The mayor of Lancaster, Rex Parris, sparked controversy after having thought at a meeting of the Council that an approach to homelessness would be to “give them free fentanyl … all the fentanyl they want”.
Parris, a lawyer of trials larger than life, made the inflammatory comments on drugs – responsible for tens of thousands of deaths by overdose – at a meeting of the municipal council of February, in a replica to a resident which opposed his reflections of congregation of non -gift residents in a “camp”.
It was only when Parris doubled his remarks during an interview with Fox 11 that his statements have become viral, causing anger far beyond the big city of the desert, where he presided over the mayor since 2008.
He said he didn’t think anyone who had taken his comments literally, but that he had not regretted them. In the interview, he said that he wanted “a purge” of homeless.
A homeless camp in Lancaster, where those in the street are often faced with extreme heat.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
“I said very clearly that I was talking about the criminal element that has been released from prisons that have become 40 to 45% of what is called the homeless population,” he said. “They are responsible for most of our flights, for most of our rapes and at least half of our murders,” he said, without providing evidence to support these claims.
He added: “Frankly, I hope that the president will give us a purge. Because we have to purge these people.
“Now, is it harm? Of course, it’s hard. But it’s my obligation as mayor of the city of Lancaster to protect the working families who live here, and I am no longer able to do it. … It is an untenable situation. … I want these people to leave our city.”
Parris did not respond to a request for comments from the time.
His political opponents say they are indignant.
“Whoever wants to give the homeless all the fentanyl they want or suggest that President Trump should allow a purge of the homeless population, has nothing to do in the public service,” said Johnathan Ervin, a democrat who disputed and lost against parris in the town hall elections last year. Ervin has now gathered with the winner of third place in this competition, Mark Maldonado, to try to remember the mayor.
Parris has been looming in Lancaster for decades, first as a first instance lawyer and civic chief and for 15 years as mayor.
The city, which is in the Mojave desert in the north of the County of Los Angeles, has around 175,000 inhabitants.
According to figures from the Underear Detount of the Grand Los Angeles, reported in the Antelope Valley press, 6,672 people knew the homeless in 2024, 1,989 more than in 2023. This includes the cities of Lancaster and Palmdale, as well as surrounding areas.
Lancaster residents have used a mayor with proposals that are often large and sometimes quixotics.
In 2013, he made the headlines when, with the aim of courting Chinese investment, He spoke of opening a commercial office In Beijing and building a Buddhist temple in his city in the Mojave desert.
In 2018, he was Back in the news For a proposal to make the ties optional among workers in the city, citing studies that they decrease blood flow to the brain.
It has also long been a voice for law and order, and many in his city have taken a low vision of homelessness.
In 2021, the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California published a report alleging generalized abuses from the homeless in Lancaster. The ACLU argued that the city had created a “drag of criminalization” in which the deputies and agents of the application of the codes of the city “are regular Bulldozer camps of non -intestable people and to order them to move by threat of quotation”.
At the time, Parris said that the city had done more than its share to serve its homeless population. He also said that he “tried to create an environment where people with disabilities can prosper” and that he “was not just going to let people live where they want, camping wherever they want, extorting money from people who are shopping”.
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