On July 21, 2021, LA county Sheriff Villanueva held a publuc forum Q&A abd presser originally posted on Instagram here
This has now been re-upped to youtube and a transcript made
Ok folks were going to give a good chance for people to catch, join on board and we’re gonna improvise Facebook as our Facebook and iPad is not been very friendly today so we’ll convert and we’ll save the image and we’ll save it with our social media
We’re up to 846 live over there okay so that numbers get real so we’re good to start right good morning everyone, thanks for signing in and tuning in, so we have the quite a bit information to discuss and work in a focus on the homeless but before we start with that are crime stats for this for the week. We have a 56% increase in criminal homicide. We have a 10% increase in aggravated assault and a 29% increase grand theft auto and a 9% increase in arson but according to our politicians everything is okay. The state of California were model of national criminal justice reform. Okay, given that on the CCW front where at the 1213 issued another 241 in the hopper and go to our website get information on that and an unrelated note, crimes of violence with guns with firearms up 50% was corresponding with an increase in the homicide is that number remains fairly consistent. So now let’s go and let's talk about Venice, the boardwalk.
We did some assessments and will continue with that process. Now we had an interruption while we let the, the city of LA Mr. Bonins a fearless group out there on the boardwalk do their thing and there's some shuffling around. We have a map here. This map shows pretty much all the contacts we made the outreach we did. The outreach process is not over. That's ongoing but we did an assessment, we came up with some interesting numbers for the boardwalk and it turns out that it's 70% male, 29% female and a 1% transgender that's on the boardwalk and then we got that 57% whites we get 24% black, we have 13% Hispanic, and other comes out to 4% so those are the numbers on the board in terms of demographics but the really interesting piece of the puzzle here is where they come from for the people we could identify their place of origin. We have 33 contacts are in California and then we have from Illinois, Louisiana we got three individuals from Mexico. We got three from Michigan. Of those seven from Illinois. We got to three from Ohio, three from Texas, we got Colorado, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Georgia. We get one fellow from Germany one from Iraq, we got Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Oregon, South Dakota, Tennessee. I think I know the Tennessee fellow, Washington and Wisconsin. So there you have it folks and that is the 23 states and based on our governor's proclamation the other day that the California dream is alive and well and he's inviting everyone to California to share in the California dream. I don’t know if know he's pining for the other 20 – 26 states to come join us here but since LA County has half of the state’s entire homeless population were not in a position to have all these people show up however governor if you wish to have them in your vineyards in your property in your mansion, by all means you have the freedom to invite them there but here in LA County were were pretty much full and we got our hands full with the problem right now. Okay. We also located four missing persons let me see what else do we have. We also came across 40 individual self identified as nomadic travelers. Isn’t that special? Allright so that's what we got on the boardwalk. That's 250 people that we interviewed and we’re back out there and were going to try to find shelter to try to them on their feet and on their way and clean up the messes out there. There’s now a significant group that has shifted onto the sand itself and there’s is problems. We’re also getting a lot more images from tourists who are posting on YouTube about the horrors of Venice and it’s really not improving our tourism industry. I hope Mayor, you’re taking note of this and councilman Bonin you’re taking note of this since between the two of you are singularly responsible as architects of failure. But at the rate we're going, the we might have someone joining the ranks of the architects of failure and that would be our governor Gavin Newsom. And why do I say that? Because while he's announcing a $12 billion proposal and that total billion dollar proposal looks suspiciously identical to the six and half billion dollars we already spent in the last 10 years to address the homeless crisis here in LA County and it grew from 39,000 over 80,000 I believe that the last count is 82,000 and change. So if it more than doubled in size and he spent six and half billion dollars, where did that money go? Why on earth would we then volunteer to spend another 12 billion on top of that, where is that money going to go? For one it’s not going to