According to a statement made by Rep. Karen Bass, who is running for mayor of Los Angeles, two weapons were taken during a break-in at her residence on Friday night.
The day after discovering evidence of a break-in, Bass claimed she called the police. She claimed that although cash, gadgets, and other items were left behind, the robber took firearms that had been “safely and properly stowed.”
Bass, who resides in the Baldwin Vista area of Los Angeles, said, “It’s disconcerting and, regrettably, it’s something that far too many Angelenos have faced.”
The guns belonged to the congresswoman, Bass communications director Sarah Leonard Sheahan told The Times, adding that they were kept safe in a Brinks lock box.
Bass has never applied for a licence to carry a gun, according to Leonard Sheahan, who also claimed that the weapons were lawfully registered pistols.
According to Leonard Sheahan, nobody was at home when the break-in occurred.
The Los Angeles Police Department requested the public’s help in identifying the burglary suspect in a news release on Saturday night. He was described by the police as “Hispanic, 5 feet 9 inches tall, and 200 pounds.”
Burglaries are 15% higher in the entire city this year than they were last year, and crime has become a major topic in the mayoral contest. 77% of voters want a candidate who is tough on crime, according to a study conducted in August this year and co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Times.
At a debate earlier this year, Bass was asked to rank the level of safety she feels while strolling through her neighbourhood on a scale of 1 to 10.
“I do feel safe. I would say a 10,” Bass said. “I feel safe, but I do understand that a lot of people around the city do not feel safe, and I respect that.”
When Bass was a California organiser for the Venceremos Brigade, an organisation started by young Americans to show support for the Cuban revolution, in Los Angeles in the late 1970s, The Times wrote in 1983, that is where she first learned how to use a firearm. She claimed she learned from an LAPD officer.
Less than two months before election day, Bass, a six-term congressman who represents sections of the Westside and South Los Angeles, has established a double-digit lead over billionaire mall developer Rick Caruso.
The contest has heated up recently as Bass and Caruso take aim at one another for their affiliation with USC, a school that has recently been rocked by a number of scandals.
Bass is currently dealing with new inquiries regarding a $95,000 scholarship that USC awarded her in 2011. Federal prosecutors deemed this scholarship “essential” to their inquiry into potential wrongdoing inside the university’s social work school.
