Santa Monica Begins Clean Up and Recovery
June 2, 2020 9:56 AM
SANTA MONICA, Calif. – On Monday, June 1, the City of Santa Monica began a community-wide clean-up and recovery effort from Sunday’s unrest that resulted in damage to hundreds of businesses across the City, as public safety agencies successfully implemented a citywide curfew that maintained calm and order throughout the day and overnight. A unified command was established for the Santa Monica Police and Fire Departments, National Guard and partner agencies providing substantial mutual aid to ensure the safety of the Santa Monica community. The City’s Emergency Operations Center was activated to its highest level.
The City of Santa Monica thanks every Santa Monica resident, business, and community member for following the Citywide curfew the last two days. Yesterday morning’s turnout for the grassroots community cleanup was extraordinary. City leaders were joined by hundreds of people who love and have great pride for this city at storefronts and on streets to clean up with personal brooms and tools. This added to the City Public Works team who was out in the early morning hours to clean city streets and sidewalks and remove graffiti.
“We appreciate the active engagement of our community as we move through this pandemic and state of emergency. The City’s efforts are focused on ensuring the public’s safety. As we also move forward to our recovery, we walk hand-in-hand with our community," said Interim City Manager Lane Dilg.
Forty-one arrests were made yesterday and 438 were made on Sunday. The City has recorded 347 damage reports, including 84 reports of graffiti and 292 reports of damage to retail businesses, of which 155 indicated significant damage. The City is calling affected businesses today to get further details on estimated cost of damages and stolen property.
Business owners should report past looting and vandalism to santamonicapd.org/crimereport/. The most important question to answer is 3. All other questions can be answered with “no”. Community members should continue to submit information related to evidence and surveillance to info@santamonica.gov.
The emergency curfew for Tuesday, June 2 will be in effect from 2 p.m. to 5:30 a.m. tomorrow, Wednesday June 3. What you need to know about curfew:
- Downtown parking structures closures in place after 2 p.m.
- Rideshare and shared mobility service into Santa Monica will suspend after 2 p.m. today.
- Big Blue Bus is running normal weekday service. Any changes to service online at bigbluebus.com.
- Existing downtown street closures remain in effect. Additional street closures may occur based on need.
Reflecting on Monday’s events, Mayor Kevin McKeown shared:
“If you were out around our city Monday morning, as I was, you know our streets were full of residents with brooms and sweepers. Volunteers cleaned graffiti off walls. The resilient spirit of our city was evident everywhere. Even after the shocking events of Sunday, it is again great to be a Santa Monican. Thank you to all who were pitching in.
We continue to grieve for the losses to our businesses and neighborhoods on Sunday, and we continue to be outraged over the death of George Floyd and the unacceptable persistence of institutional racism. Nonetheless, on Monday we showed that we can learn from tragedy, get back up, and commit ourselves to a better city.
So, the broken glass is swept, and we thank the 130 National Guard officers now standing with us, but we can’t pretend we’re back to normal. It shouldn’t take a citywide curfew for us to feel safe in our homes. We will make it to another bright day today, and continue to work together to put the shine back on Santa Monica. The criminals who overran downtown on Sunday can take their stolen sneakers, but they can never take from us the most valued asset we share — each other.”
The City will issue updates by SMAlerts, through social media, and email. We recommend you sign up to any or all of these channels:
- Santa Monica emergency alerts: www.santamonica.gov/alerts or text SMALERTS to 888-777.
- SaMoNews community email: www.santamonica.gov/newsletter .
- Report requests for service through the “Santa Monica Works” App found at santamonica.gov/works.
- Follow @SantaMonicaCity on Facebook and Instagram and @SantaMonicaCity on Twitter.
###
Media Contact
Constance Farrell
Communications & Public Information Manager
Constance.Farrell@santamonica.gov