Mayor Karen Bass and other city officials said Monday that the city resources they poured into the area were beginning to produce results. Tracey Leong reports for the NBC4 News at 6 p.m. on Monday, March 10, 2025.
After reports of violent crimes and widespread drug use especially among unhoused people in the MacArthur Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, Mayor Karen Bass and other city officials said Monday that the city resources they poured into the area were beginning to produce results.
Bass said there have been fewer sales of drugs and weapons as well as violent incidents since December during a news conference with LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell and LA City Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez
“Over the past month, there has been real progress made in returning the park to the community,” the mayor said.
After increasing police presence and dispatching more officers, the MacArthur Park area saw a 46% drop in crimes against persons, according to Chief McDonnell.
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McDonnell said in the month of December 2024, there were 26 violent crimes, including 14 robberies and 12 aggravated assaults. Then in February 2025, there were 14 crimes against persons, according to the LAPD chief.
“The LAPD has increased its enforcement efforts, expanded our outreach initiatives, and worked closely with our community partners to make the park and the area surrounding it safer, and these efforts are producing real results,” McDonnell said.
The surrounding area patrolled by the LAPD Rampart division appears to see an overall drop in the number of robberies and aggravated assaults between Jan. 5 and March 1, according to the latest crime data released by the LAPD. Rape is the only type of crimes against persons that increase from seven cases in January to nine incidents in February.
While the police department focuses on crime prevention, other city departments have been working to address drug use and mental health crises that are happening in public. Bass added the city’s CIRCLE team has been out to address mental health.
In September 2024, NBC4 cameras captured several people doing illegal drugs in the middle of the afternoon as families and community members walked by.
“It’s kind of scary because there are a lot of people who are drugged up, and so we are scared to walk through there,” one father said as he was walking his 6-year-old daughter home from school.
Councilmeber Hernandez, whose district includes Macarthur Park, said a full-time mobile overdose response team has been deployed to identify and reverse overdoses
“From the beginning of this year, they have saved 24 lives through reversing overdoses and distributed over 3,000 naloxone kits,”Hernandez said.
As people who live and work around the park have complained about trash and unsanitary conditions, the city has been working to clean up the area, removing more than 200 tons of debris since September, Bass said.
“We're bringing city services and resources to clean up the area,” the mayor said, adding the city is continuously having conversations with community members, business owners and vendors.
Bass said other preventative investments were made in the area, including the installation of new solar street lights and the improvement of public parking.
