LA mayor calls latest crackdown on street camps a success, but legal issues cloud city's shelter and cleanup plans
LOS ANGELES - To hear Mayor Eric Garcetti tell it, a city crackdown on downtown Los Angeles street encampments went off this month with barely a hitch: one arrest, seven people moved to shelters, 13 placed on the waiting list and the number of people in tents cut by more than half.
Cleanup crews with police escorts swept through homeless camps in the El Pueblo historic district, bagging and tagging possessions for storage and dumping tents, trash, needles and human waste.
Garcetti credited an "outreach-led" operation - social workers were at the camps for weeks before police and sanitation crews moved in - for a smooth rollout of a
