Led by Auto Theft, Crime Jumps 8.2% in 1st Quarter

Major crime rose 8.2% in the San Fernando Valley during the first quarter of the year while dropping 1.3% in Los Angeles as a whole, police said Friday.

Police blamed the overall Valley increase on a 21% jump in automobile thefts--roughly 54 vehicles a day.

In response, the department’s Valley bureau plans to launch a task force next week that will try to pinpoint where and how vehicles are being stolen, Deputy Chief Ronald A. Frankle said.

The task force also will focus on locating dealers who handle stolen car and truck parts, said Frankle, who oversees the bureau’s five police divisions in the Valley.

Los Angeles Police Department statistics released Friday show that 4,920 vehicles were stolen in the Valley during January, February and March, compared with 4,047 stolen in the same period a year earlier.

‘Popping Up All Over’

“You could make a career speculating on the reasons” for the jump, Frankle said. The one certainty is that auto theft is not confined to one area of the Valley, Frankle said. “It’s just been popping up all over the place.”

Rapes, murders, robberies and aggravated assaults dropped or remained about constant in the Valley during the first quarter, but residential burglary was up. Valley residents reported 3,417 burglaries, 934 more than a year earlier.

There were 26 murders in the Valley during the first quarter of the year compared with 25 last year.

The number of crimes reported increased in all Valley divisions except Foothill, which patrols the northeast Valley. That division, however, led all divisions with nine murders.

The biggest crime increase, 16.6%, was recorded in the Devonshire Division, whose jurisdiction is the northwest Valley. Home burglary and auto thefts primarily accounted for the increase in that division, Frankle said.

To combat the rise, Devonshire Division officers will be periodically supported by units from divisions outside the Valley, Frankle said.

Frankle said the first-quarter statistics, while useful for police planning, do not necessarily portend what crime rates will be by the year’s end. He noted that the Valley recorded an 8.5% drop in major crime in 1987, a rate slightly better than the citywide drop of 7.2%.