Riordan Focuses on Rape Data

Los Angeles mayoral candidate Richard Riordan has begun airing a TV ad focusing on the 1,200 rapes that have occurred in Hollywood during rival candidate Michael Woo’s eight years on the City Council.

* THE AD: The ad shows a woman nervously walking down the street. “Twelve hundred women raped in Hollywood since 1985,” the narrator says. “Mike Woo voted 27 times against police officers and equipment. Under Mike Woo, murders in Hollywood are up 53%. Woo opposes the death penalty. Assaults doubled under Mike Woo’s tenure. Councilman Woo allowed cuts in L.A.’s police force from 8,400 officers to only 7,600. Now, Mike Woo wants to be mayor. Is that what you want?”

* THE ANALYSIS: Crime statistics from the Police Department’s Hollywood Division show there were more than 1,200 rapes from 1985 through 1992, but the general trend in reported rape has been downward, even as the population has grown. For example, in 1985, there were 187 rapes. There were 133 in 1992. Between the time Woo took office in 1985 and last year, homicides in the Hollywood Division increased at nearly double the citywide rate. Aggravated assaults doubled--about the same as the citywide rate--while robberies went down, counter to the citywide trend. Woo opposes the death penalty, but neither the City Council or the mayor has any power over that issue. Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, who led efforts in the mid-1980s to build up the LAPD, said Woo was among his supporters.