Well, we've we talked with them last month, Shannon, you were out so you didn't get the opportunity. But LAPD chief Jim McDonald has joined joined us. Chief, thanks for taking time for us once again.
Good morning, Thank you both for having me on.
I was just thinking about you. Well, it wasn't just thinking about you. Was a couple of years ago when I finally got to Fenway and beautiful, Oh my gosh. Yeah, and I'm standing outside and it's all the things. It's like, all the build up of thinking of going to Fenway, it all pays off, you know what I mean, Like it's not just a romantic thing in your head. It's like I'm standing outside there and I just get chills, and I was just like, and then I was thinking, like you you grew up right around.
There, Yeah, right down the street. Yeah. It's a special place I think in American history. Really.
Yeah, it's fantastic. I would go if I haven't been here. Is your endorsement to go?
Yeah, exactly.
Chief.
This week, you guys released the end of your crime report for twenty twenty four. Let's go over some of those those numbers. What were the highlights for you?
Yeah? I think the big the big ones had struck me or the reduction in homicides were down fourteen percent from the year before, and that is that's a big one. That's the one that everybody counts very accurately. So I think as a measure of success, certainly we looked to that one for twenty twenty four. Then we built on that in the first quarter of this year. We're down an additional forty percent for twenty twenty four. The victim shot a number of people shot was down nineteen percent.
Rapes decreased by almost one hundred during the year. Robberies saw a slight decline and then a large decline in aggravated assaults from over twenty thousand down to seventeen thousand and six. And so all in all, look at our numbers across the board, twenty twenty four was a good year for Los Angeles.
I remember a press conference of five hundred years ago.
You were an assistant chief at the time.
Bill Bratton was there, and you guys, the focus was talking about community policing and you know, the broken windows theory, and I know you're a big community policing guy. And now that you're back at the Helm of the LAPD. Do you see room for more of that? Is that one of the items on your agenda is to really I mean post pandemic, post protest life.
Is this something that could.
Really create great strides in Los Angeles right now in twenty twenty five.
Yeah, absolutely. I think it's we're looking at community policing as more of a philosophy how we do business, looking at the root causes rather than just the symptoms or incidents. That's a focus that we have taken them will continue to take. I look at, you know, the areas that are covered by our folks who work the Community Safety Partnership Bureau, where they focused community policing efforts and strategies on particular places. Homicides fell by forty percent in those
areas twenty twenty four. And so when you look at the success of engaging with the community, nobody knows a particular neighborhood better than the people who live there. So if we can make them part of the public safety equation and partner with them, we get tremendous results. So the effort will be to continue that and take it to a new level.
One of the criticisms from people who watch crime numbers like this, is that the definitions of crime have changed over the years, and that can alter what appears to be a drop or an increase in a specific crime. How do you account for that? How do you make sure that the numbers are as accurate as you can possibly make them.
Yeah, we do the best we can to try and be able to compare Apple Staples and have. This year has been a modification in that because the whole nation has transferred or in the process of transferring, from the Uniform Crime Reporting System, which is the one we've used for well over a years to now the National Incident Based Reporting System or NIGHBORS. That fundamentally changes the way
crime data is collected and analyzed. But while it's more labor intensive and takes more people to be able to do the input on the front end, it captures a lot more data, so it gives us the ability to do a greater level of analysis and to be able to identify patterns and trends and clusters of crime. So all in all, it'll be worth the transition down the road, but for this year, comparing it year to year data
will be difficult. It happened the transition took place in May of last year, and so in May of this year, we'll start at a point where we can compare year to year moving forward.
We're talking to LAPD chief Jim McDonell, and you're a Long Beach guy, if memory serves. I was just in Long Beach last week, spend some time there, and I was talking to our friend and she was talking about the e buy and I know, Orange County's got some things in the works in terms of kind of just getting a handle on the proliferation of these things. And she was saying that she was walking around Long Beach and there was all these kids on the e bikes, and what can be kind of done in terms of
getting a handle on that. I guess for lack of a better because there's no you can't pass any laws against them or anything like that, but they certainly seem to be kind of a nuisance at least in some parts of LA.
Yeah. You know, like anything good, there will be some people who abuse it and use it for other purposes and become either a nuisance or worse. In the case of e bikes, much like any of our traffic issues that we deal with, we try and do education to educate the community about the dangers of using certain methods to get around of how they can better protect their own safety and the safety of the public. And then usually we would look at engineering, where are these being
allowed to be operated, how do we operate them? And again going back to the first part, letting people know what the dangers of them are. And then enforcement. You know, if they're operating this vehicle or any other vehicle in an unsafe manner, we can take enforcement action. And I think that's hopefully a last resort, but those are the way we deal with these type of problems. Education in the schools as well. Social media also may have an impact.
We're talking about LAPD Chief Jim McDonald. Jim, if you have an opportunity, Chief, can you stick around for another segment?
Oh? Sure, I'm good.
