While crime is supposedly going down in Los Angeles, locals are reporting more and more violence, homelessness, arson, and drug trafficking. How come the official data does not match the lived reality on the ground?
It is not exactly atypical for Democrats to mess around with crime data in order to make themselves look better. There has never been a single state or city that became a better place to live after Democrats were in charge, which means that Dems have to lie about their track record constantly in order to stay in power. In some cases, they change the definition of what constitutes certain crimes, and in other cases, they deliberately under-report. Then there’s the situation in Los Angeles, where the system is essentially set up to fail.
Police in Los Angeles have to deal with so much crime from a combination of factors, including sanctuary for illegal aliens, soft-on-crime policies, and government incompetence, that law enforcement just doesn’t always show up to a crime scene. The same phenomenon is evident in my own hometown of Tucson, Ariz., where the police tell individuals reporting crimes that they have a months-long backlog and very little time for anything new. And if there is no official report of a crime, it doesn’t go into the statistics.
L.A. real estate businessman Michael Moreno shared a story illustrating what this looks like. He described what happened when an agent in his office walked across the street to get himself lunch. The agent tried to allow a high homeless woman who illegally crossed the street to pass him, but she decided to attack him instead, grabbing his shirt and assaulting him.
“With only a hydro flask in hand, he hits her on the head. She barely notices and continues attacking him repeatedly,” Moreno detailed the incident. “He continues to fight back until she finally lets go. She then starts screaming at him and threatening his life. This didn't happen on Skid Row, it happened at 2:30 PM in broad daylight in Encino, CA - one of the more affluent areas in LA.”
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Moreno went on:
After the homeless lady finally walks away, still screaming to herself, he calls the police.
He then proceeds to sit there for an hour waiting. The police never come.
At 9:30 PM, 7 hours after the incident, the police call and say they've arrived.
By now he's home, the attacker is miles away, and realizing the futility of his efforts, he doesn't open an investigation.
This crime now goes unreported and LA politicians can tout that crime has decreased.
Moreno’s story is not a one-off. For instance, in June, the California Post reported that city officials claimed metro crime fell last year by almost seven percent, along with a 33% drop for “crimes against society.” And yet many public transport users reported still experiencing dangerous and alarming situations, rejecting the narrative of improved safety. In Aug. 2025, NBC4 Los Angeles noted the selectiveness of the data: “While the number of murders in 2025 has continued a multi-year decline across Los Angeles, the number of killings remained nearly unchanged this year around the Vermont Knolls area and surrounding communities.”
Interestingly, while claiming that homicide rates had gone down impressively in Los Angeles in 2025, the Los Angeles Times admitted this could partially be due to the Trump administration crackdown on illegal aliens. In other words, if it happened, it’s actual enforcement of laws that local officials oppose driving the dip.
We also have to wonder whether the violent anti-ICE riots in Los Angeles end up in the official statistics for crime.
The main point is, we simply cannot rely on the official crime statistics out of Los Angeles. The politicians ruining the city have a vested interest in dishonesty.
