Barely two months into a new year, 29 people have been murdered in the city of Los Angeles in 2015, up from 23 at this time last year.
"We're looking at more gang homicides right now particularly in South Los Angeles," LAPD Chief Beck told AirTalk. "Gang homicides being homicides that are either perpetrated by a gang member or the victim is a gang member."
A string of shootings in South L.A. last week even spurred a modified tactical alert on February 10. What could be contributing to the sudden uptick and how is LAPD responding? Another disturbing phenomenon is being tracked by LAPD's Inspector General: "suicide-by-cop" where a person deliberately provokes police officers to shoot.
"We've had a number of incidents, many with replica fire arms, where fire arms are disguised as real fire arms," Chief Beck said.
IG Alex Bustamante reviewed 35 cases in the past 30 months where people appeared to purposely provoke LAPD officers to shoot, and he is calling for more training.
We'll also talk about "suspicious activity reports," police tracking in traffic apps, replica gun incidents and a DUI checkpoint loophole.
Guest:
Charlie Beck, Chief, Los Angeles Police Department