[Editor’s Note: Since July, longtime activist Mr. Harris-Dawson, freshly elected to the Los Angeles City Council, has been seeking to energize Council District 8, the near south side of Los Angeles.]
In response to the surge of homicides in the district this summer, I convened an emergency Community Meeting at Hamilton United Methodist Church with 400 residents in attendance.
I felt a sense of urgency to organize the meeting after LAPD’s 77th Division reported 43 lives had been claimed this year — the highest in the city. With the LAPD, LAFD, local, state and federal representatives present, we provided a forum for the community to be heard and for the LAPD to talk about the uptick in violence and strategies to intervene.
Following the emergency meeting, I introduced a motion in Council that called for Mayor Garcetti’s Gang Reduction Youth Development program, the LAPD, the city attorney, the Recreation and Parks Dept. and LAFD to work together in creating thorough short- and long-term approaches to ending the violence.
Please come to our L.A. City Council meeting at 10 a.m. next Wednesday to provide public testimony about the need for better collaboration of the departments responsible in keeping us safe.
In a separate motion, I called upon social media companies to stop the sharing of graphic photos of crime scenes out of respect for the victim’s families and in the hopes of reducing any threat of retaliation. This was an issue that the community was passionate about and garnered lots of press coverage. Read the L.A. Times article on the meeting and watch the Fox 11 news story.
Mr. Harris-Dawson may be contacted at info@marqueece.com
