As shootings by LAPD climb to their highest level in a decade, Mayor Karen Bass says she is “deeply concerned.” That concern comes as people continue to be killed by LAPD at an accelerating pace, often during mental health crises, and as City Hall has repeatedly voted to weaken oversight, expand police power, and delay accountability.

So far this year, LAPD officers have fired their weapons in 46 incidents, killing 14 people and wounding 23 others. That represents roughly a 70 percent increase over 2024 and the department’s highest annual total since 2015. This surge has occurred even as overall crime continues to fall and officers report fewer interactions with the public.

Rather than prompting structural change, the rising body count has been met largely with statements and deflection. LAPD leadership has blamed increased “violence” against officers, despite data showing that shootings by the department far outpace those of the similarly sized Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. Sheriff’s deputies have shot 11 people so far this year, compared to LAPD’s 46 shooting incidents.

The details of who is being shot make the picture even more disturbing. Roughly one in four LAPD shootings involved someone armed only with an edged weapon. Many of those encounters unfolded during mental health calls, welfare checks, or situations where people or their families had reached out for help.

In February, LAPD officers shot and killed Linda Becerra Moran, a 30 year old transgender woman, after she called 911 from a Pacoima motel room to report that she was being held against her will as a possible victim of sex trafficking. Officers said she moved toward them while holding a knife. She did not survive the encounter, and her death became one of several this year that crystallized how often crisis calls end with police gunfire instead of care.

These shootings have not slowed as the year draws to a close. In the days leading up to the mayor’s statement, LAPD officers killed a man during a reported “suicidal subject” call in Hollywood and shot another person during a traffic stop under circumstances that remain unclear. These incidents are still under investigation, but they fit a well established pattern. As shootings climb, they are increasingly concentrated in moments when people are in acute distress.

City Hall cannot plausibly claim surprise. Over the past year, the mayor and City Council have made a series of choices that expand armed policing while stripping away safeguards. Council approved off budget LAPD hiring backed by the Bass administration, raising alarms about democratic oversight. Council declined to act when LAPD missed state deadlines for reporting less lethal force use, and Council voted down limits on 40mm rounds and tear gas. Each decision has reinforced the same message that LAPD power will grow with no accountability.

At the same time, the Police Commission has continued to sign off on policies that protect officers after shootings occur. This year, commissioners extended a pilot program allowing officers up to 72 hours before submitting to interviews after firing their weapons, reversing longstanding practice. Critics warned that the delay undermines transparency and public trust. The commission approved it anyway.

Mayor Bass has said she is especially concerned about the role of mental health in these shootings, but concern has not translated into a meaningful shift away from armed responses. Community based, unarmed crisis response programs have demonstrated real success in Los Angeles, yet they remain limited in scale and funding. Police remain the default responders to mental health emergencies, even as evidence mounts that this approach is deadly.

City officials often point to declines since the early 1990s as proof that reforms work, but the relevant comparison is not to the worst excesses of the past. It is to what is happening now, with decades of research showing that unarmed, care first responses save lives and reduce harm.