Crime in Los Angeles

A series of murders that occurred on March 18, 1936 in the Los Angeles, Lincoln Heights area. An equal rights meeting led by both illegal and legalized immigrants, mostly Latino and Italian, were met with force by the LAPD under the order of Frank L. Shaw. Rather than disband the rally, the LAPD brutalized them, spilling blood on the streets of Griffin, Mozart, Car, and Baldwin. Thirty-three protesters were injured, nineteen dead, five LAPD officers were recorded wounded, with one dead. While many of the deaths and injuries fell onto the equal rights protesters, there was an unnamed casualty at the time in order to cover the law-breaking of the police force. Sandra Vespucci, an Italian youth living on Baldwin street at the time, was killed by a stray bullet in front of her home. Shortly after the bloodshed, many of the officers involved were forced to resign by Mayor Shaw.

During the early 1930s-early 1940s, during the Prohibition Era, organized crime in Los Angeles as well as Las Vegas was ruled by Jewish-American east coast mobster Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel and Italian-American crime boss Jack Dragna, who was boss of the Los Angeles crime family, who succeeded as boss of the family after the disappearance of former Los Angeles crime boss Joseph Ardizzone in 1931.

After Siegel's murder on June 20, 1947, his lieutenant Mickey Cohen inherited Siegel's rackets, creating his own crime family and a turf war began with Jack Dragna and the Los Angeles crime family for control of Siegel's former territories and organized crime in Los Angeles in general. The war lasted nine years, with shootouts and violent confrontations occurring on a daily basis on both the Sunset Strip and Hollywood Blvd, as well as other neighborhoods and regions in Los Angeles and Los Angeles County. Many mobsters were killed during the war, particularly on Cohen's side, as well as many attempts on Cohen's life, including the bombing of Cohen's home in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles. Several Mafia families from the Midwest and East Coast backed either Cohen or Dragna. In 1956, Dragna died of a heart attack and ultimately led Cohen to win the war. Mickey Cohen himself would die from stomach cancer in 1976.

The riots began on August 11, 1965, in Watts, when Lee Minikus, a California Highway Patrol motorcycle officer, pulled Marquette Frye over. Minikus believed Frye was intoxicated because of observing his driving which Minikus believed to be erratic. While police questioned Marquette Frye and his brother Ronald Frye, a group of people began to gather. The mob began to throw rocks and other objects and shout at the police officers. A struggle ensued shortly after Frye's mother, Rena, arrived on the scene, resulting in the arrest of all three family members.

As a result of the riots, 34 people were officially reported killed (28 of those were African American), 1,032 people were injured, and 4,000 people were arrested. Among the dead were a fireman, an L.A. County deputy sheriff and a Long Beach police officer. The injured included 773 civilians, 90 Los Angeles police officers, 136 firefighters, 10 national guardsmen, and 23 persons from other governmental agencies. 118 of those injured were injured by firearms.

Six-hundred buildings were damaged or destroyed, and an estimated $35 million in damage was caused. Most of the physical damage was confined to businesses that were said to have caused resentment in the neighbourhood due to perceived unfairness. Homes were not attacked, although some caught fire due to proximity to other fires.

Crack cocaine first began to be used on a massive scale in Los Angeles in 1984.[6][7] Between February and July 1984 cocaine abuse and related violence had exploded to unprecedented levels throughout the city, and by 1985, crack was available in most major American cities. South Central, where the crack cocaine epidemic was the worst in the country, became the site of numerous police raids. Previously unknown gangs were growing and new ones were emerging. The rap music genre, TV shows and movies portrayed that part of Los Angeles as a no-go zone and a highly violent area.

The 1992 Los Angeles Riots, also known as the Rodney King uprising or the Rodney King riots, were sparked on April 29, 1992 when a jury acquitted four police officers accused in the videotaped violent and brutal beating of black motorist Rodney King when he allegedly resisted arrest following a high-speed car chase. Thousands in the Los Angeles area joined in a race riot involving acts of law-breaking, including looting, assault, arson and murder, seeing in King an example of injustice against minorities in the United States. The situation became too difficult to be handled by local police, and the California Army National Guard as well as federal soldiers and Marines were called in. About 5 National Guardsmen were injured during the riots. Overall, 63 people died during the riots.

