Police forced to take on municipal duties while CD10 council office stays absent
July 15, 2025 | LA Metro News
Three days after LA Metro News reported on the abandoned homeless encampments and public sanitation crisis in the CD10 district with the headline “Wilshire & Western: Streets of Human Waste and Stench… Can’t or Won’t LA City Government Act?”, this reporter returned to the scene this morning to witness a surprising yet welcome development.
Senior Officer Alex Cho from LAPD’s Olympic Division was supervising cleanup operations alongside workers hired by Jameson Property. The responding LAPD officers confirmed they had reviewed the my311 reports and communications sent to city commissioners by this reporter, giving a thumbs up and saying “Good job.”
However, this scene once again highlights LA’s incompetent urban administration and the reality of responsibility shifting.
All homeless cleanup and administrative management should be led by the CD10 city council member. Yet the reality is that police are handling not just public safety, but also “urban maintenance” – an ironic situation indeed.
One LAPD officer jokingly asked this reporter, “If you became mayor, could you change things?” When the reporter responded, “What power does an LA mayor have? Maybe if you were a council member,” everyone laughed together – but behind that laughter lay the dark shadow of desperate administrative vacancy. It’s heartbreaking to see officers doing the work that should be handled by city council members who advocate for police defunding.
Police realistically acknowledge that while they can issue tickets to homeless individuals, they question what good that actually does. In this ironic situation where public safety personnel are forced to take on administrative duties due to administrative absence, the sight of a homeless woman silently watching the cleanup scene with her companion dog made the scene even more bitter. Once the cleanup is finished, she will return to that spot because to her, it’s her “home.”
Despite the CD10 council office clearly having individuals who should be subject to the Inside Safe program, they are taking no action. Why? This morning leaves many questions unanswered.
One-line summary: LAPD officers forced to handle downtown cleanup duties while city administration remains silent – only police respond after citizen reports.
Tags: #WilshireWestern #LAPD #CD10 #InsideSafe #LAHomeless #UrbanAdministrationFailure #OlympicPoliceStation #AlexCho #JamesonProperty #LAMetroNews #DowntownNeglect #LACity #PublicSafety
