Los Angeles is in freefall

On August 9, a crazy homeless woman riled by community activists stormed a Los Angeles city council meeting, shouting obscenities and threats at members, closing the assembly down. A proposed ban on homeless encampments within 500 feet of schools had been on the table. For the city’s extremists, ‘criminalising homelessness’ is cause for mayhem.

Last week, a thuggish mob shut an entire downtown Los Angeles street after midnight, ransacking a 7-Eleven and injuring the sole cashier. Residents citywide fear a future of unprosecuted criminal raids, ‘street takeovers’, and organised looting.

Central Los Angeles is awash in homicides, break-ins, carjacks, shoplifting, and vandalism. The once snazzy Sunset Strip and Melrose areas are congested, rundown and dangerous at night. Brazen lawlessness often meets a blind official eye.

Serious crime is spiking, while armies of homeless push fetid shopping carts toward oblivion. Beaten-up recreational vehicles with out-of-state licence plates squat on residential streets. Drifters beg at freeway off-ramps.