James Woods Declares Los Angeles Dead: 'LA Is Gone'
The Democrat-controlled city of Los Angeles has devolved into a squalid cesspool of rampant crime, uncontrolled homelessness and filthy streets littered with trash, drug paraphernalia and human waste.
That’s the observation of numerous Californians, including award-winning actor James Woods, who lamented on Monday that the picturesque city he once loved “is gone.”
All of Los Angeles County is like this now. There are some pockets of respite, but L.A. is gone. https://t.co/G1ClkotnKU
— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) June 14, 2021
In mourning the demise of the city, the actor referenced an alarming exposé by The Epoch Times spotlighting LA’s catastrophic collapse.
In the report, residents of Venice Beach slammed LA officials for allowing the once-popular tourist attraction to devolve into a seedy abyss where criminals run amok, homeless vagrants frequently attack passersby and the sidewalks are cluttered with trash.
LA County Sheriff Alex Villanueva has been bombarded with complaints from local residents and store owners who are disgusted that politicians are ignoring the homelessness and crime epidemics ravaging their neighborhood.
“When I was out there in Venice, I talked to a shop owner, and he was fit to be tied,” Villanueva told The Epoch Times. “He’s tired of politicians, tired of people in the city doing nothing.
“And it’s impacting his ability for customers to come in, [with] the cost of people trying to break into his business and people causing scenes, fights, [and] outside fires. It’s like a Third-World country.
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Soledad Ursua, the chairwoman of the Venice Beach Neighborhood Council, said crime has skyrocketed over the past year due to a “lack of enforcement.”
“That’s really how a lot of these crime problems have really spiraled out of control,” she told The Epoch Times.
“And it’s sad that we have to ask the city to resume enforcing our laws, you know, laws that we have on the books. So, Venice residents, we have to basically beg for our laws to be enforced again.”
NEW: @LACoSheriff releases new 2021 crime stats for L.A. County vs same time period in 2020.
Homicides: ⬆️ 95%
GTA: ⬆️ 40%
Rape: ⬆️ 7.8%
Agg. Assault: ⬆️ 12.9%
Arson: ⬆️ 22%He says LASD will start processing more CCW permits due to “less cops, more crooks, less consequences.”
— Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) June 2, 2021
While Ursua did not specifically blame the lack of enforcement on the left’s “defund the police” frenzy, many officials — including the LA County sheriff — attributed the escalating crime sprees to police pullbacks.
“We have been defunded, degraded,” Villanueva said earlier this month in a sheriff’s office YouTube video.
“Our capacity to fight crime, investigate crime and hold people accountable when they commit a crime — all that is going downhill.”
Similarly, the homelessness crisis in LA has gotten so out of hand that even liberal judges are scolding local lawmakers for failing their constituents.
In April, Judge David Carter — an appointee of former President Bill Clinton — ordered LA to get the city’s 66,436 homeless people off the streets and into some sort of shelter or housing by October.
– California has the highest poverty rate in US
– Homeless population increased 30% in California but declined 18% in rest of US, 2000-2020
– Every major California city has been taken over by dangerous open drug scenes (“homeless encampments”) https://t.co/19Xd4dMb2q
— Michael Shellenberger (@shellenberger) June 15, 2021
In his scathing, 110-page order, the judge blamed rampant corruption in the Democrat-run government for its abysmal failure to manage the homelessness emergency.
“Elected officials at both the state and local level have long been aware of L.A.’s urgent homelessness crisis,” Carter wrote. “Recent investigations into City-funded housing projects for the homeless demonstrate that a lack of government oversight has allowed the proliferation of corruption.”
He torpedoed the city’s liberal lawmakers for turning “a blind eye to corruption as money is being siphoned off from funds that taxpayers voted to allocate to the homeless population.”
Sadly, this same tragic scenario of mushrooming homelessness and rampant crime is playing out in other Democrat-controlled cities across the United States.
From San Francisco to Chicago to New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore, murders, thefts, rapes, homelessness and hate crimes (notably, against Asian-Americans and Jews) have surged during the past 13 months — stoked by the left’s demonization of law enforcement and the accompanying police pullbacks.
This just happened at the @Walgreens on Gough & Fell Streets in San Francisco. #NoConsequences @chesaboudin pic.twitter.com/uSbnTQQk4J
— Lyanne Melendez (@LyanneMelendez) June 14, 2021
WILD VIDEO: Here’s video of #looters in Walnut Creek turning on each other and start fighting over the clothes they stole. Latest here: https://t.co/HIdv2szDh2 pic.twitter.com/2n9xXNZ6FV
— ABC7 News (@abc7newsbayarea) June 1, 2020
In many instances, the police don’t even try to apprehend criminals, presumably because they don’t want to get fired or smeared as “racist” by the establishment media.
BLM reparations demonstration in Palo Alto. pic.twitter.com/g1JMGlNI5D
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) June 12, 2021
The Democrats’ soft-on-crime policies are destroying neighborhoods, hurting small businesses and endangering public safety. How much more suffering do Americans have to endure before these pressing issues are addressed?
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
