Top 5 polling LA mayoral candidates face off in heated debate Tuesday night

With only a couple of months left until the June primary election, the five leading candidates in the race to become mayor of Los Angeles came out swinging against each other in Tuesday evening's debate.

"It's great to see Rick Caruso here, finally... for joining us, Rick," mayor candidate Joe Buscaino said, taking the first barrage of shots at billionaire developer Rick Caruso.

Tuesday marked the first time Caruso took to the debate stage with the four other top polling candidates.

With very topic of the night, the homelessness crisis, Caruso shot back at Councilman Buscaino.

"Since you've been a city councilman, there are 700 more people on the streets in your district alone. So, I don't know how you quantify success when the problem has gotten worse under your leadership."

The candidates emphasized confronting homeless encampments would be a priority.

"I would declare a state of emergency on day one locally, but we also need the state and the federal government involved. I want to ... house 15,000 people by the end of the first year," mayoral candidate Karen Bass said.

Councilman Kevin de León shared some of his own personal history around the issue.

"I know what housing insecurity feels like because in my early 20's, I was homeless. Anyone on this stage can make big, bold pronouncements on the issue of homelessness, but there's one major difference and that difference is I'm already doing something about it. I've built more housing opportunities in Los Angeles for our unhoused neighbors in the past year," he said.

"It's irresponsible to say the homelessness issue is only about housing. We have a drug addiction epidemic, dangerous meth. People are not in the right mind frame to say yes to help," Caruso said.

"We should be saying to people experiencing homelessness, 'The streets are dangerous for you. It's no place for you to live. We have a place for you, but there's going to be a choice date, after which you can't stay here because our public spaces need to safe and accessible for everyone,'" mayor candidate Mike Feuer said.

"What you can't do is say, 'We're going to allow some certain encampments to be in certain parts of this,'" Caruso shot back.

The candidates also sparred on crime.

"We need to hire mental health specialists to get our LAPD officers off the mental health frontlines and back on the line of duty to protect and serve," de León said.

"And in my office, I would have an Office of Community Safety, so we can prevent the crimes of the future and make the investments in communities that will do that," Bass said.

"And instead of taking a look at our city and saying, 'The pie is only so big, and so we can only afford to do so many things and if we're going to add more offices, we have to cut other things,' why don't we focus on growing the pie," Caruso said.

As the hour and a half debate pressed on, the candidate kept up their attacks on Caruso.

"I'm prepared to release my taxes tomorrow for the last five years," Feuer said to Caruso. "Are you?"

"Believe me, I pair my fair share, plus," Caruso responded.

The candidates attacked Caruso for his wealth and being out of touch.

"My work trip is not on a $100 million yacht," Buscaino said.

"I'll just be five seconds on this," Caruso said. "Just stipulate, the LA City Council is the highest paid -"

"You know, you can't let the rich break the rules here tonight," de León said.

For his part, Caruso fired back.

"There's a great difference here. There's 63 years of career politicians on this stage, a lot of great ideas, none of which were implemented before they ran for office. So, there's a lot of empty promises."

"You know, Rick, you're my friend," Bass responded, "but stop denigrating 'career politicians.' People have devoted their life to public service. Any of us that become mayor, you have to work with the city council."

June 7 is the primary. The top two finishers will go on to compete in November's election, unless one of the candidates gets more than 50% of the vote, which is very unlikely.