From more cops to defund: Candidates for LA mayor differ on crime and policing
LOS ANGELES — One candidate wants to make the Los Angeles Police Department larger than it has ever been. Another envisions a future where America's second largest city no longer needs police. The others have staked out middle ground.
After the tumult of recent years, it should come as no surprise that the race to become Los Angeles' next mayor has focused largely on issues surrounding crime, public safety and policing.
Mass protests after the 2020 murder of George Floyd ignited fierce, ongoing debate about the role LAPD should play in the city and turned renewed scrutiny on long-running concerns about officers' sometimes heavy-handed tactics. The city, meanwhile, had one of its deadliest years in the past two decades and helped elect a controversial reformer to serve as the county's top prosecutor.
But the candidates for mayor differ on the correct path forward, mirroring a nationwide struggle over how to balance the need to combat rising crime with calls to rethink a status quo in policing that has disproportionately affected communities of color.