The 1997 North Hollywood shootout was an armed confrontation between two heavily armed and armored bank robbers, Larry Eugene Phillips, Jr. and Emil Mătăsăreanu, and patrol and SWAT officers of the Los Angeles Police Department in North Hollywood, California on February 28, 1997. It occurred when responding patrol officers engaged Phillips and Mătăsăreanu leaving the robbed bank. Seventeen officers and civilians were wounded before both robbers were killed. Phillips and Mătăsăreanu had previously robbed several banks prior to their attempt in North Hollywood and were notorious for their heavy armament, which included automatic rifles.

Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums, usually known as C.R.A.S.H., was a special unit of the Los Angeles Police Department established in the early 1970s to combat the rising problem of gangs in Los Angeles, California. Each of the 18 divisions had a C.R.A.S.H. unit whose primary goal was to suppress the influx of gang-related crimes in Los Angeles that came about primarily due to the increase in narcotics trade. C.R.A.S.H was also used in the popular game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas as an antagonist organization.

On May 1, 2007, at MacArthur Park, a rally formed to raise awareness of prejudice against, and demands for amnesty for undocumented workers. As the rally continued, police attempted to break up the rally. Most rally participants dispersed peacefully, but some attacked the police with bottles and rocks. The police utilized less-than-lethal weapons and engaged in pushing and kicking in ways that many viewed as excessive.

South Los Angeles, formally known as South Central Los Angeles was once a notoriously dangerous region of the City of Los Angeles which has had an extensive history of gang violence started in the 1920s with white gangs being replaced by black and Hispanic gangs for decades. However gang activity and crime has rapidly declined in the entire South Los Angeles region since the mid 2000s and is continuing to drop to this day, due to current redevelopment and heavy gentrification.

South Central had become a byword for urban decay; its former bad reputation was spread by numerous movies such as Colors, South Central, Menace II Society, Poetic Justice, Tales from the Hood, Friday, Thicker Than Water, Training Day and in particular, South Central native John Singleton's Boyz n the Hood. Even more recent films such as Baby Boy, Harsh Times, Dirty, Gridiron Gang, Waist Deep, Belly 2: Millionaire Boyz Club, Street Kings and End of Watch, including drama series such as Southland, Law & Order: LA and The Closer had continued the poor image. Those images of South Central; along with Long Beach, Compton, and even Watts; had been portrayed in West Coast Gangsta Rap and G-Funk songs, as well as in video games such as Call of Juarez: The Cartel, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and Grand Theft Auto V.

Although not as well documented as other regions of Los Angeles, the San Fernando Valley minority community has been plagued by gang-related crime and violence. Crimes related to gang violence have generally declined over the mid 2000s however, since 2014, gang-related crime has increased in the west San Fernando Valley by 63% according to Charles Crumpley, publisher and editor of the San Fernando Valley Business Journal.[12] In order to combat the gang violence, the Los Angeles Police Department launched a campaign of gang injunctions across the Valley. Gang injunction is a variation of a restraining order issued by U.S. courts that prohibits gang members in a certain area from participating in specific activities.

During the prohibition era the waters of the South Coast were a popular smuggling route in for alcohol.[17] Largely forgotten in the later parts of the 20th Century, with increased security at the Mexico–United States border smuggling has increased;[17] during the 2011 fiscal year, more than 200 smuggling vessels were observed.[17] Most of the vessels attempt to off load their cargo of drugs and/or illegal immigrants in San Diego County,[18] however destinations are as far north as the California Central Coast.[17] Often, vessels used for smuggling operations are abandoned upon making landfall.[19]

• List of California street gangs

Policing:

• Los Angeles Police Department
• Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department

General:

• Crime in California

Monkkonan, Eric H."Homicide in Los Angeles, 1827–2002", The Journal of Interdisciplinary History Vol. 36, No. 2 (Autumn 2005), pp. 167–183, The MIT Press

• California Attorney General – Criminal Justice Statistics Center