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Murders Go Unsolved Amid L.A.'s Budget Crisis

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Photo: SKD's LA Street Scenes/LAist Featured Photos

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The city continues to take a beating regarding the budget and how it affects the police department. An LA Times article today looks into homicide detectives and how they can't work overtime. Detective Sal LaBarbera, a 24-year homicide veteran that supervises the Southeast Division's Homicide Squad, gives this zinger about nine of the 14 murders in his area remaining unsolved:

That is horrible compared to our typical rates. All of those cases are solvable. None of them are mysteries. A few of them would likely already be solved, if I could just let my guys loose to work."

That's quite a change from last summer when the low murder rate afforded detectives the luxury of digging into cold cases and solving them.

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