If you live in Santa Ana then it should come as no surprise violent crime increased in our city during the first half of 2016, according to a new FBI report.

Violent crime also increased in Orange, Costa Mesa, and Irvine, but it dropped in Anaheim, Huntington Beach and Garden Grove.

In Santa Ana, Orange County’s second-largest city in regard to population, there were 868 reported violent crimes for the first six months of 2016, compared to 773 the year before. Murders more than doubled to 13, according to the O.C. Register.

This increase in violent crime happened while the SAPD experienced historically low staffing levels thanks to our City Manager, David Cavazos, who has since been suspended by our new City Council majority, and our inexperienced and inept Chief of Police, Carlos Rojas. Hopefully Rojas will be suspended or fired soon. Both Cavazos and Rojas were hired by the previous City Council majority not because they were any good at their jobs but primarily because they are Latinos.

While the Rojas administration is blaming the increase in violent crime on Prop. 47, a 2014 state ballot initiative that reduced some drug-possession felonies to misdemeanors, we believe that the mass arrest of Mexican Mafia gang leaders a few years ago, coupled with a meth outbreak among young gangbangers in Santa Ana, are more likely to blame for the increase in violent crime.

And criminals in our area know that our police department is undermanned and overwhelmed. Plus our previous City Council majority got rid of the SAPD’s gang squad.

We would like to see Rojas fired and replaced this year. We also believe the SAPD needs to hire more police officers. Gangbangers are the main problem in our city, along with drug addicts and deranged hobos. It is time to clean up our city and put these miscreants behind bars or drive them out of our city altogether.