LAPD Aims to Drive Up Violent Crime in Los Angeles
On October 8th, the LAPD arrested 23 Skid Row drug dealers during “Operation Save Skid Row.” This operation exemplifies law enforcement’s role in America perfectly: to exploit the fact of crime rather than solving it. “Operation Save Skid Row” will not save anything; in fact, it is highly likely to increase violence throughout Los Angeles by destabilizing the drug trade. The LAPD’s foolish operation is either the result of negligent police leadership or a deliberate effort by the police chief to justify budget increases by exacerbating and increasing violent crime.
“Arresting drug dealers” makes for a compelling case that portrays the LAPD as effective, and it looks good in headlines that media companies are eager to publish. However, if the LAPD’s $3.53 billion budget only results in street-level arrests, we are drastically overpaying. We civilians can identify and apprehend drug dealers on open streets on our own, likely with a lot less violence and certainly a lot cheaper. In fact, law enforcement prevents us from addressing the problem directly, as citizen enforcement would likely involve legal violations—violations that law enforcement is quick to exploit, advancing their true agenda: to arrest and kill Black people. Unfortunately, citizens are sidelined in favor of a government operation that has spent billions of dollars on a problem that has only worsened under its watch. If multi-billion-dollar budgets year after year have failed to produce the intended results, we should consider scrapping, or defunding the department altogether. A nearly $4 billion budget should, at minimum, produce knowledgeable LAPD leadership capable of understanding the drug trade and the consequences—or in the LAPD’s case, the benefit—of creating an economic and power vacuum by simply removing distributors. Angelenos are victims of a decades-long LAPD and government scam.
Removing dealers from a neighborhood where demand exists is a recipe for disaster if no measures are in place to address that demand. If Operation Save Skid Row lacks a strategy to deal with the desperate, drug-addicted people suddenly cut off from their supply, its leadership is incompetent and is merely igniting a fire in dry brush. At a time when violent crime has decreased significantly, Operation Save Skid Row may generate positive headlines, but the ensuing struggle to fill the distribution vacuum created by the LAPD’s operation will likely result in an exponential increase in violence and cause numerous deaths.
Homicides in Los Angeles have decreased over the past three years, dropping from 331 in 2023 to 284 in 2024, and then to 230 in 2025. The number for 2026 is projected to be even lower. However, 2026 may mark a reversal of this trend, potentially leading to an increase that could have been entirely preventable. The LAPD’s annual report even appears to reflects its desire for increased violence. In reporting homicides, the report’s graphic displays the columns representing each of the last three years’ figures from right to left. Since we are accustomed to processing read information from left to right, the LAPD’s graphic subconsciously registers in the brain as an increase. It seems the LAPD gave more consideration to misleading readers than safely and effectively reducing the drug trade on Skid Row.
Several street gangs control the drug trade on Skid Row. Distribution territories are well established, and customer bases function much like fast-food restaurants, where operators compete within the same general area for market share by offering higher quality product and being “on deck,” or reliably stocked. The drug distribution system on Skid Row developed similarly to European countries, where much death and violence led to formal and informal agreements. Each territory has a distributor who receives the product from the supplier, who is likely directly connected to the importer or is one step removed. In the absence of a prosperous nation that provides sufficient dignified jobs with legitimate compensation, each person involved in this system sustains their livelihood through the drug trade in lieu of legal means; in other words, they would all have legal jobs if America produced them. Removing distributors from the streets would be akin to removing cash registers from fast-food restaurants; customers will still need food, and their hunger will not disappear. The vast majority of people on Skid Row are addicted to drugs and live perpetually in a hopeless state. Their only source of pleasure is drugs, and removing their means of obtaining these substances will not somehow cure their addiction. This is not rocket science! The LAPD says they’re “preying on the folks who are among the most vulnerable,” but in reality its ill-conceived raid will only exacerbate conditions in an already dangerous and volatile area, making residents even less safe as drug suppliers reestablish their distribution networks.
Cutting off drug revenue from Skid Row will almost certainly trigger deadly conflicts within the neighborhoods and gang territories that supply it. According to reports, this involved gang members in Los Angeles, Watts, Pasadena and West Covina. The economic and power vacuum deliberately created by the LAPD will force suppliers to call in monies owed from distributors, much like banks call in loans from debtors. During my drug dealing days, I was good friends with T, a supplier. T would let me ride with him to pick up from the “plug,” the source or importer of the drugs. I was prepared to kill anyone who tried to rob or harm him. Sometimes he would call in debts, and he often killed people who could not fulfill their obligations. This type of activity will happen frequently in gang territories as a result of the LAPD’s reckless drug raid on Skid Row. Recovery efforts by suppliers will hit a wall because, like banks and businesses, very few entities are entirely liquid; they likely have money tied up in product and cannot pay their debts in full. On the streets, a supplier writing off owed money would be a recipe for losing the respect that underpins their business position. The federal government does not print money or tax citizens to bail out drug suppliers, as it does banks and other “too big to fail” businesses. Therefore, drug suppliers must take deadly action when distributors cannot repay them.
