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Los Angeles Police Department officials earlier this month downplayed a return to controversial investigative traffic stops in South L.A. in part by telling The Times that the number of stops was dramatically lower than it used to be with just 74 stops so far this year.
But on Tuesday, LAPD Chief Michel Moore told the L.A. Police Commission that figure was wrong, and that the true count was more than eight times as high, with 639 stops having been conducted.
Moore emphasized that the total number of stops was still far below 2019 levels, when officers conducted upwards of 2,400 stops per month in ways that disproportionately affected Black motorists.
FAIRFIELD-SUISUN, CALIFORNIA
LAFD Capt. Tommy Kitahata directs traffic after the resumption of vaccination after protesters closed the gates of a vaccination site at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles on January 30, 2021. (Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times/TNS)
LAPD vows arrests if protesters again disrupt Dodger Stadium vaccine site
LOS ANGELES Days after anti-vaccination and far-right protesters disrupted operations at one of the nation’s largest Covid-19 vaccination sites at Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles Police Chief Michel Moore on Tuesday said any such protests in the future would be met with quick arrests.
“Our action is to be immediate and swift in the sense of holding them accountable for that unlawful activity,” Moore said during a virtual meeting of the Police Commission in the morning.
After hearing powerful first-hand accounts of Los Angeles police officers rescuing children from sex traffickers, the Police Commission on Tuesday called on the City Council to protect the LAPD’s anti-trafficking efforts against budget cuts.
“Anything less, in my opinion, is an abdication of our responsibility as a city,” said William Briggs, the commission’s vice president, during the panel’s weekly virtual meeting.
Briggs said he was angered by the fact that children are bought, sold and raped in L.A., and riled by claims in some corners that police who work such cases aren’t worthy of robust funding and prioritization.
A Rose Blooms in Little Tokyo
De Leon calls for intersection to be named Rose Ochi Square.
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City Councilmember Kevin de Leon released this image on Wednesday.
Rafu Staff and Wire Reports
Los Angeles City Councilmember Kevin De Leon on Jan. 13 introduced a motion to designate the intersection of First and San Pedro streets in Little Tokyo as Rose Ochi Square in honor of the late civil rigthts activist.
The motion states that Takayo “Rose” Matsui Ochi, who died on Dec. 13, just two days before her 82
nd birthday, “shattered numerous glass ceilings” by becoming the first Asian Pacific Islander woman appointed to various national and local positions.