Thread by @cerisecastle

Sheriff Alex Villanueva, Lt. Geoffrey Deedrick and business owners from the Venice Beach Boardwalk are about to gold a press conference about @LASDHQ strategy in Venice. I'll be livetweeting the conference here, and you can tune in here: facebook.com/LosAngelesCoun…

.@LACoSheriff kicks off the press conference by calling out people on social media making fun of his "cowboy hat", saying he wears it because of his fight with skin cancer.

Sheriff Villanueva now showing a photo taken the Southern California newsgroup depicting an encampment w/ the caption "A National Disgrace...A Local Tragedy." He falsely states that most of LA's homeless population comes from outside of California and are ruining tourist spots.

The Sheriff is now airing a compilation of local news stories where people refer to the unhoused as "zombies" and blame local crimes on the unhoused without evidence.

In a clip of himself, Villanueva walks along the boardwalk points to Santa Monica and says "This is regulating public space." He then speaks to workers on the boardwalk who say the unhoused are "ruining" the boardwalk.

In another Lt. Deedrick interviews a young man who identifies as a "nomad" and a young woman who says that "people don't understand the struggle of what led [people] down here." @LACoSheriff says this proves "if you don't regulate public space, someone will occupy it."

"Every single person that comes from out of state to the boardwalk takes away resources we have to deal with our own" says @LACoSheriff

Sheriff Alex Villanueva says that law enforcement is the "backbone of society", and says that people like Mayor Eric Garcetti and the Board of Supervisors have failed the city and are responsible for supporting the "homeless industrial complex" with this slide.

Sheriff Villanueva says that he has the authority to enforce the law throughout the county under the authority of these laws. "You will have an activist yelling 'you are being inhumane when you have the coroner scraping the bodies off the sidewalk."

Sheriff Villanueva says that Prop 47 destroyed their ability to arrest people for drug offenses. He says that arresting people for drug offenses saves them. "Do I want to be in Venice? Of Course not."

"We cannot build our way out of homelessness. You have to regulate public space." - @LACoSheriff. He says by not doing that we are enabling 501c3s to feed the unhoused. "The more you feed the unhoused, the more come. They enable that by throwing them food medicine all day long."

He says that because spending on homelessness went up, it's time to "regulate public space."

Sheriff Villanueva is now showing some footage taken of him visiting Olvera Street. He speaks with a few shop owners in Spanish and asks if they want help bringing back more tourists

Sheriff VIllanueva says "Right now there are people in foreign lands marking off LA as a place to go." He says that the city council and board of supervisors are ignoring a crisis by not prioritizing tourism on agendas. "It is out of their woke rationale"

Sheriff Villanueva returns to the "architects" of the "homeless industrial complex and identifies city councilman @mikebonin and supervisor @SheilaKuehl, along with several other unhoused organization heads.

Sheriff Villanueva introduces Lt. Geff Deedrick, who oversees the Homeless Outreach Services Team, as one the of the foremost experts on homelessness in the nation to speak about solutions.