The Detective: A dispute at a senior living facility

A rundown of recent criminal activity in Los Angeles
Detective

Illustration of two seniors arguing

 

Here are a couple of recent anomalies in Los Angeles Police Department data found by the Detective, our data-crawling robot, and aggregated by the robot’s human assistant, Catherine Orihuela. This period covers Dec. 28-Jan. 3, 2020. 

 

?  Disagreements and minor spats among residents in senior living facilities—or for that matter, any place where numerous people live in close proximity—are bound to happen. Physical altercations are less common. Yet on Jan. 1, police were called to a retirement home in Westlake after a resident attacked a 61-year-old neighbor. According to a police report, the suspect, who was also over the age of 60, swung a weapon described as a “fixed object” at the man. Details about what caused the altercation were unavailable. 

 

Since the Los Angeles Police Department began making its data publicly available in 2010, there have been only five reported instances of aggravated assault at retirement homes between residents over the age of 60. All five occurred in the last three years. 

 

?  Two people were attacked outside a medical marijuana facility in Manchester Square on Dec. 30. Details are thin, but according to police, an unidentified suspect approached the victims as they were leaving, pulled out a gun and fired shots before fleeing the scene. 

 

The code for a victim “at/leaving a medical/retail/non-retail cannabis location” has been used 141 times since 2010. The Detective flagged a similar cannabis-related crime on Jan. 3 in Chesterfield Square. During this incident, a 34-year-old man exiting a medical marijuana facility was shot by a person wearing a hat and hoodie. Details about the victim’s condition were unavailable. 

 

?  Five cars were reported stolen in Historic South-Central on Dec. 31. According to the LAPD, an unidentified suspect entered a gated parking lot on the 200 block of West Jefferson Boulevard by cutting the lock. Prior to this incident, only four vehicles had been reported stolen on the block since 2010. 

 

A 50-year-old rideshare driver was attacked in Exposition Park on Jan. 1. Details are thin, but according to the LAPD, multiple juvenile suspects approached and began harassing the driver on the street. One suspect punched the victim before fleeing the scene. 

 

Since 2010, there have been only 13 reported incidents in which rideshare drivers were the victim of a crime by juveniles.

 

How we did it: At Crosstown, we examine publicly available crime data from multiple Los Angeles County law enforcement agencies. We have a robot on the team called the Detective that scans the LAPD publicly available data for anomalies. LAPD officers tag most crime reports in their system with MO codes, for “modus operandi,” Latin for operating method or style. The MO codes are shorthand for describing what happened in a crime incident. 

 

Questions about our data? Write to us at askus@xtown.la