Report: Nearly 3,000 LAPD Employees Seek Exemptions To Vaccine Mandate
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) — Los Angeles Police Chief Michel Moore said Tuesday that the department will wait for instructions from city officials after it was reported that thousands of LAPD employees plan to use religious or medical exemptions for the city's COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
"We have seen a number of our personnel who have filed for an intent to have an exemption, based on either medical or sincerely held religious belief," Moore told the Los Angeles Police Commission. "The department will wait for the city to provide instructions relative to the interpretation and what will happen to those intentions to file."
According to an internal memo sent to Mayor Eric Garcetti from the personnel department, 2,651 Los Angeles Police Department employees intend to seek religious exemptions and 368 plan to seek medical exemptions for the mandate requiring all city employees to get vaccinated.
Non-exempt employees must be fully vaccinated by Oct. 19, and exemptions will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. Those who have exemptions must be tested for COVID-19 weekly.
As of Tuesday, just over 54% of department personnel, or 6,573 employees, have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, Moore said.
Of the department's 12,315 employees, 3,102 have tested positive for the virus since the pandemic began, 66 of them within the last two weeks.
Meanwhile, only 48% of the city's over 57,000 employees are fully vaccinated.
The personnel department reported that the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power has 11,643 employees, 30% of which are fully vaccinated. The City of Los Angeles' Parks & Recreation Department has 38% of employees vaccinated and the Los Angeles Fire Department has 3,712 employees, 34% of which are vaccinated.
(© Copyright 2021 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. City News Service contributed to this report.)