August: Grim Milepost in a Bloody Year : Crime: L.A. County’s 263 possible homicides exceed the record set just a month ago. In 1992, the total is already 1,753.

August, with its searing heat and explosive weekends, was the most lethal month in Los Angeles County history, surpassing a record set just the month before, the coroner’s office reported Wednesday.

During the 31 days of August, coroner’s officials investigated 263 possible homicides. That exceeded the previous high of 254 set in July, which had broken the 12-year-old record of 253 set in August, 1980.

“Has Los Angeles become the killing fields?” asked coroner’s spokesman Bob Dambacher. “I don’t know. But it’s terrible. Sitting here in this business, I have to ask myself if human life is worth anything any more.”

Of the 263 possible homicides, 169 resulted from gunshots, 24 resulted from stabbings and 23 resulted from assaults, Dambacher said. Because the coroner’s tally includes all deaths caused by another person, the total also includes 22 vehicular manslaughters, 10 vehicular hit-and-runs and 15 assorted cases, such as elder abuse, narcotics poisoning and skeletal remains for which no cause of death has been determined.

August’s gruesome toll also put 1992 at a pace to be the county’s most violent year. So far, 1,753 homicides have been reported as compared to 1,573 cases at this time in 1991, itself a record-setting year.

The final count for 1992, Dambacher said, “is gonna blow your socks off.”

Explaining crime statistics can be a tricky matter, especially when it comes to homicides, which are rarely guided by logic or follow a pattern, officials said. But some experts believe a combination of factors last month may help decipher at least part of the increase.

A key ingredient could have been the sweltering heat, which hovered around the 100-degree mark in the first part of the month. Many psychological studies have shown a connection between temperature and aggressive behavior.

In addition, even though a truce between some factions of the Bloods and Crips has sharply reduced killings between black gangs in South Los Angeles, rivalries between Latino gangs have intensified dramatically. In communities patrolled just by the Sheriff’s Department, deputies have counted 17 black-on-black gang killings so far this year, as compared to 83 Latino-on-Latino gang homicides. Of the Latino killings, 15 occurred in the last three weeks of August, officials said.

“We have a mini-riot going on all the time and it’s called gang violence,” said Steve Valdivia, executive director of Community Youth Gang Services, a gang-prevention and intervention agency. “How high do the numbers have to get before we call it a full-scale riot?”

In 1970, the county had 10.2 homicides per 100,000 residents. By 1980, which stood as the county’s most violent year for much of the following decade, there were 24.4 killings per 100,000 residents. The number dipped for several years, then began to surge, ending up at 23 in 1991.

Los Angeles Police Detective Paul Mize, a 28-year veteran of the department, said people use deadly force more quickly than they did two decades ago in part because they often fire high-caliber weapons from a moving car.

“It takes a special breed of guy to actually kill somebody with their bare hands,” said Mize, a supervisor in the South Bureau homicide office, which has investigated 242 slayings so far this year, as compared to 230 at this time in 1991. He wondered what would happen if killers were forced to “see the blood, the tissue damage, the anger and the traumatized family members” they leave behind.

Peggy Kidwell, a West Los Angeles criminal psychologist who has worked in courts and prisons, said that most people who commit murder have been abused--physically, sexually or verbally.

“Human beings repeat what’s been done to them,” Kidwell said. “This is a society that teaches people to be violent.”

Jerry Tello, a Monterey Park therapist who specializes in counseling families grieving over the loss of a loved one, said that when he was a child his parents told him to kneel and pray anytime they heard of a violent death on the news, even if they did not know the victims.

“It might be nice if all of us did that . . . to feel a sense of interconnectedness in life and death with everyone,” he said. “But we live in such segmented communities now that, if something is not happening in our own back yard, we don’t feel it.”

Homicides in L.A. County In August, the Los Angeles County coroner’s office investigated 263 possible homicides--more than in any other month in the county’s history. The number also puts 1992 on a pace to be the county’s most violent year. AUGUST’S HOMICIDES Gunshot wounds: 169

Stabbing: 24

Assault: 23

Vehicular manslaughter: 22

Hit-and-Run: 10

Other: 15

MOST VIOLENT MONTHS August, 1992: 263

July, 1992: 254

August, 1980: 253

THIS YEAR VS. LAST Through Aug., 1992: 1,753

Through Aug., 1991: 1,573

SOURCE: Los Angeles County coroner’s office