Gunfire Deaths of Black Teens in Stark Rise

Bullets are killing young black men at a greater rate in Los Angeles County than anywhere in America except the District of Columbia, according to two new studies showing that gunfire is the nation’s second-most common cause of death among all young people.

The reports, released Tuesday by the National Center for Health Statistics, found a dramatic and disturbing upswing in gun-related homicides among teen-agers during the late 1980s--especially in metropolitan areas, where firearms kill five times as many teen-agers as in other areas.

Among young people 15 to 19, the studies found, only traffic accidents cause more deaths than gunfire.

But the most alarming figures involved young black men in that age group, especially in urban areas such as Los Angeles. Between 1987 and 1989, the center’s research found, the rate of firearm homicides among black male teen-agers in Los Angeles County was 226 per 100,000. The rate in the District of Columbia was only marginally higher, with gunfire resulting in a death rate of 227.2 young black men per 100,000.

The study comes at a time of heightened concern about violence in the black community, particularly in the wake of the Los Angeles riots. Los Angeles political and health officials said the report illustrates the pressing need to address the problems of the inner city.

“This is data that presents itself again and again in the violence index of the nation, and in Los Angeles it is simply out of control,” Los Angeles City Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas said.

The findings are to be published in today’s Journal of the American Medical Assn., an edition with a dozen articles examining violence in America. The articles are part of a campaign by the association to persuade government officials to treat violence as a public health problem, said Dr. George Lundberg, editor of the journal.

At a morning news conference in which he was joined by C. Everett Koop, the former surgeon general of the United States, Lundberg said the reports on gun-related homicides “paint a grotesque picture of a society steeped in violence, especially by firearms. . . . This is unacceptable. . . . Violence in America is a public health emergency.”

Added Koop, who served as co-editor of the JAMA issue on violence: “If it were due to a virus, the American people would be shouting for a cure.”

Both studies were directed by Lois Fingerhut, an epidemiologist, and relied on figures from the Compressed Mortality File, which tracks death statistics county by county.

The first study used data from 1979 through 1989 to examine trends in gun-related and non-gun-related deaths among black and white teen-agers in urban and rural areas. The second study attempted to identify counties that had either a significantly high or low homicide rate among young black men.

In that study, the center’s researchers looked at 79 counties and the District of Columbia during the years 1985 to 1987 and 1987 to 1989. They also identified counties that experienced significant increases during those time periods. Their findings showed three counties-- Los Angeles, Wayne County (Detroit), Mich. and Kings County (Brooklyn), N.Y.--with consistently high rates in all three areas.

According to that report, researchers have known since 1969 that firearm homicide is the leading cause of death among young black men. Each year, the study said, bullets claim the lives of nearly 1,000 black teen-age boys.

The studies made no attempt to document the reasons for the high homicide rates among young black men, except in the broadest of terms. “Factors are likely to include increased use of crack cocaine, changes in the types and lethality of firearms, urban poverty and a myriad of sociological factors,” the researchers wrote.

Fingerhut said it is incumbent upon public health authorities in the affected areas, including Los Angeles, to search for causes and come up with solutions.

“Los Angeles has a significant problem,” Fingerhut said. “I don’t live in Los Angeles County. Public health officials in Los Angeles have to sit down and say: ‘What can we do?’ . . . . It’s time for the county to look within itself.”

In Los Angeles, the statistics were greeted with little surprise among public health professionals, who have witnessed firsthand the rising tide of violence that is claiming the lives of so many black youths.

“The problem is extraordinarily pressing,” said Dr. Reed Tuckson, president of the Charles Drew University of Medicine and Science, which is affiliated with the Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center in Watts. “It is urgent and the dimensions of it are enormous.”

Tuckson, formerly the health commissioner of Washington, said the violence affects every aspect of the King/Drew Medical Center--from surgeons who are forced to put off operations to deal with emergencies, to accountants who must cope with the rising costs of caring for victims of violence when the hospital’s financial resources are stretched thin.

“Not only are we finding that so many of our valued children (are) dying,” he said, “but what is also happening is that the impact of trying to take care of so many young people who are exposed to such violence means that at our county hospital, violence displaces our ability to care for other people who have more chronic and other diseases.”

Dr. Caswell Evans, director of public health programs for the county’s Department of Health, said: “This is a societal problem. It’s a problem of lack of income, lack of jobs, lack of education, racism, poor opportunities. . . . It’s a public health problem that we are concerned about, but the resolution is a societal resolution. It has to be higher on society’s list of priorities.”

In its overall examination of gun-related homicides among 15- to 19-year-olds, the center’s researchers found that young people who live in metropolitan counties are far more likely to be killed by bullets than those who do not.

The studies found that for every 100,000 young people in metropolitan counties, 13.7 were killed by gunfire in 1989. That was nearly five times the rate for rural counties that year.

When broken down by race, the statistics showed an even greater disparity. Black teen-age boys in metropolitan areas were 6.5 times as likely to die of gunshot wounds as their counterparts in rural areas. At the same time, white teen-age boys in metropolitan areas were only three times as likely to be killed by bullets as white teen-agers in rural counties.

The center’s researchers examined only counties that had a high concentration of black male teen-agers--10,000 or more--and then projected a rate per 100,000, a standard way of measuring health statistics.

The study also examined certain “core” metropolitan counties and found an average gunfire death rate of 27.7 per 100,000 young people, a figure four to six times as high as less populated metropolitan areas.

For black teen-age males in the core metropolitan areas, the firearm homicide rate was 143.9 per 100,000. For white teen-age males, the rate was 21.5 per 100,000. For black female teen-agers, the rate was 13.4 per 100,000, while the rate was lowest for white female teen-agers, at 2 per 100,000.

Stolberg reported from Los Angeles, Grace from Washington.

Firearm Homicides Among Black Males

Among the 79 counties and District of Columbia examined in the study, these are the 20 with the highest rate: Dist. of Columbia Los Angeles Wayne, Mich. Duval, Fla. Orleans, La. Henrico, Va. Kings, N.Y. Jackson, Mo. St. Louis Broward, Fla. Baltimore City* New York Suffolk, Mass.* Dade, Fla. Caddo, La. Alameda, Calif. Genesse, Mich.* Maricopa, Ariz. Queens, N.Y. Philadelphia *Figures are approximate

Source: National Center for Health Statistics