Captain Smith on what LAPD is Doing Downtown
DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — Don Garza has posted video of Captain Smith's presentation at last night's DLANC meeting. As always, Captain Smith had great things to say about what LAPD is doing Downtown. It's a good watch, and I'm glad Don was there to film it.
A couple things stuck out to me:
First, since the Safer Cities initiative started Downtown in mid-October they've made 4100 arrests. Most of those are narcotics arrests, targeting the sellers, not the users. They've got lots of undercover work going on. Captain Smith said that just recently they made 13 arrests that seized 80 pounds of raw heroin.
The second thing might seem small, but I think it's actually pretty important. LAPD has started making arrests on trash dumping in "Toy town" (to use Captain Smith's words, which I like). It's amazing how much garbage gets dumped on the streets in the wholesale sides of Downtown. That junk blows around, clutters the drains, and generally makes the neighborhood feel ugly. To have that stuff getting targeted is a great step forward.
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Jason on January 11, 2007, at 10:38AM – #1
It's funny... there's a public dump in Tampa, Florida that residents affectionately refer to as Toy Town.
Props to LAPD for trying to clean up the joint with what little resources they have!
Scott Mercer on January 12, 2007, at 12:13PM – #2
4100 arrests? Whoa!
No wonder Main Street is a little less crowded these days.
LAPD doing stand-out work there.