Safety as a Public Good

Because of the policies implemented by the city of Los Angeles and the state of California, safety is in short supply.

First up, the homeless attack the old. LA nurse, 70, dies three days after she was punched in the head by homeless man near Union station.

Sandra Shells, 70, was attacked by a homeless man at about 5.15 a.m. on Thursday near Vignes Street and Cesar Chavez Avenue, half a mile away from Union Station, while she was waiting to catch a bus to her job at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.

Tragically, she succumbed to her injuries at the same medical facility on Sunday.

Police have determined that the attack was random, and they arrested a homeless man sleeping nearby. The article is accompanied by quotes from various people saying "We must do more to promote safety." Probably they are some of the same people who were screaming about defunding the police, and not stigmatizing homelessness, and if they are old enough, going on about the evils of mental hospitals, and keeping crazy people off the streets.

The homeless also attack the young in LA. UCLA grad student, 24, is stabbed to death while working in LA furniture store: Homeless man knifes her in random attack before calmly walking out of back door. (Though I doubt she thought of herself as young at 24 years old.)

Brianna Kupfer, 24, was alone in the Croft House store on La Brea Avenue when a man entered and knifed her. [SNIP]

Police said the male suspect is believed to be homeless and fled through the back door before [calmly] walking down an alley, adding that he did not know the victim.

She was a graduate student in design, working as a design consultant in a store in LA. And not at IKEA. Croft House is the kind of place where you can spend $4,000 on a bookcase, or $2,400 on a nightstand. Not the kind of place where a homeless person would be buying a coffee, or anything else.

Homicides and shootings are also increasing in Los Angeles. New Crime Stats Revealed: Homicides in Los Angeles Soared in 2021.

The city last year experienced 397 murders, up 11.8 percent from the 355 the previous year, and a 53.9 percent increase from the 258 in the pre-pandemic year of 2019. It was the highest figure since the 395 killings in 2007.

The department also reported 1,459 victims shot in 2021. Two years before, 946 people were shot in the city.

That third story is from Los Angeles Magazine, and so the actual statistics are buried under the retelling of a police shooting, and with a side order of "activists say."

But however you describe it, and whatever "context" the reporters give, by quoting activitists, it is clear that law and order are not a thing in Los Angeles.

California's new budget appartently contains a bunch of money for "dealing with homelessness." I haven't read any of the articles on that subject, so I won't guess, except to say that whatever the Left has included as budget items won't do much to increase public safety. And I seriously doubt that they will do anything to reduce homelessness. Whatever problem you are trying to solve, I promise you that more government is not the answer.