothes. Police put out a photo of all of those involved:
Very hard thing to watch happen, not only the cold-blooded murder of a responsible citizen but the complete indifference to it by those witnesses in the neighborhood. Hopefully, this is not a sign of the times. (THEY ARE!!! Grumpy)
Christopher Worth is no longer on this earth.
Late last month, the 39-year-old career criminal met his end in a carjacking gone wrong.
Police say Worth was driving in Grand Rapids, Michigan when the stolen car he was in broke down.
That’s when Worth targeted the home of Alan Lenhart — and the truck that was parked in the driveway.
Lenhart confronted Worth after he heard the perp busting in the truck’s windows. Apparently, Worth was hoping to find the keys on the seat.
“We yelled at him to go away. He proceeded to advance on us. We shut the door, locked him out, called 911,” explained Lenhart to local affiliate News 8. “I loaded my deer hunting gun.”
Worth did not leave the scene. Instead, he went around to the back of the house and attempted to force his way in. He was dead set on getting the keys to that truck.
“When he was in the backyard, he was going, ‘Give me the keys, give me the keys,’ and kept approaching,” Lenhart said.
“I told him, ‘Go away, I’ve got a shotgun on you,’ and he kept coming,” he said.
“Then he started shooting at me. Bullets going past your head, like that,” Lenhart continued. “Took cover. And he was going back down, run away.”
At some point during the confrontation, Lenhart opened fire on Worth, fatally wounding him.
Thankfully, Lenhart and his wife were not injured. It’s not clear how many shots were fired.
Police pronounced Worth, who they noted was a “parole absconder,” dead at the scene. They believe he may have been involved in a similar crime in the area.
“It’s certainly something we’re going to vet. This person has a pretty substantial criminal history,” Kent County Sheriff Michelle LaJoye-Young said.
Following the harrowing encounter, Lenhart was a bit rattled.
“[I’m a] Religious man, so it’s still tough,” he told reporters. “Scared to death. Who knows when we’ll be done with that, I guess. Hard to go back in your own home after this happens in it.”
But the homeowner maintains he had no choice but to use deadly force.
“We had to do it. There was no way around it. Absolutely no way around it,” Lenhart said, later adding, “He was crazy.”
On March 22, in the broad daylight of a typically gorgeous day in Beverly Hills, thieves in hoodies and sunglasses took a sledgehammer to the plate glass window of Peter Sedghi’s boutique and furiously rummaged through the shards. In less than 90 seconds, the robbers stole more than $3 million worth of jewels. Two days later, in response to a wave of high-end robberies, the Los Angeles Police Department announced there would be no arrests. Instead, it cautioned Hollywood residents not to wear high-quality jewelry in public.
“Beverly Hills is one of the most affluent, safest neighborhoods in the world and now everyone is scared,” Sedghi said. “All of my clients – no one wears anything.”
Crime has risen dramatically in Los Angeles, as well as in many other major cities, since the start of the pandemic and last summer’s protests against police violence resulted in the slashing of many law enforcement budgets. News stories document rising fear across LA and crime has become the major issue in both the upcoming mayor’s election and a possible recall of the district attorney. It may not be surprising that issues of race and class are driving this concern, though they have a new twist.
Wealthy and predominantly white neighborhoods have experienced the sharpest upticks in a wide array of crimes, according to an analysis conducted for RealClearInvestigations by criminologist John Lott of the Crime Prevention Research Center.
Iconic areas such as Beverly Hills (90210, highlighted) and Bel Air are seeing outsized crime spikes.
The zip codes showing the largest increases are home to film and pop stars, including Beverly Hills, of “90210” fame, where Beyonce and Jay-Z have their West Coast house; Bel Air, of “Fresh Prince” Will Smith fame, where Jennifer Lopez now resides; and Los Feliz, where Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom share a house and where Angelina Jolie has resided since her divorce from Brad Pitt. Nearby, the U.S. Postal Service has suspended delivery to one neighborhood in Santa Monica – a town where celebrities including Tom Cruise, Christian Bale and Sandra Bullock reportedly have homes – because “multiple carriers have been subjected to assault and threats of assault.”