help by inviting homeless from other states to come here to enjoy the California dream for sure and let’s just say this if his service providers, consultants, all these different agencies are receiving the money they're paying salaries or paying employee benefits they’re paying for an army of people around there with clipboards, it’s not getting to the people to need help. What I needed to hear from the governor and from the board supervisors is a plan to create residential psychiatric treatment facilities that has stepped down capacity from those that are most gravely disabled that are a threat to themselves to others and then those that can be a medium level of treatment and obviously let lower level of safeguards and those can be treated in an outpatient basis and community basis. We need to have all these levels of treatment. We have those in the county jail. We don’t want to use a county jail for that purpose. But nowhere in your proposal are you advocating to building state facilities that provides for those it have severe mental illness. Know you're going to throw more money after the money you already misspent so that's not going to help the problem governor, you're actually compounding the problem. And you already said by your words and your actions that hey everyone come to California and you're gonna get free stuff, and maybe even free housing, permanent housing, no less. And that's really not we need to hear Los Angeles County. In fact governor if you spoke to people here in Los Angeles County and the homeless industrial complex, the so-called experts that are experts at spending money and seen the problem get worse know-how about the real people on the street about the people of the residence themselves. Heck some of the homeless themselves are saying ‘hey, we can't survive in this’. Let’s listen to the business owners. Let’s listen to the people out of state, out of country who are not using LA as a place to engage in tourism and commerce, yeah that's a big problem. All those boarded up businesses, they’re boarded up for a reason and we’re past the blame the pandemic on everything now.
Okay so we have a bad situation only made worse and now and let this be clear about this, if people want to roll up their sleeves and work collaboratively with the Sheriff's Department to regulate public space, reestablish a sense of order in the community and get shelter for those in need, establish safe campgrounds safe RV areas, the hygiene stations, get the trash removal all that stuff and cleanup the public spaces that belong to everyone count us in, that includes the state, the county, the city, and every place in LA County. That needs to happen and we need to start regulating public space again.
And so if you want to work, yes, we’re more than happy to do that. I understand there was a sighting today, like a Bigfoot sighting. It was a sighting of councilman Bonin on the boardwalk this morning and someone sent me a photo to prove it, so I hope that Mr. Bonin can look at all the empty shells of buildings that used to occupy businesses, residential structures that people are not living in anymore, soak it all in, councilmember because you’re probably one of the main architects of failure in that district. Allright, so we want to work collaboratively and were going to be out there in force. We’re going to be up and down the beach from Malibu all the way down to Marina del Rey and we’ll be working collaboratively with local law enforcement and we want to establish a very visible presence, we want to let people know it is safe to enjoy the beach. We are not going to tolerate any extreme behavior that’s going to jeopardize the residential community, the tourists, the guests from out of other places in LA County from out of state, out of country. No it has to be a safe experience, a pleasant experience for everyone. Ok, so we’re here to do that. Something else that came to my attention. We had again, this again. It's all in the homeless thing. Two days ago our investigators from arson explosive detail, they went to Malibu Lagoon state beach in Malibu to assist the Lost Hills station and California State Parks and they had two fires at the location in three days. Investigators determined the fires were in a transient camp and were human caused, and it’s a big threat. You know what happens if the condition is just right here at the foothills. You're not going improve the situation by allowing these encampments to grow, so we are working actively our host team is working out there to clear out the encampments. They’re a threat to be at the flashpoint of the wildland fires where the urban interface with the wildlands, the foothills. That is our prime area. That is Topanga Canyon, Pacific Palisades, and all around the perimeters of the Malibu area. All of those are high fire danger areas. We have to make sure we clear these encampments. That's a threat to everyone's safety, allright.
