L.A. is safer than it's been in decades, but crime is an issue dominating the mayor's race

Homicides in Los Angeles have dropped to levels not seen since the 1960s, and some neighborhoods now go weeks or months without a shooting. Follow-home robberies and street takeovers have largely subsided. Despite these safety gains, voters in a contested mayoral race may hear a different message. Challengers to Mayor Karen Bass focus on homelessness and public drug use, arguing she has not delivered on public safety and criticizing Police Department operations and funding during her tenure. Mike Bonin said the success of right-leaning attacks reflects failure to change narratives about the city being unsafe. Spencer Pratt has promoted AI videos and criticized drug-related emergency calls, proposing to treat every encampment as a grave-disability zone.

"Homicides in Los Angeles are down to levels not seen since the 1960s. Neighborhoods once awash in gang violence now sometimes go weeks, even months, without a shooting. And the follow-home robberies and street takeovers that captured the public's attention in recent years have largely subsided. By many measures, the city is safer than it has been in generations - and yet voters following L.A.'s hotly contested mayoral race might think the opposite."

"The challengers to Mayor Karen Bass have zeroed in on homelessness and public drug use to argue she hasn't delivered on public safety, while also criticizing how the Police Department has operated and been funded during her tenure. Mike Bonin, a former L.A. City Council member, said the fact that Spencer Pratt - the former reality TV star who has been attacking Bass from the right - has gained so much traction in the race is proof of how Bass and other candidates to the left have failed to change "prevailing narratives that the city is unsafe.""

"Pratt has been particularly active on social media, where he has shared artificial-intelligence videos created by fans depicting him as various superheroes coming to the rescue of a city that, under Democratic rule, has turned into a dystopian hellscape. In a March 26 post on Substack, Pratt railed against the thousands of drug-related calls that emergency officials respond to every month. He has said that if elected mayor, he would order the police and fire chiefs and the county health director to "treat every encampment as a grave-disability zone.""

""No new laws needed," he wrote. "No endless task forces." Flanking Bass on the left is Nithya Raman, a progressive City Council member who was once the mayor's political ally. Raman has argued that Bass has thrown too much money at the LAPD, with raises for police officers coming at the expense of other basic services such as park maintenance and stree"

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