Lott’s analysis (data here), which correlates census and LAPD crime statistics for the period January 2019 to January 2022, also reveals that those neighborhoods now account for much greater shares of the total number of crimes committed in Los Angeles. It shows that the richer and whiter the area, the greater the increase in both raw crime totals and percentages of total city crime. This includes a wide range of felonies, from robbery, burglary, shoplifting and car theft to aggravated assault and rape. Although poor and minority neighborhoods still experience the largest total number of crimes, including violent crimes such as murder, the shift to relatively safer neighborhoods is pronounced.
While the total number of rapes fell in Los Angeles during the 37-month period studied, their share spiked in predominantly white neighborhoods – rising 18.2% in neighborhoods where they comprise 81% to 100% of residents.
Lott’s analysis found a similar trend for aggravated assault.
Lott also found that while the number of reported robberies across the city has fallen slightly, the share of total crimes increased sharply in wealthier and whiter zip codes, rising by 11.8% annually over the 37 months in the most heavily white neighborhoods.
“For median house values, the share of robberies fell for the highest valued homes by 4.9%, but they rose by 9.7% annually for zip codes where the median house was $1 million to $1.5 million, and by 15.2% for zip codes where the median house was $1.5 million to $2 million,” Lott said.
Fear is more pronounced than ever in posh areas, according to several Angelenos familiar with the turf of the rich and famous. This is evidently in part because the fancy wheels often seen on the streets of Beverly Hills, Brentwood, or other upscale communities have also been the prime targets of thieves, Lott’s analysis indicated.
Although Lott only analyzed data from Los Angeles, anecdotal evidence and news reports suggest similar trends may be occurring in Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, and other cities experiencing crime waves.
“You see people just smashing glass and stealing on the Miracle Mile in Chicago, videos of people in cities just carrying bags full of clothes they’ve stolen,” Lott said. “I don’t think we’ve ever seen crime quite like that in the U.S.
“There has surely been a change in where the crimes are occurring, moving from lower income to higher property values and to more places. I was surprised by the extent of it.”
Hollywood imitates Hollywood: Vehicle theft comes closer to home for “Gone in 60 Seconds” star Angelina Jolie.
Just what has made once more insulated neighborhoods vulnerable is difficult to pinpoint. RealClearInvestigations reached out to the LAPD and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, as well as the Beverly Hills Police Department, but none of the three agencies returned phone calls or responded to emailed questions. Details on the race or ethnicity of those involved in the crimes were thus generally unavailable. Also unavailable were official assessments of whether any of the incidents constituted hate crimes.
Lott noted how California voters have moved the needle on crime in recent years. Proposition 47 decriminalized a number of theft and drug charges, making them misdemeanors, as it did several “non-violent” felonies. Voters also approved Proposition 57, which allows for early release of non-violent offenders.
Los Angeles and other urban centers, including the Washington, D.C. area, have also been plagued recently by the phenomenon of “crime tourism,” in which organized gangs from South America obtain visas online and jet into the Golden State to burglarize residences – operations that have targeted luxury homes.
“They’re coming here for the purpose of targeting neighborhoods,” a cop in neighboring Ventura County told ABC’s LA affiliate on March 23. “Not violent crimes, but they’re going after the big bucks.”
The Los Angeles Times reported this week that more than a dozen gangs “are targeting some of the city’s wealthiest residents … sending out crews in multiple cars to find, follow and rob people driving high-end vehicles or wearing expensive jewelry, according to police.”
Bling-averse: “All of my clients – no one wears anything,” says jeweler Peter Sedghi, at ransacked shop.
Lili Bosse, recently elected mayor of Beverly Hills for the third time, said she sees the crime hitting once seemingly insulated zones as an extension of what is happening to the entire city. “We live in chaos, it seems like Gotham City,” she told RCI. “People have been traumatized regardless of where they live. It’s not just a matter of physical safety, this affects one’s sense of mental well-being. In Los Angeles, there is a sense of anxiety and uncertainty.”
