Community meeting to address LA's violent summer

Solutions to help curb the rising summer violence in Los Angeles is one of the main goals of an emergency meeting Sunday afternoon at Hamilton United Methodist Church on South Figueroa Street. 

The South Los Angeles church will become a unifying point for leaders from local government, faith communities and law enforcement to discuss what has been a deadly summer for the city.

With incidents ranging from a spate of Labor Day weekend shootings to three boys being stabbed to death, Los Angeles had a recorded 39 homicides in August. There were 22 in July.

“We expect to walk out of this meeting with a good collection of feedback from the people most directly affected by this problem," said City Councilman Marqueece Harris-Dawson, who will be part of the meeting along with fellow councilman Curren Price and Rep. Karen Bass.

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"One of the mistakes we often make in government is that we think we know what's going on, and we skip the step of actually having the conversation with the people who are impacted," Harris-Dawson said. "If it turns out that we don't hear anything new, then we've just spent two hours deepening our relationships."

The meeting comes not long after Mayor Eric Garcetti and LAPD Chief Charlie Beck pledged that the city was pushing harder to halt the violence.

Harris-Dawson noted that city leadership has boosted its efforts in the areas of gang-reduction and stopping youth violence.

Hamilton United Methodist Church is at 6330 South Figueroa St., and the meeting is from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.