South L.A. Sets Murder Record as City Toll Eases : Crime: At least 412 have been killed in the area. Police and community experts blame gangs, poverty and a lack of jobs and recreational activities.

With two weeks left in the year, homicides are already at a record level in the Police Department bureau that covers South Los Angeles.

As of Friday, the Los Angeles Police Department’s South Bureau had logged 412 homicides, surpassing last year’s record 403 slayings. The toll is especially striking, police say, considering that 13 of the homicides in 1992 were directly attributed to the riots.

“The level of violence is unbelievable,” said Lt. Sergio Robleto, commander of the South Bureau homicide detail. “My detectives are hard-pressed to keep up with the pace.”

The record murder tally in the South Bureau comes at a time when the citywide homicide rate is down after two years of record bloodshed. A complex set of economic, sociological and law enforcement factors have led to the bureau’s rise in homicides, according to police, community activists and experts.

If it were a city, the South Bureau would rank among the 10 deadliest in the nation. The 57-square-mile area includes four police divisions stretching from the Santa Monica (10) Freeway to San Pedro and from Watts to Windsor Hills. Nearly 70% of its homicides have occurred in two South-Central precincts--the 77th Street and Southeast divisions.

“It’s like a war zone down here. People are dying almost every day,” said community activist Jaime Zeledon, who lives in the Southeast Division, where 133 homicides had been recorded as of Friday.

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“Nightly, we can hear the gunshots,” said Father David Herrera of the Church of the Nativity, which has had four parishioners shot dead this year. They included a 15-year-old boy caught in the cross-fire of two rival gangs and a father who confronted a man who had shot his dog. The church, at 57th Street and Vermont Avenue, is in the 77th Division, where 155 homicides were reported as of Friday.

As of Nov. 30, Los Angeles had logged 982 homicides--down from 1,009 during the same span last year. There were a record 1,095 murders citywide in 1992.

In the South Bureau, experts and community leaders say, poverty, unemployment and lack of recreational activities have led residents to resort to desperate acts. Some of the violence also stems from racial tensions between African American gang members and Latino immigrants in housing projects, police said.

In the Southeast and 77th divisions, the neighborhoods had a median annual income level of $15,904, compared with $33,167 for Los Angeles County, the 1990 U.S. Census found.

“As the economy goes, so goes the crime rate,” said James H. Johnson, director of the UCLA Center for the Study of Urban Poverty. “I think the real issue is the South Bureau is in the area of Los Angeles that had already been economically devastated before the recent economic downturn.”

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Added Helen Coleman, leader of the 71st Street-Victoria Avenue Block Club: “If you drive around here, you can see that young people have nothing to do. There’s few parks and hardly any recreational activities.”

Zeledon and others also blame the killings on a proliferation of high-powered weapons and a breakdown in societal values, saying that people are more willing to resolve disputes with violence.

“It’s gotten so that people just don’t care anymore,” said South-Central resident Carlita Harris as she watched detectives search for evidence Tuesday at a double slaying at 97th and San Pedro streets.

In that incident, a man and his wife were shot dead in their apartment in what police said may have been a drug-related robbery. No arrests have been made.

“Everybody here is tired of this violence,” Harris said. “We just wish it could stop.”

Deputy Chief Mark A. Kroeker, commander of the South Bureau, vowed that 1993 would be the last year of record bloodshed in the area and that he planned to hold meetings with police and the community next month to devise crime-fighting strategies. “If nothing else, in 1994 we’re going to reduce the murders. That’s a given,” he said.

Although the South Bureau has recorded an increase in murders this year, the number of detectives assigned to the homicide detail has decreased from 73 in 1992 to 56 now because officers have not been replaced after they retired or were transferred. Detectives also say investigations are hampered by lack of resources.

For instance, the squad was loaned a computer that created composites of homicide suspects, but it was returned in June because the department could not afford to keep it permanently. The detail also had a computer analyst who charted crime trends that helped detectives piece together leads, but the position was eliminated by the department in a cost-cutting move.

“How the hell are my detectives and I supposed to operate that way?” asked Robleto, who recalled how a crime technician at a recent murder scene ran out of plaster as he was making a mold of a suspect’s foot print.

Still, Robleto said, the squad’s clearance rate--the percentage of murders for which arrests are made--has increased from 49% last year to a current 66%.

He said more police on the streets would bring short-term relief to the violence. Mayor Richard Riordan and Police Chief Willie L. Williams are looking at ways to pay for several thousand additional officers in Los Angeles, which has one of the lowest police-to-resident ratios among major U.S. cities.

The only long-term solution, others say, is to create good-paying jobs and promote greater cooperation between the community and city government.

“There’s no quick answer,” said Coleman of the South-Central block club. “It’s going to have to be done house by house and neighborhood by neighborhood.”

Homicides in the South Bureau

The South Bureau has recorded an 8% increase in the number of homicides this year compared to 1992. While there were about 26% fewer murders in the Harbor Division, the number of homicides grew in the other three divisions. As of last week, 412 people were killed within the bureau’s jurisdiction.

Number of homicides per year:

SOUTHWEST: ‘92: 79, ‘93: 93

77TH ST.: ‘92: 137, ‘93: 155

SOUTHEAST: ‘92: 121, ‘93: 133

HARBOR: ‘92: 42, ‘93: 31

Source: Los Angeles Police Department