Democratic Mayor Karen Bass of Los Angeles ordered a massive deployment of police officers to the city’s Metro system following a wave of stabbings, the Los Angeles Times reported.
The high-profile stabbings left a 66-year-old woman dead in one incident, while another incident involved a bus driver who was left begging for help, according to the LAT. Bass, who also heads the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, said she would introduce a resolution at the board’s next meeting to formalize a “surge” of police officers.
“The spike in violent crime on Metro that we have recently seen against operators and riders has been absolutely unacceptable,” Bass said, according to the LAT. “We wanted to act immediately because we understand that our No. 1 job is for Angelenos across L.A. County to feel safe.”
Crime in Los Angeles has been a pressing issue, with a number of high-profile burglaries hitting Bass, actor Keanu Reeves and actress Lena Waithe, among others, while the city is losing population. Bass also expressed concerns that the feeling of a lack of safety due to the stabbings would hurt ridership.
“The increase in crime threatens to derail our goal of exceeding 1.2 million weekday riders, if we cannot ensure the safety of those who want and need to use the bus and rail,” Bass wrote in the motion for the upcoming Metro board meeting.
Bass’s call, though, drew criticism from the Alliance for Community Transit, a group calling for eliminating fares, social justice causes and better service, the LAT reported.
“In the last seven years, Metro spent over $1.1 billion on law enforcement; the budget allocations to Metro’s police contracts increase every year, and yet this has not brought us closer to an enjoyable and safe system,” the group’s director, Laura Raymond, told the LAT.
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