233 Killings in August Set a Grim Record for County

The number of killings in Los Angeles County continued to climb in August, when the county coroner’s office handled a record 233 homicide cases.

No other month has proved so deadly since the coroner’s office began compiling monthly countywide homicide statistics in the early 1980s, coroner’s spokesman Bob Dambacher said Friday. July, with 227 homicide cases, briefly held the record.

If the trend continues, officials said both the county and the city of Los Angeles could suffer a record number of killings in 1990. So far this year, 1,628 homicides have been reported countywide, a 20% increase over the same period last year.

Less than half of August’s killings countywide--104--occurred within the city of Los Angeles, while 37 occurred in unincorporated parts of the county and cities policed by the county Sheriff’s Department.

“One hundred-four is well above average,” Los Angeles Police Cmdr. William Booth said. “If we continue at the same rate for the rest of this year, the number of homicides in Los Angeles will be very close to the record year of 1980,” when 1,028 people were killed, Booth said.

Usually, Booth added, homicides in the city of Los Angeles make up more than half of the countywide number. That the proportion was smaller last month highlights the degree to which the killings have spread beyond the city’s borders.

The proliferation of gangs, drugs and lethal assault weapons are blamed for the climbing murder rate, which reflects nationwide trends.

The Los Angeles police department estimates that slightly more than half of the city’s homicides are drug-related, while about a third of the homicides recorded in the first half of this year were gang-related, Booth said.

Law enforcement officials say gang killings in unincorporated portions of the county are up 69% this year.

The spurt in homicides comes despite new state gun laws that, among other things, ban the sale and possession of assault weapons. “It’s going to take a while for those laws to help,” predicted Booth. “And we think they truly will help.”

HOMICIDE CASES

Figures show the number of cases investigated as homicides by the Los Angeles County coroner’s office from 1982 through 1989, as well as the number of homicides investigated by the office as of the end of August of this year.

* 1982: 2,050

* 1983: 1,917

* 1984: 1,839

* 1985: 1,856

* 1986: 2,040

* 1987: 1,997

* 1988: 1,892

* 1989: 2,091

* 1990* 1,628

* 1990 figures from January through Aug. 31.