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Officials in Los Angeles voted this week to re-fund their police amid an upswing in crime.
Less than a year after “defund the police” fervor swept across major cities from coast to coast, Los Angeles County Metro, the region’s public transportation agency, voted Thursday to boost police funding by $36 million.
The vote passed 12-0, including a “yea” from Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, a major advocate of defund the police measures, who chairs the board.
The money will go toward the agency’s law-enforcement contracts with the Los Angeles Police Department, Long Beach Police Department and Los Angeles Sherriff’s Department.
Los Angeles has been among the nation’s leading communities in efforts to defund the police.
The city council voted last July to slash $150 million from the LAPD budget, while voters in November approved a measure to devote 10 percent of the city’s general fund to non-police public safety measures.
The region, however, has seen a sudden upswing in a variety of crimes over the past year.
Los Angeles Police Chief Michael Moore lamented in January a more than eight-fold rise in shootings, from 59 in the first two weeks of 2021 compared with just 7 at the same time last year.
“Gang intervention trying, but we need our community and elected officials,” he tweeted.
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