How Long Beach Lost Its Anti Gang Unit

This is taken verbatim from the bottom of the following link [the news stories about the recent murders in Long Beach]: http://www.lbreport.com/news/jun15/187alam.htm

In Sept. 2014, a Council majority approved without dissent, a FY15 (current) budget (recommended by both current Mayor Garcia and exiting Mayor Foster) that no longer funds LBPD's now-former field anti-gang unit. 

The field anti-gang unit previously deployed twenty officers plus two sergeants in gang impacted areas where they could interact with residents and gather intelligence. LBPD continues to maintain a conventional gang unit (often working indoors on investigations and the like) but L.A. County's second largest city no longer has the field anti-gang unit that LB taxpayers had until September 2012 (chronology below.) 

In August 2012, then-Mayor Bob Foster recommended a FY13 budget that proposed to eliminate the unit, and then-Vice Mayor Robert Garcia, chosen by Foster to chair the Council's Public Safety Committee, held no hearings on the public safety aspects of the Foster proposed budget. However the Council balked and voted to fund half of the field anti-gang unit using "one time" funds for a year.

A year later in September 2013, again with no hearings by Garcia's Public Safety Committee on the proposed budget, the Council failed to budget additional sums for the field anti-gang unit, which LBPD scrambled to maintain at a further reduced level by drawing officers from patrol and backfilling with overtime. 

In July 2014, exiting Mayor Foster and entering Mayor Garcia both recommended a FY15 budget without funding for the field anti-gang unit. The Council's Public Safety Committee, now headed by Councilwoman Suzie Price (chosen by as chair by Garcia and endorsed for office by Foster) held no hearings on public safety aspects of the Garcia-Foster proposed FY15 budget (saying such an action would be "unprecedented.") 

In September 2014, the Council voted without dissent to adopt a FY15 budget that provided no funding for LBPD's field anti-gang unit. 

 Coincidentally, violent crime is up in Long Beach.