LA City Council requests reports from LAPD on 2021 spike in police shootings

The Los Angeles City Council requested a report from the police department Wednesday on all shootings by its officers in 2021, which saw the highest number of such incidents since 2017.

Councilwoman Monica Rodriguez, who chairs the Public Safety Committee and introduced the motion, cited the Dec. 23 shooting of 14-year-old Valentina Orellana-Peralta, who was fatally struck by a bullet fired by an officer responding to an assault suspect inside a Burlington store in North Hollywood.

There were 37 shootings by the Los Angeles Police Department in 2021, 18 of them fatal. In 2020, there were 27 police shootings and seven people were killed. In 2019, the LAPD reached a three-decade low with 26 police shootings.

Additionally, while officers fired their weapons more times than the year before, the number of suspects with a firearm during those shootings decreased, according to the department.

Councilman Mike Bonin spoke during the meeting to highlight the increase.

“I think it’s important to note that after a long improvement, going from hundreds of shootings per year in the 1990s to a record low number in 2019, last year saw a sharp and dramatic increase in the number of shootings,” he said. “…It’s also important to note that none of those who died at the end of December were armed with guns.”

Of the 37 shootings last year, about 40% of the suspects had a firearm. The remaining 22 suspects had objects classified as weapons by the department, including edged weapons, vehicles and bike locks, Police Chief Michel Moore told the Police Commission in January. In 2020, 59% of the suspects in police shootings had firearms.

Bonin added Wednesday that as Los Angeles representatives and media focus their attention on the 54% increase in homicides in 2021, they should also address the 157% increase in fatal police shootings.

“It’s important for us to draw attention to this because this is about city employees. These are people that we hire. These are people that we train. These are people that we discipline,” he added.

The motion requests a report with an overview of all 2021’s shootings, including the status and timeline of the investigations into them and the findings of non-compliance with the LAPD’s use-of-force policy as compared to findings for the previous five years.

Councilman Marqueece Harris-Dawson spoke before the vote to advocate for alternatives to police in some situations, including traffic stops and during mental health crises.

“At least some of these people, if there were mental health workers to have responded, they probably would still be with us today,” he said. The city launched a pilot program last year to divert some nonviolent mental health- related emergency calls to DiDi Hirsch Mental Health Services.

The council on Wednesday also passed a second motion, introduced by Rodriguez and Councilmen Paul Krekorian and Kevin de León, aimed at ensuring public transparency during the investigation into the shooting of Orellana-Peralta.

That motion requests two reports from the LAPD:

• one on the status of the LAPD’s internal investigation and the department’s cooperation with two other investigations into the shooting;
• and a second report that focuses on the department’s practices to protect bystanders during use-of-force incidents, as well as practices and policies following reports of an active shooter, which the LAPD was responding to at the Burlington store, despite the suspect not being armed with a gun.

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