A man chopped Los Angeles trees. The crime cut deeply in the neighborhood of difficulties: NPR

According to the police, Samuel Patrick Groft drove through the streets of Los Angeles through the streets of Los Angeles for days and only hammered about a dozen city trees with an electric chainsaw in three different quarters.

In the middle of the night, Froft sometimes chopped on large, decades of trees, others played his wireless strength on busy sidewalks on a broad -sized day.

The film material also showed that the destruction of Groft was at least exceeded five daysFrom April 17th to his arrest on April 22nd – Day of the earth.

Since then he has been charged with vandalism of crime and is held on a bond of $ 150,000. The efforts to achieve Groft or lawyer were unsuccessful.

While A press conferenceThe police said the costs for the exchanges of the trees will be at least 347,000 US dollars. However, this estimate does not contain three additional fallen trees that have been discovered by the LAPD.

The root of outrage

Media Moussavy was on a morning walk when he had come across about half a dozen shadow trees in the city center of Los Angeles, where he lives. He said NPR that he was angry with the sight of the separated trees and immediately posted it on his Instagram account @Dtlainsider.

Moussavy's videos showed that several of the older trees were probably measured between 20 and 30 feet – only about 5 feet of their tribes in the ground. Others were cut closer to their roots.

The stories became viral and touched tens of thousands of angry comments from users who were baffled and dismayed by the loss of any piece of the city's canopy that had already been. They demanded justice and revenge in the post office. They demanded that the culprit be forced to plant new trees.

Within a few days, public outrage was so fervently that Mayor Karen Bass made an explanation in which the attacks “beyond understanding” were called. She promised the residents that all trees would be replaced quickly. Not a small performance in a city that wants to reduce one billion dollars from its budget.

“I think that the turmoil of everyone we heard and saw online definitely shows how people feel about nature,” said Moussavy.

“You can replace graffiti, you can replace broken glass, but trees that take so much time to grow and frankly do nothing to offer us an advantage … I mean at the end of the day, what does the tree ever do with them?” he asked.

Downtown's downturn

In addition to leaving the leaves, the bizarre act of vandalism outraged the locals, which say that they are fed up with the chaos that seems to be taking over the city center since the Covid 19 pandemic. In the past five years, once busy districts have become ghost cities. The residents have moved out, homeless warehouses are buried on streets with newly built luxury buildings. Companies and restaurants that put a buyer of buyers and the weekend and nightlife have closed. And many residents who got it out said that the general lack of people had approved the widespread drug use.

All in all, the changes have burdened the 90,000 people living in the city center.

That is why Leslie Ridings is so demoralized by this latest attack of the destruction.

As a co -founder of the Downtown of Los Angeles Residence AssociationRidings actively tries to build a flourishing community in the city center.

“A part of the task of the city center is to be a meeting point. It is the heart of the city. We come here to see sports games. We come here to celebrate, mourn, and that is great. We want everyone to come and live here. We want more density, more residents. We want everything,” said Ridings.

But a crime like this, which he described as “willful destruction for the sake of destruction”, gives the public the impression that anti -social behavior is overlooked.

“It really shows the presumption of impunity,” said Ridings, adding that the officials of the city and the district also return to a time when they “used the city center as a kind of carpet under which they swept things”.

The city council member Ysabel Jurado represents the district in which half of the trees were felled. She stopped a press conference on Thursday and asked the city guides to replace the trees quickly. She said NPR that it was an uncanny but suitable metaphor in two ways to lose such a “living infrastructure”.

“How historically this neighborhood is and how it was chopped out of forces outside of that, be it covid or another economic recession,” said Jurado.

It also serves as a metaphor for Jurado as a member of the council, she said.

“We are in a crisis. Our city government is broken in this upcoming enemy fiscal environment. So much work is put on the table to be released, and our city services are shortened even more.”

The city's canopy

The Baum -Baldachin about Los Angeles leaves a lot to be desired. A 2021 study In the city, it was clear that 20% of the trees were in just four districts within the city limits. The investigation states that the root of the problem, as in many cities across the country, is due to the redining guidelines of the federal government that refused to insure mortgages in non-white districts. In the long term, these practices have led to a lower investment in parks and other public green spaces. All of this offers the residents a variety of advantages.

“So it is no wonder that so many of these communities disproportionately suffer some of the worst effects of climate change – be it heat, illness or the stress associated with pollution,” said Bryan Vejar, deputy director of the Community Forestry at Treeple, to NPR.

The organization is involved in an urban program that increases the municipal tree baldachin “in areas with the greatest need” by 2028.

But Vejar said it's not as easy to plant new trees. Studies show that Los Angeles urgently needs large, mature trees that offer more shadows, better rainwater management and energy savings.

If there is a silver strip for an otherwise senseless flood of violence on the arbor, Vejar said, the city now has the opportunity to diversify its urban forest.

Most of the trees that were fake were ficuse. While they are often used in undesirable, hard -wing areas because they can endure high radiation heat, they are not located in California and can really be destructive.

The streets of LA, the department, monitored public jobs for the city, said the trees had an aged 10 to more than 50 years. The agency has not given a timeline or cost estimate to replace it.

“We are big fans of Oaks,” said Vejar and noticed that they are native. “We have to plant climate adaptable trees that can withstand some of the average heat and drought conditions that correspond to the built environment. And so I would not only stand up for a kind, but also for many different ways.”