LOS ANGELES — The public's confidence in the Los Angeles Police Department has improved slightly over the last two years, although more than half of the city's residents believe policing remains tainted by racial bias among officers, according to a survey from Loyola Marymount University.
The survey, which was a follow-up to a similar one conducted by the university in 2020, underscored how, despite the national reckoning over policing spurred by the murder that year of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, L.A. residents remain generally supportive of the LAPD, while also making clear they do not see them as a panacea to the city's problems.
Roughly 3 of 4 respondents, for example, said seeing LAPD officers in their neighborhoods makes them feel safe, and 71% of people surveyed believed that police were "serving and protecting my neighborhood" — up from 63% in 2020. At the same time, a large majority of people said it would be better if police alone were not called on to handle calls involving vulnerable groups such as mentally ill and homeless people.
