Homicides in L.A. Drop to Lowest Total in 20 Years

Fewer people have been slain this year in the city of Los Angeles than at any time in the past 20 years, preliminary police statistics show.

The sharp decrease in homicides is particularly striking considering that the city’s population has grown by about 700,000 residents in the same period.

“It seems that society has gotten tired of so many murders,” said Los Angeles Deputy Police Chief Martin Pomeroy. “People may finally be weary of all the violence.”

As of Dec. 14, there had been 566 homicides in the city of Los Angeles this year. That’s 143 fewer homicides than for all of 1996.

The last time the city had fewer than 600 homicides in a year was in 1977, when Jimmy Carter was in the Oval Office and “Saturday Night Fever” was in the theaters. That year, 574 people were slain.

The dramatic citywide decline in homicides and other violent crimes appears to outpace a national trend of decreasing serious criminal activity, particularly in some of the country’s largest cities. The FBI reported that murders were down a record 11% nationwide in 1996--and 16.5% in Los Angeles.

In areas patrolled by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, 239 homicides had been reported through the end of October, compared to 254 for the same period last year, according to the department’s most current statistics. In 1996, the Sheriff’s Department reported 319 homicides--a 22% decrease from the previous year.

Criminalists, police and academicians link a number of factors to the steady decrease in violent crime locally and nationally over the past five years, including a stronger economy, stabilization of the lucrative and often-deadly drug trade, stricter sentencing laws, improved policing tactics, periodic truces among violent street gangs and an overall decrease in the number of young adults in the age groups most likely to commit crime.

The bottom line, though, is that nobody quite knows for sure why homicides are decreasing so markedly.

“It’s really hard to analyze. There’s no definitive answer,” said Eric H. Monkkonen, a professor of policy studies and history at UCLA, who has examined the homicide rates throughout the country. “We don’t really have a tight theory that explains it.”

Pomeroy, who was the acting chief while Chief Bernard C. Parks was on vacation last week, said: “There’s no one single event. . . . We’re pleased whenever crime falls, especially violent crimes.”

Because there are fewer slayings, authorities said, overworked homicide detectives now have more time to investigate, resulting in higher-quality investigations and a larger number of cases being solved.

“It’s a real positive compared to what we’ve had before,” said Cmdr. Richard LeGarra, who oversees homicide detectives. “Our success rate is much higher now.”

During the city’s peak murder years in the early 1990s--when the number of homicides topped 1,000 for three straight years--workloads were so extreme that some homicide detectives had no realistic hope of thoroughly checking all credible leads in their cases. A Times study last year showed that only a third of all homicide cases in the county during a five-year period starting in 1990 ended with a conviction for murder or manslaughter.

In 1995, the LAPD’s South Bureau had so many unsolved murders that the FBI came to help out.

“With the number of homicides down this year, detectives have more time to focus on current cases as well as some [unsolved cases] from the past,” LeGarra said.

LAPD statisticians estimate that serious crimes in the city, including homicides, rapes, robberies and assaults, will drop nearly 10% from 1996, a year that also saw a significant decline in crime.

Some scholars believe that there is a domino effect in which reductions in crime help lead to further reductions.

“Just like violence begets violence, security and safety begets security and safety,” Monkkonen said.

The most dramatic declines in the city are in homicides and robberies, which are down about 25% and 22% respectively.

Two of the LAPD’s divisions that usually have high crime rates--Newton and Rampart--have seen stunning decreases in homicides this year. Newton, which had 77 slayings last year, had 42 as of Dec. 14, and Rampart has had 52 slayings compared to 86 in 1996.

But while the number of homicides has plummeted citywide, some pockets of Los Angeles have seen an increase of killings. In fact, one-third of the LAPD’s 18 divisions have already experienced more slayings this year than in 1996. The most dramatic increase is in the Harbor Division, where there were 47 homicides as of Dec. 14, compared to a total of 26 in 1996--an 80% jump.

LeGarra said the increase was due to street gang activity. Elsewhere, however, department statistics show that gang-related crimes have been dropping.

All but one LAPD division is seeing an overall drop in serious crime this year. The exception is Hollenbeck, which saw the most significant drop-off in serious crime last year, but had witnessed a 1.5% increase as of Dec. 14.

Although serious crime in Los Angeles has dropped for five straight years, polls show that the fear of crime among city residents remains high.

Chief Parks has said it is a goal of his administration to educate the public on the realities of the city’s crime problem and show residents that it is not as bad as often portrayed.

One of the things he plans to do is survey residents to identify and address their concerns.

Department brass believe that the LAPD’s efforts in community policing and increased police staffing levels over the past several years have had a positive impact, particularly in the area of gang-related crimes.

LAPD officials also said they hope that a new style of policing being adopted throughout the department will lead to even greater crime reductions. Based on a successful model in New York City, LAPD officials have started using up-to-the-minute crime statistics to identify problem areas and better deploy resources.

“With the numbers dropping,” LeGarra said, “it might be easy to say, ‘Hey, we’ve got some breathing room.’ But we’re not. We’re going to keep being proactive.”

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Murder in Decline

Here are homicide numbers for the city of Los Angeles since 1970:

Homicides in 1997*: 566

* As of Dec. 14

Source: LAPD