So, with that, the last thing I think I need a comment on is apparently the governor, let’s go back to our favor governor here, he's joining with law enforcement leaders and big 13 mayors to discuss state action to fight and prevent crime, signs legislation targeting organized retail threat. Well, here's the problem I have with the situation here. Proposition 47 and district attorneys who pride themselves to being called progressive reform minded that are not enforcing the rule of law and they're not prosecuting theft, are the problem, so you can form all the task force you want with the CHP that has literally nothing to do with retail theft anywhere in the state of California and it’s not going to help the situation. What we need is action, force, rule of law. The laws are already on the book local law enforcement via sheriff departments, police departments, they are the ones that enforce on that theft and if they don't have a district attorney that’s going to actually follow through and do a prosecution out of these, you’re going to have people like I just saw the video this morning at T.J. Maxx. Two gentlemen walked in, gathered up all the clothes they could wrap their arms around and walked out.
In the past, pre-47 in pre-these progressive DAs like George Gascon they’d at least bother to run out. Now they’re not even bothering to run out. They just casually stroll out with all the time in the world, knowing that, hey, as long as they keep the tally under 950 it’s perfectly okay. Then have the folks from alternatives to incarceration. that group of geniuses at the county level. they want to decriminalize a range of crimes they claim targets the poor. Well, I'm sorry, but you can be honorable and respect the rule of law and be poor. In fact that is taught, and poverty has nothing to do with that. It's about just respecting the rights of other people and respecting private property. So, Mr. Governor, I believe he endorsed George Gascon for DA. And I believe he also endorsed the DA from San Francisco and how is that working out with this progressive movement to decriminalize everything? So I think you need to re-think long and hard about your position as governor. How it’s impacting the life and safety everywhere in California because our mom-and-pop stores, they cannot underwrite that type of a loss because were not prosecuting a petty theft. We raise the threshold of petty theft to $950 for 400 that is just, it’s not going to work, right and is leading to a lawless society and were eroding the very fabric of our civil society and that is not working and so I'm really not too sure exactly what you plan doing with either your homeless plan or your response to violent crime and the legislation targeting organized retail theft is, uh, meaningless, in light of prop 47 and DAs refusing to do their job. There's no point to it and local law enforcement understands that.
So, with that said, I think we’re going to go to some questions and let's see what we got to date, ok we got some questions already and also have a very nice card I received. I think I may read it to y'all at the very end, which is very very uplifting. If you have gotten funding increase, why is crime going up? Nope, I don't think you got the memo. We’re getting defunded. We lost another 143 million this fiscal year. Last fiscal year was 145 million. He also froze out 1400 of our position, so no, were actually trending in the wrong direction. We’re being defunded and we have a DA who is not prosecuting. In fact for the first six months of his tenure, 5932 cases from our sheriff department alone. They were present to the DA with all the elements of the crime and all the facts in the DA refused to prosecute citing his new special directives. That is one of the big reasons why crime is increasing and also you have shameless politicians are trying to tell the public not to trust law enforcement and so that has an erosion of public or perceptions of legitimacy of law enforcement so people when you start eroding faith and cut in institutions and that is not going to improve the situation either. Less people are likely to report crime to law enforcement. So okay okay another question. How do you feel about Cecil Rhambo running against you? Like I said before everyone is free to run against me, knock yourself out. This is a free country. However, as I said before it’s goin to take more than buzzwords and soundbites to be an effective candidate or be an effective sheriff. So step up to the plate and explain what you do differently. Okay, now here, when will the DST application open again. Well, it is open. It's open, I believe the first Monday of every month. They allow applicants to apply, they get the first 100 and we have a new classes starting this month in July and we’re going to have two more for the rest of this fiscal year unless we convince the CEO. we need to start hiring more okay? Okay. When will new starter promotions happen? How many? Were going to be doing 100 new starter promotion that is currently working its way through the chiefs of each division, they’re going to be selecting and using the criteria to get those first 100 up and running so that's what's going on right now that. Okay okay, sir, why don't you arrest the clown Newsom, well, no, we don’t arrest anybody that is not committed a crime. Now voters can hold people accountable if they don't do their job. That's very different and that's up to each individual voter to assess that. Are deputy’s going to ever be able to grow facial hair? Are deputies than ever going to be able to grow facial hair? Uh mustaches are alive and well on the department and in fact go all the way back to the last century. So that is, that's true. Beards? No. I'm sorry, unless you have a specific job that requires a different appearance, undercover work, for example, and that's perfectly fine. But no, for line staffing uniform is always going to be with proper grooming. Ok, more CCW's can you make us constitutional carry? We’re not going to go that constitutional carry or shall issue were going to remain good cause but it’s an achievable with good cause, allright right so if you feel you qualify, please submit your application.
