Mayor Karen Bass says LAPD officers feel 'demoralized' but insists changes are on the way

HOLLYWOOD, LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- There were two burglaries involving multiple suspects in the Porter Ranch neighborhood Thursday - the latest in a string of break-ins that has Los Angeles neighborhoods on edge.

While Los Angeles police set up a command post to look for suspects who got away, Mayor Karen Bass showed up at the scene to better understand what city residents and police officers face.

The LAPD says statistics show an overall decrease in such crimes in the San Fernando Valley.

"Crime is subjective. If there have been break-ins on your street, you don't care what the national data is, the state or the local data," Bass said. "What you care about is - on my street there have been break-ins."

Bass told Eyewitness News that crime suppression tactics, like increasing patrols, aren't common in places like Brentwood and Encino. Those neighborhoods have seen a series of burglaries and home invasions this summer, something Bass described as organized criminal behavior.

The LAPD has increased their presence and Bass' office of community safety is continuing to prevent crime from happening in the first place.

"Doing the work that we do to make sure young people don't fall into gangs because some, not all of the crime, is associated with street gangs so we try to prevent it on that side," Bass said. "We have another program called CIRCLE which is to prevent people suffering from mental illness."

Although recruitment is up at the LAPD, current staffing remains low and Bass continues to criticize how long it takes to get hired, but she insists changes are on the way.

Bass expects to make a decision on a new LAPD chief in early fall and has spent the last few months meeting with community members and LAPD's rank-and-file.

"We're hearing a police department where the officers are demoralized," Bass said. "They feel better support from the public, but they think there's a lot of things internal to the way the department runs that is demoralizing to them.

"For example, how do you think a police officer would feel if they have a broken down police car?"

Eyewitness News interviewed Bass outside of Larchmont Charter School on Selma Avenue in Hollywood, where a problematic homeless encampment right outside the school that young students had to walk by was cleared under Bass' Inside Safe program one year ago.

Bass credits the community with preventing the encampment from coming back.

"Our outreach workers can't be out 24 hours a day, so we have built a relationship with the school," Bass said. "We know the parent leaders. We know some of the amazing student leaders, and they would alert us and we would ask them. If you see a tent come back, call us."

The mayor says LAPD's crime suppression efforts in neighborhoods like Brentwood and Encino will continue 24/7. That's more patrols and more officers.