Karen Bass, mayor of Los Angeles, attacked the Trump administration repeatedly in her “state of the city” address on Monday, during which she offered rosy pictures of two areas over which the city has received criticism—efforts to rebuild after the Palisades fire and business retention.
The mayor also said that safety has been “priority No. 1.”
“We’ve made real progress,” she said. “Homicides dropped by 19% last year—the lowest in nearly 60 years, and retail theft is down. But public safety is not just about crime going down.”
“It’s about how you feel. It’s about how safe you feel,” she added. “Whether your child feels safe walking to school. Whether the lights work on your street—and yes, we are getting those solar street lights installed. Whether you know your home will be untouched when you return from a long day’s work.”
The mayor said that some “neighborhoods want to see a strong, visible LAPD presence,” while others “want to see a stronger presence of community-based organizations and programs.”
“Well, we have to deliver both,” she said. “I’m proud of our Office of Community Safety. They deploy trained, unarmed professionals to deter crime. They provide safe activities to prevent community violence, and they have saved countless lives.”
Bass did not mention the degree to which Jewish Angelenos feel safe in the city.
The most recent official Los Angeles County hate crime statistics, which were released on Dec. 4 and which cover 2024, revealed that 80% of the 259 hate crimes in the county based on religion targeted Jews (202). That number was down 17% from the prior year, during which Jews were targeted 244 times, and the 2024 total was the “second highest number of anti-Jewish crimes ever recorded in this report,” the county said.
Of all of the hate crimes in the county in 2024, 15% targeted Jews. About 8% of Angelenos are reportedly Jewish.
In 2024, some 21 hate crimes targeted Muslims, per the county.
