South Bureau Covers City’s Meanest Streets

This is Los Angeles’ killing fields, the city’s southern corner where more than 400 people were murdered last year.

The area, which stretches from South Los Angeles to the harbor, is so violent that if it were a separate city, it would rank among the nation’s top 10 for homicides.

Because there are so many murders, the LAPD in 1989 created South Bureau Homicide, a departure from its usual procedure of deploying detectives from neighborhood stations.

Although South’s detectives spend their nights on some of the city’s most dangerous streets, studying blood stains and entry wounds, they spend their office hours in the antiseptic, sterile environs of a mall. The bureau is in an underground, windowless warren at the south end of Crenshaw Martin Luther King Shopping Plaza.

The 44 detectives, who work in two-man teams, investigated 403 murders last year, about 40% of the city’s homicides. Because the number of homicides is increasing but the staffing is not, detectives are spending less time on each case.

The teams can devote an average of 83 hours to each homicide, said Lt. Sergio Robleto, who heads the bureau. In some cities, homicide detectives can spend months on a single case.

There is no statute of limitations for murder so detectives never abandon a case. But with such a heavy workload, they are forced to juggle investigations, usually giving priority to whatever came in last.

“Before the detectives have enough time to solve one case, they are given the next one and the next one. . . ,” Robleto said. “The frustration level is very high.”

In addition to the onerous caseload, South Bureau detectives face an increasing number of murders that are extremely difficult to solve, including “body dumps,” where victims are deposited in alleys. Sometimes the victims are burned beyond recognition or mutilated.

In these cases, detectives must spend valuable time--as their precious 83 hours tick away--not pursuing suspects, but simply trying to identify the victim.

Still, there are moments of satisfaction. Occasionally, a detective will burst into the office, march over to a supervisor and announce excitedly: “I got him,” or “I cleared it.” They will shake hands and the detective will move on to the next case.

“There is no better thrill in the world than solving a murder,” Detective Dick Simmons said. “It makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up.”