LOS ANGELES (CNS) - Disputes between landlords, tenants and neighbors in Los Angeles spiked during the coronavirus pandemic with police taking nearly 2,400 calls in a one-year period, it was reported this week.
Between March 15, 2020, the date Mayor Eric Garcetti ordered the closure of many businesses in the city, and March 14, 2021, the Los Angeles Police Department took 2,392 calls of such disputes, a 23% increase compared to the previous year, according to department data obtained by the website Crosstown.
More than half of the calls, 1,221, involved an assault and in more than 150 occasions, someone pulled a gun, the data showed.
The Westlake district and Broadway-Manchester neighborhood had the highest number of calls with 156 and 101 disputes, respectively.
In nearly 1,200 calls, the suspect was a roommate and in almost 800 of those calls, an assault was reported. Police responded to 75 such incidents in the Westlake district and another 50 in Hollywood, the data showed.
Disputes between neighbors jumped 27% during the one-year pandemic period and included nearly 1,200 assaults with the Westlake district the site of about 180 calls where the suspect was a neighbor. Downtown Los Angeles reported the second highest number of such calls with 171, according to police.
Crosstown stressed the “data only reflect crimes that are reported to the department, not how many crimes actually occurred'' and examined police records with crimes labeled with the code for “suspect was a roommate,'' “suspect was a neighbor'' and “dispute involved a landlord/tenant/neighbor.''
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