Good. We got a couple more questions. I want to get into technology also.
And I also want to ask him the Jeopardy question of the day because it's about Ireland and I feel like he's going to know it better than you will.
Right more with LAPD Chief McDonald when we come back.
We are talking to LAPD Chief Jim McDonald, who I think was everybody's pick everybody's favorite to lead the department where he spent so much much time. You spent time really everywhere Long Beach, l a p D. Sheriff's Department, and he is back at the helm of the l a p D and has found it in his hard to spend some time with us.
How about them Dodgers, Chief, They're doing great, maybe unstoppable.
Can you believe about Rodney Pete in the middle of the night snagging that ball from Max Munsey along the first baseline?
We should lock them up? Maybe we locked them up.
We beat him on the tarmament.
Rodney works down the hall from us, so he's one of our friends here.
Yeah, it really is a great family.
Chief.
We're talking about crime numbers, and we've talked a lot about artificial intelligence for in all different industries and different walks of life. Is there a move at all, whether it's LAPD specific or law enforcement in general, to use artificial intelligence in policing.
Yeah, there's a lot of vendors trying to be able to enter the market and the public safety arena. Certainly a lot of money to be made long term in it, but also a great tool, but one that I would ask that we you know, my peers, that we beat judicious about employing that and not doing it too fast
and end up losing a great tool. But I think where we can see it enter the market now is to be able to go into realms and reams of data, to be able to find things that are detectives say, could normally find if they had the time, but they don't, and allow them to be able to narrow the field and look at clues or data that they need to be able to put a case together. Likewise with redaction and so many other things that we do that we
just don't have the personnel to do it. To be able to get an assist from AI or machine learning, you know, to begin with, it would be a big help.
How refreshing to hear somebody in power say, yeah, there's a lot of money to be made in contracts, especially with you know, public money right to be made with contracts with the city or the police department or fire what have you. But to make sure all right, yeah, we we it's the future. Will probably contract out in the in the future, but be careful and do it right exactly.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think it's a great tool, and like so many other great tools. We have a tendency to rush into things and uh and put them to work right away, and it's you know, premature, and we end up losing some some good opportunities.
Well I think you lose. You have the potential also to lose. What makes what makes the job a great thing is that it's human interaction. I mean, yeah, you know, we mentioned, I mentioned last time that we were talking with you, Chief that of the thousands of contacts that the LAPD has every single day with people, we only hear one or two or three and they're usually not positive.
I mean, that's that's and that the there's thousands of other great positive contacts that happen every single day that just don't get the attention.
Yeah. Now, probably literally millions of contacts a year, and you hear about the ones that go wrong, and we hate it when any go wrong. But when you think about people call the police when their world is upside down,
their situation is out of their control. The police come into a situation that's emotionally charged or more difficult, with alcohol, drugs and mental illness involved so often the case today, and try and be able to de escalate the situation and restore some order and get people the services they need. That's pretty challenging for anyone in any field, and that's what they do. Call after call.
Chief McDonald may have been from Boston area Brookline, but he is a graduate of the LA Police Academy. Do you remember and I'm putting you on the spot here, but do you remember of any of those like early interactions you had, whether it was in the academy or after you got the academy, with people in the community that kind of stick with.
You throughout your masterful career.
I mean now as head of the LAPD, But like interactions or cases, are things that stuck with you that remind you of why you do what you do?
Oh? Absolutely, you know, thinking back, that was forty four years ago and I remember it like it was yesterday. But coming out onto the street in the city I didn't know at the time with people I had never met before was something that was exciting but challenging, and to be able to kind of acclimate to a new culture and certainly a new career. I look back on that and the thing that reminded me continuously of why
we do what we do. Sometimes under the most difficult to circumstances is because of the victims, the people out there who truly need the police, who without the police would be living in terror, be locked in their homes, and not be able to function in the way that we all as Americans would expect to be able to. So yeah, I've constantly been reminded throughout my career of why I'm here, primarily because of the people who need us the most.
All right, are you ready for your jeopardy question? Okay, all right, this is something we do every day.
I ask Gary a stupid jeopardy question from the stupid dusk calendar we have. But today it's Ireland for one thousand dollars. Chief founded in nine fourteen. Founded in nine fourteen. This city, known for its crystal, is the oldest in Ireland.
Crystal.
It's in the south. It's in the south.
Waterford, Waterford crystal.
Wow, Why do I not know that that's the most common crystal.
Yeah, that's all right, Waterford.
Listen.
I went to Waterford in Ireland and it was nothing to write home about. It was very industrial, The crystal warehouse was very nondescript.
But the crystal is beautiful.
You stumped me.
On that one.
I'm sorry. Next next time, I'll make sure to get you gimme.
Chief.
Thanks for your time once again, we'll talk soon.
It's a pleasure. Thank you very much for having me.
Absolutely l a p D. Chief to McDonald there with the latest and yeah, we like like these conversations with him and hopefully well he'll come back.
Yeah, absolutely