During an Aug. 25 press conference in the Oval Office, President Donald Trump brought up the topic of Beverly Hills. While signing a series of executive orders, the president began to defend his decision to deploy federal troops in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.
Trump, who owned a home on Canon Drive in Beverly Hills from 2007 to 2019, claimed that some of his friends leave their vehicles unlocked, in anticipation of vandalism.
“Beverly Hills is a great place,” said the president. “I have friends, they leave their trunk open for their car … because they know they’re going to be vandalized. They don’t want the trunk ripped off in order for them to steal what’s in their back. They leave their doors open so when they go in to steal the radio or whatever they take, that they don’t rip off the door … that’s at a level that nobody’s ever seen before. Nobody lives like that.”
Therese Kosterman, interim public information manager for Beverly Hills, told the Courier that the city is “not aware of residents deliberately leaving their cars unlocked in order to prevent vandalism.”
Trump also said that another one of his friends leaves his garage open so that the door is not destroyed.
“So many cars, I’ve been told this by many people — stars, big people — they leave their doors open so the doors aren’t destroyed by these criminals. All over Los Angeles this is taking place,” Trump noted.
Trump’s claims of crime in Beverly Hills are in line with his administration’s latest law enforcement efforts in cities such as Los Angeles and most recently, Washington, D.C. In June, the president deployed 2,000 National Guard members to Los Angeles In an effort to protect federal propertyduring massive demonstrations against Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in the city, which California Gov. Gavin Newsom challenged in court. He alleged the president of making an “unnecessary power grab.”
This month, Trump deployed the National Guard to the nation’s capital after claiming violent crime was out of control, yet D.C.’s mayor has called these statements “hyperbolic and false.”
The president has since threatened to replicate these efforts in other American cities, such as Chicago and Baltimore.
According to data from the Beverly Hills Police Department presented this week to the Health and Safety Commission, certain categories of crime are on the decline.
Beverly Hills over the past few years has bolstered its number of closed-circuit television cameras which city officials have said serve as a tool for police trying to solve crime. Combating crime and investing in public safety technology, such as police-controlled drones, CCTV cameras and the Real Time Watch Center have become focal points for city officials.
