Newton leads city in homicides

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A note on a trends: With today’s killing, listed below, LAPD’s Newton Division, located south and east of downtown Los Angeles, now leads the city in homicides, with 42 cases total this year.

Second among LAPD’s 19 divisions, or precincts, is the historic leader, LAPD 77th Street Division in South-Central, with 41 homicides.

Third is Southwest Division, which covers the Crenshaw, Jefferson Park and Exposition Park areas, with 32 cases.

Strikingly, fourth is Southeast, in Watts, which is usually among the top two divisions, but is now tied with Hollenbeck, in Boyle Heights. Both divisions have had 24 homicides. Homicides in Watts have declined significantly this year.

This web page covers more than the city of Los Angeles, and LAPD cases are just a portion of those listed here. But homicides appear to be sharply down in most areas of the county: LAPD is down about 16% in homicides so far this year, and the county as a whole, including the city of Los Angeles, is down by about 14%, according to HR’s analysis as of August.

(Above, an immigrant from Oaxaca paints a landscape with the Virgen de Guadalupe on a storefront in LAPD’s Newton Division, where such murals adorn virtually every commercial block. Right, a sidewalk mannequin near a shrine and a cross for one of Newton’s homicide victims on Avalon Boulevard, one of the precinct’s main streets.)