Interim LAPD Chief Dominic Choi dropped by KNX News Thursday to discuss the state of the department.
Proper staffing has long been a challenge for the LAPD, and KNX News Chief correspondent Charles Feldman asked Chief Choi how that impacts their ability to respond to crimes.
Choi said that while there may be a connection between crime and number of officers, when it comes to data, "Nothing jumps out as directly correlated."
He clarifies his point by saying, "Indirectly, there is an impact on our ability to prevent crimes from happening. There's less time to do community engagement, there's less time to build resiliency in communities and establish those relationships. So ultimately, if that diminishes, I can promise you crime will go up."
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Correlation vs. causation aside, Choi echoes L.A. Mayor Bass' desire to up the LAPD's sworn ranks.
"We absolutely need more officers so we can continue to respond to emergency calls in under seven minutes, and our non-emergency calls need to get back to roughly 15-20 minutes," said Choi.
He said the federal mandate for emergency response time is within seven minutes. While the LAPD has managed to keep its average to 5-6 minutes, maintaining that response time with diminished ranks requires them to "Shift all our resources to that need, which means something gives, right? And that's the non-emergency calls,' Choi said.
Right now, he said the LAPD's non-emergency response time is 40 minutes to over an hour, and the interim chief said that's not acceptable.
Choi said, "I understand that's got to be very, very frustrating, and we have to do better and get there sooner.
During KNX News' latest town hall, Mayor Bass even went as far as to pledge to fix the 311 system amid multiple criticisms from Angelinos.
We discussed LAPD recruiting and various other public safety issues with Mayor Bass - You can watch that in its entirety HERE.
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