S.D. Diverts $1 Million to Fight Wave of Killing : Crime: Financially strapped city will use funds to put more police in its toughest neighborhoods.

San Diego city officials said Thursday they will divert $1 million from other programs to put more police on patrol in the city’s toughest neighborhoods in a new effort to stop the city’s soaring homicide and violent crime rate.

Mayor Maureen O’Connor, City Manager Jack McGrory and Chief Bob Burgreen unveiled a six-point plan Thursday to combat the city’s increase in violent crime. The three officials announced the anti-crime package on a day when the city logged its record 150th homicide victim of 1991, with two months left in the year.

The previous one-year record was set in 1988, when 144 people were killed in the city.

While San Diego officials were grappling with ways to curb the killings, county officials said the county too has set a new record for homicides.

Mary Hodge, computer analyst with the county medical examiner’s office, said that office had handled 258 homicide victims as of noon Thursday. The homicides this year already exceed the previous record set in 1988, when 255 people were killed in the county.

Unlike local law enforcement agencies, the medical examiner’s office includes people killed in police and accidental shootings in its homicide statistics.

Hodge said her office tracks homicides on a large county map. A quick glance at the map is all it takes to know where most of the homicides occur.

“It’s really obvious that the area in and around Southeast San Diego is the most troubled spot in the county. That’s where you find the biggest collection of pins on the map,” said Hodge.

San Diego city officials are well aware of the problem areas.

On Thursday, O’Connor said the additional $1 million for police will be used to put between 55 and 60 officers in the City Heights, Logan Heights and Southeast San Diego communities. The money will be used mostly to pay the officers overtime. Police officials said the additional officers will be on the streets “soon,” but did not offer an exact date.

“That’s where we need to focus our efforts. But we can succeed only if we can get the communities involved to solve this problem,” said McGrory.

Just where the added funds will come from has not been determined, McGrory said. His staff will be looking at “three or four sources” in the budget and report back to the City Council Nov. 12, he added.

“The city manager will have to identify the source for these funds. This is clearly a priority, and the mayor is committed to finding the funds,” said O’Connor spokesman Paul Downey.

In addition to the diversion of funds and adding officers to patrol the communities plagued by violent crime, city officials also adopted the following measures to fight crime:

* Burgreen has agreed to add 10 officers to the department’s Narcotics Street Team to combat street dealers.

* The City Council will ask Gov. Pete Wilson and Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren to file a friend-of-the-court brief with the California Supreme Court to uphold the constitutionality of Proposition A, which authorized the county to collect a half-cent sales tax for jail and court construction.

To date, the county has collected $350 million, but the money cannot be spent because of a court challenge to the sales tax by opponents.

* Urged the Board of Supervisors to open the East Mesa jail so some offenders can be jailed rather than being issued citations and released. The county’s other jails are crowded, forcing police officers to cite and release criminals charged with misdemeanors who should be in jail, law enforcement officials said.

* McGrory and Burgreen will select a blue ribbon citizen’s committee with a 90-day mandate to investigate the causes of violent crime in the problem communities and recommend solutions to the problems.

* Study the possibility of establishing a program to buy back guns from civilians. The program would be similar to ones in place in St. Louis and San Francisco, where the city pays civilians $50 for every handgun, rifle or shotgun turned in.

McGrory said each of the anti-crime proposals has a ring of urgency behind it.

“We can’t emphasize enough that police cannot do the job alone. We have to get the community interested and involved to get rid of the problem. . . . We’re seeing 12- and 13-year-old children on the streets after midnight,” said McGrory.

“This tells us that there is something drastically wrong with the values we are teaching them. Also, it’s amazing the number of guns that kids in this age category are carrying. They’ve got to be keeping some of these guns in their homes. Why aren’t parents doing something about this?” asked McGrory.

Downey said that O’Connor’s office has received many pleas for help from the community.

“ ‘Do something.’ That’s the message we’re getting; not only about the homicides but about the drive-by shootings. Gunmen are acting with impunity in some neighborhoods. And it’s not the Police Department’s fault. They’re apprehending these people, crack dealers for example, but there’s not enough room in the jail to lock them up,” said Downey.

Sheriff’s spokesman Dan Greenblat said his office is also facing a record year in violent crimes.

According to Greenblat, sheriff’s homicide detectives expect to investigate 45 homicides by year’s end, equaling last year’s total. However, sheriff’s investigators have already investigated 167 rapes, three more than last year’s total.

“At the current rate, we expect to have more than 200 rapes this year. This would be the first time that we investigated that many rapes,” said Greenblat.

Overall, the current crime rate per 1,000 residents in Sheriff Jim Roache’s jurisdiction has increased 14% over the same period last year, Greenblat said.

He attributed the crime rise in part to the shoestring budget available to Roach.

“We figured the budget for this department should be $192 million this year to do the things necessary to meet the growing threat to our citizens. Instead of that, the board (of Supervisors) instructed us to come in and hold the line at $152 million. But, because of the county’s budget crisis, we ended up with a $135-million budget. . . . We’re so thinly staffed it’s tragic. In a sense it’s heroic what our deputies are doing,” said Greenblat.

Rise in Homicide

City 1990 1991 Change Carlsbad 4 5 +1 Chula Vista 9 4 -5 Coronado 0 1 +1 Del Mar 0 0 0 El Cajon 5 6 +1 Encinitas 0 3 +3 Escondido 4 9 +5 Imperial Beach 4 0 -4 La Mesa 1 3 +2 Lemon Grove 2 1 -1 National City 5 9 +4 Oceanside 12 11 -1 Poway 0 1 +1 San Diego 135 149 +14 Santee 3 1 -2 San Marcos 3 1 -2 Solana Beach 0 2 +2 Vista 7 2 -5 Unincorporated Areas 26 26 0 Totals 220 234 +14