We have a once in a lifetime opportunity to re-imagine how our society operates. I worked with Council President Martinez, Councilmember Wesson, and Councilmember Price on legislation that will create an unarmed model of crisis response that would divert non-violent calls for service (mental health crisis, substance abuse, neighbor disputes, etc.) away from LAPD to the appropriate non-law enforcement agencies. Additionally, I worked with my colleague Councilmember Mike Bonin to introduce legislation that aims to remove armed personnel from enforcing traffic violations.
This legislation will completely change the role of law enforcement, but it will take time to implement such sweeping reforms.
In the meantime, I have introduced over 10 pieces of legislation to improve diversity, accountability, and transparency within the LAPD. This progress is the result of residents making their voices heard and demanding better from our city. We have already implemented community-based public safety solutions in South Los Angeles that have proven to be effective. The South LA Community Safety Initiative proves to be an effective model for investing in communities to improve public safety outcomes. I will continue to fight for policies and actions that give our residents access to quality city services and reimagine safety protocols in our communities.
We need to invest in better approaches to crisis response and move forward with implementing the best practices of the 21st-century public safety models. The legislation I introduced will do the following:
- Divert non-violent calls for service to non-law enforcement agencies
- Establish a culture of transparency and accountability within the LAPD
- Diversify LAPD to reflect more African American Officers
- Establish policies for responding to mass demonstrations
- Ban policies requiring predetermined citations, arrests, or investigative contacts
- Require officers to seek consent for search warrants
- Engage and expand multidisciplinary approaches to crisis response
- Develop an external reporting mechanism to combat African American attrition based on internal bias, racism and discrimination
Click here to read the details of all of the legislation introduced to improve public safety.