19 Facts About David Ryu

David Eun Seok Ryu is an American politician, who served as the Los Angeles City Councilman for District 4 from 2015 to 2020.

David Ryu is the first Korean-American to hold a council seat in Los Angeles, California, and the first Asian-American to serve on Los Angeles City Council Leadership.

David Ryu was born David Ryu Eun-seok in Seoul, South Korea, in 1975, the eldest of three children.

David Ryu has said he grew up in a low-income household and described his childhood as one where his parents struggled, working multiple jobs to support David Ryu, his grandmother and his two siblings.

David Ryu's parents opened a toy store in the Koreatown neighborhood of Los Angeles, where David Ryu worked his first job at 10 years old, translating for his parents at the cash register.

David Ryu later worked as a special investigator for Los Angeles County's Auditor-Controller.

David Ryu became a trained crisis intervention mediator with the County of Los Angeles and went into South LA and East LA with Nate Redfern, a member of the Long Beach Insane Crips gang, to broker peaceful resolutions between black customers and immigrant store owners.

David Ryu worked at the Kedren Acute Psychiatric Hospital and Community Health Center in South Los Angeles.

David Ryu was one of over a dozen candidates to replace Councilmember Tom LaBonge, who was term-limited.

David Ryu defeated Ramsay in the general election, on May 19,2015.

David Ryu was ceremonially sworn in June 29,2015, and took office on July 1.

In January 2020, David Ryu was appointed Assistant City Council President Pro Tempore, becoming the first Asian American to serve on Los Angeles City Council leadership.

David Ryu received 32,298 votes, Raman received 31,502 votes, and Sarah Kate Levy received 10,860 votes.

In November 2019, the Los Angeles Times reported that despite a campaign pledge not to take money from real estate developers, David Ryu's campaign accepted campaign contributions from multiple developers.

In 2018, David Ryu pushed the Los Angeles Police Department to make annual hate crime data open to the public, and for more proactive legislation to protect marginalized communities in Los Angeles.

In 2015, David Ryu joined wildlife activists to preserve a 17-acre wildlife corridor in Laurel Canyon, pledging to match dollar-for-dollar the money raised by activists with city funds earmarked for parks and green space.

In 2019, David Ryu helped to secure full funding for the Los Angeles LGBT Center's senior center.

David Ryu co-introduced legislation to establish an Office of Violence Prevention in Los Angeles to dispatch public health workers to certain situations rather than uniformed police officers.

David Ryu authored a ban on storage unit evictions during the pandemic, which was passed into law with an urgency clause in June 2020.