DOJ Denied Request for $3 Million for LAPD Community Policing

The U.S. Department of Justice hasn’t said why the LAPD didn’t receive any of the $98 million in grants recently awarded to scores of law enforcement agencies across the nation. But some LAPD officials believe it was retaliation.

In 2015, a community policing initiative — one credited with helping curb violence in some of L.A.’s toughest housing projects — scored the Los Angeles Police Department high-level praise.

A captain and a sergeant who led the program were invited to Washington, D.C., earning coveted seats near the first lady during President Obama’s State of the Union address.

This year, L.A. officials applied for more than $3 million in federal funding to help bring the same program to Harvard Park, a South L.A. neighborhood scarred by violence.

The request was denied.

The U.S. Department of Justice hasn’t said why the LAPD didn’t receive any of the $98 million in grants recently awarded to scores of law enforcement agencies across the nation. Justice officials didn’t offer the LAPD an explanation, and a spokesman for the federal agency declined to comment when asked by the Los Angeles Times last week.

But after the Trump administration’s repeated threats to withhold federal money from cities that don’t cooperate with its immigration crackdown, some LAPD officials said they believe the move was retaliatory — and a troubling sign of what could come.

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