Ok we got another. Can you propose LA Metro hospital for temporary housing, mental facilities? There is lots of empty space that are meant to help on site, let alone abandoned buildings. Yes we can do that and this is something I believe that's a state run facility. This is where you had the governor would come very handy to have the governor make it a priority, in fact I wrote a letter to the governor because I wrote a letter to the Board of Supervisors asking them to declare a local state of emergency. All I got was a cheesy answer from the County Counsel saying that maybe I wasn't aware of all the robust plans that the county has to resolve the homeless crisis and I don't I should understand the Boise decision before I do anything and no, I need an answer from the Board of Supervisors themselves, and I provided their response, I sent to the governor with their own letter, we’re going to make that letter public, okay. And, for example, we do have a concept in the Dream Center, which is a privately funded security operation but they do a wonderful job getting people back on their feet. They house homeless veterans, single females, families with children and they do an incredible job out there and they're not at the trough taking tax dollars for it, so, big operation, very commendable, we support them.
Right so and but go back to guineas for guineas for me. There are lots of empty space for mental help on site there's a lot of empty buildings all over the county St. Vincent Medical Center, LA County USC Medical Center. There’s a plan again it’s all privately funded and driven by private dollars at work to take over another big building and we’ll see how that pans out. So there are some efforts but notice how they’re all private ventures and private initiatives. Where's the state government? Where’s the county? Where is the city government? Oh wait, they’ve already said what they want to do they want to double down and repeat the same tragic mistakes of the past, and expect a different result. That's what we got with the county.
Allright that covers that, any updates on jail closures, well, our fearless team of geniuses on the Board of Supervisors voted to close mens central jail with no plan of where to put 4500 inmates, which include violent felons, serial murderers, serial rapists, you name it. And there's a report that's due out to be made public, and we get our hands on it we’ll make it public, but I think the report already exists and it is a public document so all our media resource you should be out there submitting PRA request to the County because remember the county loves to talk about transparency and accountability well now it’s time for the county to be very transparent on their reports and they need to be accountable and how they’re spending the taxpayer dollars. Yes, got time to hold the county accountable.
So let me close with a letter I got, actually a card, is very touching and it said here dear sheriff Villanueva and company. I made this card for you and your officers to simply say thank you for the work you do to protect, serve and keep your community safe. Know that all of your officers and staff will not see this card, but I hope if any do, it will put a smile on their face, knowing that many people, including myself, have a deep appreciation and respect for law enforcement. I know that I cannot alone make a difference with all of the craziness in the world but I hope that making this card can be a way to share my encouragement, support and gratitude for the sacrifice and courage you all make to keep the world a safer place. So thank you for your service. Stay strong and proud and know that you're truly appreciated with love and respect shinny (spell) spots well shinny spots, thank you for this card, words of kind words of encouragement. This is being shared throughout the department infact we’re going to convert this onto email and I make sure every single employee gets it and reads this thing. Thank you for that. You are what makes LA County worth living and worth serving for.
And let me transition real quick to Spanish
Spanish cut
Allright everyone stay safe and remember please get vaccinated. The only reason this Delta variant is running amok is because we get 40% of our population is not vaccinated, get the vaccination as soon as you can. This put this thing behind this once and for all so we don’t have to go through all the inconveniences of masking in mandates and all that stuff from the department of public health that can't seem to get it right. Right. All right everyone please** stay safe out there and will see you next time