UCLA Luskin Social Welfare’s Jorja Leap is quoted in a Los Angeles Times story about a recent violent arrest by police in Los Angeles’ Nickerson Gardens. The incident, shared on social media, has threatened the “delicate fabric” of an LAPD initiative known as the Community Safety Partnership (CSP), which has been credited with crime reduction and improved relations in the Watts housing development, according to the article. Leap, an expert on gangs, said the incident highlights decades of distrust of law enforcement, which still runs deep in L.A. communities, despite program gains. “I think most significantly this points to the gap that still exists between the standard LAPD patrol officer and the CSP officer,” said Leap, lead author of a 2019 study of CSP. “There is an underlying fear in Watts in general … that this isn’t going to last, that the old LAPD will sort of rear its head, and things will go back to the brutalities of the past.”