During a portion of an interview with NBC News aired on Wednesday’s broadcast of “NBC Nightly News,” interim LAPD Chief Dominic Choi stated that the LAPD is severely understaffed and it is “demoralizing” “to put somebody in jail because of criminal behavior, and then that person is walking out the door before they can finish their reports.”
Host Lester Holt asked, “Chief, is it fair to say you are severely understaffed?”
Choi answered, “Absolutely.”
Choi also said, “I think if we had about 12,000, we would well-staffed. And as of last Monday, we are at 8,832.”
In another part of the interview, Holt asked, “Has the shortage of police officers simply made it harder to respond to certain types of calls?”
Choi answered, “I think it’s made it more difficult to respond to all types of calls. Now, we are mandated to respond to any emergency type of call like a crime in progress within seven minutes. We’ve continually been able to meet that mark. In fact, I think our response time is about six minutes for those type[s] of calls. Where we’re seeing some slippage, if you will, is our non-emergency calls and our uncoded calls, if you will. We’ve seen that number go from an average response time of about 20 minutes, upwards to 40 minutes, up to an hour.”
Holt also said, “While violent crime trended down in 2023, property crimes were up, a revolving door of repeat offenders taking a toll on morale.”
He then played a clip of Choi saying, “I understand the frustration that an officer works so hard to put somebody in jail because of criminal behavior, and then that person is walking out the door before they can finish their reports. That is frustrating, it’s demoralizing.”
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