National Guard to be Deployed to Fox Hills/Westfield Mall Beginning June 3 – UPDATED

From Culver City’s City Manager, John Nachbar “I share our community’s outrage about the violent murder of George Floyd last week by a police officer. As your City Manager, I am committed to doing everything in my power to identify the ways in which institutional racism manifests itself in our organization and make meaningful changes to address it. If you haven’t already read it, I encourage you to read the message that the Culver City Police Department sent the community in response to the death of George Floyd.

The Culver City Police Department (CCPD) has been working 24/7 for multiple days in a row to prevent looting in Culver City. The entire police force is deployed: half of the force during the morning hours, the other half during evening hours. We appreciate the public’s cooperation with our curfew orders. We recognize that they are very disruptive. I am pleased to tell you that the curfew has been effective in helping prevent the extensive looting we have seen in other parts of the region. CCPD has made no arrests or citations for curfew violations, which I believe is evidence that the curfew order is not being used to infringe on people’s rights to protest or to target disadvantaged populations or people of color.
The current danger to the Culver City community is real. During each of the past several evenings, there have been up to 100 cars at a time circling the Westfield Culver City Mall with persons attempting to gain access to vandalize and loot. Using significant resources, CCPD and local law enforcement partners have been successful in fighting off these criminal attempts, including using methods such as using buses to block mall parking lot entrances. In the meantime, other criminals have burglarized or attempted to burglarize other retail stores around Culver City.

In at least six different incidents, CCPD has had to chase suspects in vehicles through the City. 10 retail locations have been successfully burglarized, resulting in significant damage and loss of property, at a time when our businesses can least tolerate such losses. Specific threats have been made to stores in Culver City, including not only the mall but our two Target stores. These threats have come through social media, law enforcement intelligence, community members, other neighboring law enforcement agencies, and mall management. Again, it is only due to the efforts of CCPD, working with other local law enforcement partners, that the Westfield Culver City Mall and additional retail locations in Culver City have not experienced the type of looting we have seen elsewhere.

To relieve CCPD and allow them to focus on prevention in other parts of the City, CCPD has made a request through the County of Los Angeles for National Guard assistance. 25 National Guard service members will arrive this afternoon around 1:00 PM at the Westfield Culver City Mall to provide security. The National Guard will only be deployed at the mall. Their mission will be to protect the mall. How long they remain deployed there depends on the security situation at the mall. For now, they are only committed to stay through early tomorrow morning. After that, their presence there will depend on the day-to-day evaluation of the security situation. Providing a continued presence for safeguarding the mall has been a significant drain on CCPD resources. Additional resources from the National Guard provides CCPD the opportunity to relocate internal resources to other responsibilities, such as calls for service, safeguarding other businesses in the City, attending demonstrations in the city and region, policing the city, and providing mutual aid requests in the region.

UPDATE – At this time, National Guard is only committed to stay through early morning of Thursday, June 4 and will only have a presence at the mall. This timeline is subject to the security of the mall.

For additional questions, please call Culver City Police Department front desk at (310) 253-6208.”