Friday, April 16th a man was shot on wounded on Central Long Beach's Myrtle Ave. Less than a week earlier another shooting took place a mile or so South of this very block.
Some elected officials have claimed that these sort of shootings spike around the first of the year and again in the summer. That's not what's happened this year.
During the Mayor's State of the City address at the start of the year gun fire exchanged between moving vehicles. Gun violence and even stabbings in Long Beach have only persisted week after week following the Mayor's address claiming that "the state of the City is Strong."
All of these shootings were first reported in LB Report by local news veteran Bill Pearl.
However, with the blossoms of Spring and the passing of winter gun violence hasn't slowed.
When Long Beach Police Chief Luna was asked on February 2nd to produce a data driven report and return to City Council with a plan in thirty days he turned in a short memo late. The memo was full of claims but few of them were supported with facts or supporting data.
Among the Chief's claims were that the violence was caused by prisoners who were released early due to COVID 19. The Chief also asserted that residents who purchased guns lawfully during the pandemic had increased the number of guns on the street.
However, Chief Luna failed to show any data driven connection between released prisoners and shooting suspects. Nor did the Chief show a data driven relationship between lawfully purchased guns versus those used in the dozens of shootings across Long Beach.
While Chief Luna's report was late and missing data our elected officials have yet to even meet.
According to Tuesday's upcoming City Council agenda, the Public Safety Committee will finally hold its first meeting of the year on April 23rd. The meeting is far overdue given the fact that Central Long Beach alone has had more than 22 shootings since the beginning of the year.
One of the 22 shootings resulted in a man being wounded and in stable condition this past Friday. Days before another victim transported himself to a nearby hospital after being hit on the 200th block of East Spring Street.
Councilwoman Saro was hand selected by Mayor Garcia to chair the Public Safety Committee in January of this year. While violent shootings have been surging since the Winter and now into Spring, Councilwoman Saro has not called the committee to meeting.
On the other hand nearly all of the other 9 Committees established by Mayor Garcia have held at least one meeting. Some even meet regularly.
On condition of anonymity one official tells us that having regular Public Safety Committee meetings is important to establish "some consistency and tackle issues systematically."
Given that public safety is likely the most important function a city provides, Long Beach residents will have to wait to learn whether this week local police or elected officials will begin taking our public safety more seriously.
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