What a weird year it’s been in Los Angeles. The Dodgers win the World Series for the first time in 32 years, the Lakers win an NBA title for the first time in 10 years – and oh, by the way, violent crime and murders are taking place at higher rates than in over a decade.
While the first two accomplishments are cause for celebration, they were still met with violence, arrests and lawlessness. In fact, after the Dodgers clinched the World Series, two people were murdered in one of the makeshift celebrations going on near downtown.
This past weekend, Los Angeles recorded its 300th homicide of the year, and overall in 2020 there has been a 32% increase in shootings. Of the four murders committed in L.A. over the weekend, the Los Angeles Times reports that one was a 17-year-old boy riding a bike. It’s the same type of story that is playing out in other big cities run by Democratic mayors in states predominantly run by Democratic governors, like Chicago, New York and Minneapolis.
Los Angeles police chief Michel Moore said he believes one reason for the big increase in violent crime is due to issues related to the pandemic, specifically the economic struggles and virus-related restrictions on services and interventions.
When governors like Gavin Newsom of California impose incredibly restrictive lockdowns with one stroke of their pen in their ill-conceived effort to protect and save every single person in the state from potentially contracting a virus that, according to the CDC’s best estimates, has a 99.92% recovery rate for people under 49, has a 94.6% recovery rate for people over 70, and 40% of people who get it don’t even know they have it, it creates other problems that can be much, much bigger.
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