Los Angeles Police Department Chief Jim McDonnell told a City Council Budget and Finance Committee Wednesday that the city is not prepared to secure the 2028 Olympics because of staffing shortages and a lack of dedicated funding, the New York Post reported.
McDonnell said the LAPD has no dedicated police safety budget for the Games beyond a shared security pool with other agencies. “LA28 confirms that they have zero police or other safety budgets,” he said, according to the Post. “The funding that exists is for all agencies involved in the Olympics, not just the LAPD, and it will be restricted primarily to police officer overtime.”
The Olympics Special Events Unit determined Los Angeles will need roughly 6,700 officers across eight venues and an additional 700 to 800 patrol vehicles, the New York Post reported. Officials warned the department is losing more than 500 officers a year to attrition, driving up overtime; the LAPD expects to log about 1.4 million hours of overtime this year, contributing to a projected $16.5 million deficit, the report said.
Olympic organizers have said the federal government will help handle security because the Games are designated a National Special Security Event, but LAPD officials called that characterization “inaccurate,” the Post reported. Los Angeles City Council member Eunisses Hernandez, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, questioned the scale of the planned police deployment, asking, “Do they all need to be cop cars? Can we not use school buses?”
Fox News Digital reached out to the LAPD and LA28 for comment, the report said.
Jon Ross Myers is the executive editor and publisher of the Mississippi News Network, Mississippi's largest digital only media company. He can be reached at editor@tippahnews.com
