Mayor Villaraigosa, Chief Beck Come to North Hollywood to Celebrate Reduced 2010 Crime Rates

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa gave local residents some good news Wednesday night: Citywide crime rates have fallen for the eighth consecutive year.

Villaraigosa, Los Angeles City Councilmember Paul Krekorian, LAPD Chief of Police Charlie Beck and Deputy Chief Kirk J. Albanese, head of the Valley Bureau, held a town hall meeting Wednesday evening at Valley Plaza Park to discuss the LAPD's newly released crime statistics for 2010.

According to the figures, violent crime was down 11.1 percent citywide in 2010, while property crime was down 5.8 percent; the per-capita crime rate was the lowest since 1952, and the homicide rate was at its lowest since 1967. In North Hollywood, violent crime was down 7.5 percent and property crime was down 5.1 percent from 2009.

Villaraigosa credited several schemes, including the Summer Night Lights gang-reduction program that was instigated in 2008. Its aim is to keep the lights on in parks after dark, and the gang members out.

"The Summer Night Lights program started with eight parks, then 12 then 24," said Villaraigosa. "Last summer we extended the hours to midnight, with services for kids, families, at-risk kids and even some gang members at these parks."

The mayor talked about his plans to reduce crime even further.

"We do it all on the numbers: Where the gang crime is, where the community assets are, where do we clip our resources–which are limited–in the most effective way. So for all of those reasons, the city is a lot safer. But it's still not where we want it to be."

Krekorian, who represents District 2, said to the assembled crowd of local residents that Villaraigosa couldn't have improved public safety without "all of you, and your instance that you're going to take control of your neighborhood."

He also spoke about Valley Plaza Park, the venue for the town hall meeting that night.

"This is a park that, not too many years ago, was unquestionably gang turf. Families didn’t come to this park, because it was gangland. Well you know that’s not the case anymore," he said. "Because of Summer Night Lights, because of the neighborhood involvement and insistence on taking this park back, gang crime in the last year at this park was down 78 percent."

Beck also took the floor and made time to compare L.A. crime figures with those of other mayor metropolitan cities.

"There is  a common misconception that crime reduction is universal throughout the United States," said Beck. "That is not true. New York did not have a crime reduction last year. New York had a homicide increase last year. The other big city—there’s three of them–Chicago, suffered over 450 murders last year in a city with a million less people than we do."

He also delivered some statistics of his own, comparing the city of today to that of 1992 and 1993.

"In those two years, every category of crime–from homicide to rape to robbery to aggravated assault on down to car theft–was four times what it is today."

Despite the figures, however, some doubts lingered with the audience. One resident questioned lengthy 911 wait times, mentioning that it could take up to ten minutes to be connected to an operator. Beck conceded this point, and blamed statewide budget cuts that led to 911 operators being placed on furlough to save funds. He added that 911 response times in the Valley remained healthy: around 6–7 minutes after dispatch.