The distributor, aware that their life may be in danger, might take preemptive action by killing the supplier. This happened to my friend “B” in 2012, when he was shot in the head by distributors who owed him over $160,000. Eliminating suppliers creates a significant power and money vacuum, leading to tension and deadly violence in the neighborhoods where drug distributors from Skid Row live. Their families are upended by the loss of income, and younger male family members are immediately thrust into positions of power—often before they are ready. If this sounds familiar, it mirrors what happened with early European aristocracy: when kings died, their heirs fought and killed each other to seize and maintain power in the resulting vacuum. Just as with the death of kings, the struggle for power in the ‘hood is deadly. The gangs controlling the neighborhoods that supplied Skid Row will experience internal tension. LAPD leadership either knows this or should not have the authority to enforce the law.
Gangs maintain truces and alliances that facilitate relatively smooth drug distribution. In absence of government leadership beyond arresting and jailing everyone involved, gang leaders established protocol to prevent the levels of violence experienced in the 1980s and 1990s. These agreements largely depend on each gang’s strength, organization, and operational and military capabilities. The internal conflict resulting from the LAPD’s Skid Row raid will alter the capabilities of several gangs, revising relationships and jeopardizing their alliances and arrangements. This would be much like taking America’s nuclear weapons away and not expecting world leadership and order to violently change. The leverage that allowed gangs to operate in relative peace on Skid Row will shift, and new contenders will begin testing their ability to assume the roles of those incarcerated by the LAPD. These attempts will likely involve the use of deadly force, either to establish or defend control. A single killing can destabilize several neighborhoods and trigger a deadly chain reaction of gang warfare. When combined with the sudden lack of revenue, the wars can b e LAPD leadership is fully aware of this. Despite this reality, the LAPD still initiated this chain reaction with Operation Save Skid Row.
Drug dealers on Skid Row enforced distribution agreements established by various gangs’ leadership. This means that the LAPD disrupted the systems that kept Skid Row somewhat organized. The LAPD’s reckless operation will likely lead to a significant increase in violence and a dramatic rise in homicides. I believe this was the LAPD’s true intent. Theoretically, the less violence there is in the City of Los Angeles, the fewer officers the city needs, and consequently, the smaller the law enforcement budget required. Exploiting crime as a resource to justify ever-increasing law enforcement budgets is the LAPD’s true purpose. Duplicitous police chiefs emphasize their department’s effectiveness to secure reelection, and in the same breath, emphasize that crime is out of control and demand more and more funding and personnel to address a drug problem that only has gotten worse. In reality, many of the additional LAPD personnel serve to generate revenue by burdening Black people like me with unearned guilt. I have recently been stopped twice by officers, only for courts to later find in both cases that I did nothing wrong. The time and energy spent proving my innocence and avoiding a $5,000-$7,000 cash draw ($1400 in fines plus higher insurance premiums for two years), could have been invested in opening multiple businesses. More on these cases here.
Operation Save Skid Row makes headlines and generates the Black mugshots that White America loves so much, but its actual effects will be more violence, a continued drug problem and a basis for the LAPD Police Chief, whether it be Jim McDonnell or his soon-to-come successor, requesting more money. The LAPD’s 
misdeed deepens White America’s debt to Black people, as the entire drug trade originated from America’s failure to manage the productivity of all its citizens in a way that fulfills the original purpose of labor: to satisfy individual needs and interests while supplying the nation’s requirements. Today’s American government has failed on both counts, as dignified work with sufficient compensation to put a roof over one’s head and food in their stomachs is becoming increasingly scarce. America needs to smarten up immediately! Americans of all shades cannot trust their government.
Our government takes our hard-earned tax dollars and funds a country with free healthcare and education, then fights over how much to charge us for the same. The country whose healthcare system we fund also trains LAPD officers, instilling in the LAPD Police Chief and LAPD officers a moral outlook that causes them to treat Americans as that country treats its oppressed subjects. The department also lies effortlessly and incessantly, a trait associated with the country where they receive this training. Operation Save Skid Row was a thinly veiled attempt to generate headlines, produce Black mugshots, increase crime and violence, and justify a higher LAPD budget. The cost to Black and Latino residents, who live in a perpetual state
of disadvantage, will be immeasurable. The lives and health of Skid Row residents are placed in greater danger due to the LAPD’s reckless, self-serving operation. Each person arrested will cost the state approximately $130,000 to keep incarcerated in prison once convicted. The conviction process itself will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Viewed in totality, Operation Save Skid Row was yet another government scheme to funnel tax dollars into the coffers of a failed system of that obscures America’s failure to create and maintain a proper economic and social model. America enabled and facilitated a drug economy in the economic vacuum of its own failure. Now it arrests the Black and Brown people compensating for that failure by participating in it. Making the best of a bad situation, Black and Latino people achieved relative peace within America’s failed economic model, decreasing violent crime in scarce conditions far better than Europe ever did in its scarcity. Rather than learn from Black and Brown success, LAPD seized upon it to destabilize this relative peace and exploit the results. It is cutting off the tail end of this system, setting off a chain of deadly events to come.