The Brief

The Los Angeles City Council has approved plans to hire more police officers this year, ending a months-long struggle over the city budget with the mayor's office.

The vote this week will allow LAPD to hire 410 officers, up from the 240 included in the city's original budget for this fiscal year.

L.A. Mayor Karen Bass had pushed for the additional hires, citing the coming World Cup and Olympic Games, while some councilmembers questioned where the money would come from.

In December, the City Council voted to allow for an additional 40 officers to be added to the force, using the city's general fund.

This week's vote got Bass the rest of the way there. It will bring LAPD's ranks to around 8,500 sworn officers. At its height in 2009, the police force had more than 10,000.

It's a victory for Bass' office, but she said in a statement that hiring still is not keeping up with attrition.

"Although this is an important step, there is more work to do to invest in the safety of Angelenos,” Bass said.

The council approved the additional hires only after City Administrative Officer Matthew Szabo found that the funds could come from the police department rather than the city's general fund.

In a report submitted to the council last week, Szabo identified around $3 million in funds from LAPD savings and a projected surplus in an account used to pay officers their accumulated overtime when they retire.

Councilmember Monica Rodriguez called the move "robbing Peter to pay Paul." Councilmember Tim McOsker called it "robbing Peter to pay Peter." They both supported the motion.

But the funds identified by the city administrative officer will only cover the new hires this fiscal year. In his report, Szabo estimated that adding 170 more recruits to LAPD and resources in the personnel department to support them would cost around $25 million in the next fiscal year. He suggested his office could identify potential police department budget reductions or general fund revenues in next year's budget cycle to continue funding the new officers.

Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky, who heads the budget and finance committee, voted for the plan to add new hires. She said Wednesday that most councilmembers were supportive of increasing the ranks of sworn officers but expressed dissatisfaction with the process that led to this move.

"I would have preferred that this issue of these additional officers that weren't in the budget that was adopted and signed by the mayor was addressed in the next budget," Yaroslavsky said. "But that being said, here we are."

Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez was not convinced. He told the council he thought the ongoing cost of additional hires likely would lead to cuts elsewhere.

"A budget is a document of our priorities," Soto-Martinez said. "And it just feels like every single time, LAPD gets what they want. Every single time. And the conversations that are not happening in the public is about how that affects other things that the city does."

He voted against the extra hires, along with councilmembers Eunisses Hernandez, Ysabel Jurado and Nithya Raman.

Soto-Martinez, who sits on the public safety committee, also said he wanted more transparency on police spending on costs like overtime. He said every quarter the city spends $50 million on police overtime.

Soto-Martinez and Hernandez introduced a motion instructing the city administrative officer and legislative analyst to transfer some LAPD auditing and accounting into a new bureau of police oversight within the city controller's office. That motion was referred to the personnel and hiring committee.

Police Chief Jim McDonnell pushed back against that idea Wednesday, saying it would take additional personnel away from the department.

"We're working on a skeleton crew," he said. "We're two years out from the Olympics, five months out from the World Cup, and we've got a deficit [of officers]."

The vote came after LAPD requested nearly $100 million in its proposed budget for next fiscal year for new vehicles and equipment to police the Olympic Games.

At least six people have been arrested in connection with student walkouts this month protesting immigration raids, as local and federal authorities warn of potential legal consequences ahead of additional demonstrations.

Five people were arrested on suspicion of felony vandalism and one on suspicion of battery on a police officer during the week of Feb. 2, according to Los Angeles Police Det. Meghan Aguilar. For several days that week, thousands of LAUSD students walked out and marched to downtown LA to protest U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. The LAPD didn’t respond to questions about whether those arrested were minors or adults.

In a Feb. 16 statement, the LAPD states it’s unlawful for minors under 18 to be in public places, streets, or amusement spots during school hours. Exceptions include emergencies or being with a parent. The department cited state education code requiring that children between the ages of 6 and 18 “must attend a full-time public day school for the full designated day.”

Legal consequences for violating daytime curfew are a possibility, LAPD said.

In the statement, the LAPD warns that any adult “who collects or picks up a child and transports them to participate in any illegal activities may be responsible for Contributing to the Delinquency of a Minor and is subject to arrest and prosecution.”

“This law applies to actions like providing drugs/alcohol to minors, promoting truancy, and for parents failing to exercise reasonable supervision,” the LAPD continues.

The warning follows clashes at recent student demonstrations that, according to the LA Times, injured three federal agents.

A day later, Bill Essayli, the first assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, condemned the walkouts in a post on X, saying, “The only thing they will accomplish is ensuring violent agitators will be criminally prosecuted, juveniles included.”Essayli also posted photos of youth he said were sought in connection with a “violent attack on [Federal Protective Service] at our downtown Los Angeles property.”

In a statement, LAUSD said it “supports the rights of our students to express themselves and to advocate for causes that are important to them. Civic engagement is a vital part of education in a democracy.”

However, it added, “our foremost responsibility is student safety. Schools remain the safest place for students during the instructional day, and we are concerned about the potential risks associated with off-campus demonstrations.”

LAUSD did not specifically comment on the statements from Essayli and LAPD.

Peter Eliasberg, chief counsel and First Amendment Rights attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, called Essayli’s comments “disgusting.”

“To be posting and suggesting that they are criminals, on Twitter or X, is just completely inconsistent with the kind of protections that juveniles are supposed to have in the criminal justice system,” Eliasberg said.

Eliasberg found it “revolting” that Essayli is choosing to go after juveniles at a time when there have been cases of Department of Homeland Security agents “using lethal force, shooting people in the head with tear gas canisters and other weapons.”

While schools can enforce truancy rules, Eliasberg said, “bringing students into the criminal justice system is not to anyone’s benefit.”

“All it will do [is] actually cause kids to have to miss more school while they deal with criminal charges,” Eliasberg said.

Eliasberg said schools cannot punish students for missing class to engage in political protest more harshly than they would for skipping school for any other purpose.

For example, a student can serve detention for being away from school to attend the protest if that is how the school typically deals with unexcused absences, according to the ACLU’s “My School My Rights” website.

“Turning this kind of thing into a criminal matter is just a real misuse of the criminal system,” Eliasberg said.