Indeed, a look at “other theft” outside of burglary and motor vehicles also shows a notable shift toward Tinseltown’s fabled moneyed quarters.
Between 2019 and 2022, other thefts were up 16.7% where median home prices top $2 million, and up 8.7% where homes range from $1.5 to $2 million, “which is expensive even in Los Angeles,” Lott noted. Meanwhile, where homes are between $400,000 and $500,000, other theft dropped 5.5% and 4.6% where the median home is below $400,000, the analysis showed.
These shifts are in addition to some headline-grabbing incidents that have shaken the rich and famous. Last December, Jacqueline Avant, the African-American wife of Motown Records chief Clarence Avant, was murdered in her Beverly Hills home, and in January Brianna Kupfer, a white UCLA graduate student, was killed in a random attack at a luxury furniture store in Brentwood.
Jacqueline Avant, Beverly Hills murder victim, in 2020 with her husband, Motown Records chief Clarence Avant.
Bosse stressed crime in her recent victory, and the issue has taken center stage in Los Angeles politics. The mayor’s race has seen billionaire developer Rick Caruso make the rise in crime a centerpiece of his campaign, vowing to restore the ranks and funding of the LAPD, which has seen both slashed since George Floyd was murdered by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020. Last July, the city council voted to cut LAPD money by $150 million.
But even more than the mayor’s race, the disgust and vulnerability felt by many Angelenos is fueling the recall effort against District Attorney George Gascon. Bankrolled by more than $3 million from George Soros-funded PACs, Gascon came to office with a promise to “turn our court system upside down.”
The recall-Gascon forces hope to follow the path of famously liberal San Francisco, which put on the ballot a recall of prograssive District Attorney Chesa Boudin – who has delivered on his promise to radically reform criminal justice since his election in 2019. And the money flowing to the Gascon effort would seem to reflect the trends detected in Lott’s analysis for RCI.
Big money Democrats who live in Los Angeles’ toniest districts have contributed to Gascon’s recall, according to a recent article in Los Angeles magazine which cited an exclusive look at still unreleased donors’ lists.
The article named supermarket heir and Bill Clinton buddy Ron Burkle, movie titans like Mike Medavoy, founder of Orion Pictures, and Hillary Clinton campaign bundlers such as Jordan Kaplan of Pacific Palisades.
But among the most ardent supporters of Gascon’s recall are the ranks of his deputy district attorneys who are already engaged in litigation against some of his left-wing initiatives, such as refusing to file enhancements on charges that deputy DAs say California law requires of prosecutors.
George Gascon, district attorney: The vulnerability felt by many Angelenos is propelling the effort to remove him.
“The DA doesn’t ask for bail on non-violent offenders and criminals aren’t held accountable for having a gun,” said Eric Siddall, president of the Association of Deputy District Attorneys, their union. “That’s one reason you’re seeing that in neighborhoods traditionally considered safe – no one is detained, no one is held accountable any longer.”
Siddall believes the numbers showing a big shift to more privileged Los Angeles neighborhoods could be less pronounced because “non-violent property crimes are the most underreported of all, which happens for factors like the relationship people have with the police, the victim feeling like it serves no real purpose to report it, or they might fear retaliation.”
In more white-collar circles, however, Siddall said, fear of crime is changing behaviors.
“Anecdotally, I can’t tell you how many people have come up to me and asked if I could recommend a certain kind of firearm,” he said. “People are signing up for gun training courses, and these are people who never before in their lives ever thought of having a gun.”
Gascon was an architect of Proposition 47, the decriminalization measure, and a backer of Proposition 57, the early-release measure. Momentum may be growing for a repeal of the first initiative, along with possibility of a major change among Los Angeles’ top elected positions.
For now, however, that offers little solace to Angelenos who aren’t used to feeling crime’s pinch.
“A lot of people are afraid,” Sedghi said. “Everyone is thinking about crime and worried about being a victim. People are looking behind them all the time while driving home, afraid they are being followed.”