Outcry Is Rare-Slayings in Shadows Go On : Crime: Deaths of two Japanese students bring carnage into public eye. But on average weekend, 16 people are killed in L.A. County

For all the attention they received, the slayings of two students from Japan Friday night were only two of the 25 homicides that took place over the weekend in Los Angeles County--and only one of the approximately 350 carjackings that occur in the city every month.

Generating headlines in newspapers, lead stories on television, concern among Japanese officials and reassurances from U.S. dignitaries, the deaths of Takuma Ito and Go Matsuura may have accomplished in one weekend what the Los Angeles police union has been threatening to do for weeks: scare tourists with reminders about violent crime.

But the killings of the two 19-year-olds in San Pedro also revealed, as dramatic crimes often do, the unfortunate gap between the attention lavished on homicides that capture the public imagination and the numbing anonymity in which most violent deaths here take place.

On average, about sixteen people are slain each weekend in Los Angeles County. Because the news media focus on the extraordinary--and there’s nothing extraordinary any more about being killed in Los Angeles County--most of those deaths go unheralded.

But the killings of Ito and Matsuura were different:

* Like Yoshihiro Hattori, the victim of a highly publicized fatal shooting in Louisiana in 1992, both Ito and Matsuura were from Japan. Their deaths reinforced a growing perception overseas that the United States in general, and Los Angeles in specific, are dangerous.

* Unlike the victims of most violent crimes, Ito and Matsuura were members of relatively affluent families and were relatively well educated.

* The shootings were reported widely by the news media, including a 30-inch story on Sunday that began on page one of The Times. By contrast, only one of the 23 other weekend homicides was reported in Sunday’s Times--a 10-inch story on Page 3 of the Metro Section about the fatal shooting of an alleged robber by a convenience store clerk in North Hollywood.

* The slayings of Ito and Matsuura prompted responses from the mayor of Los Angeles, the governor of California and the U.S. ambassador to Japan.

* The crime took place in the midst of a widely publicized billboard campaign designed to frighten the public into supporting the salary demands of the Los Angeles police union.

The 21 billboards, which went up last week, show a woman being carjacked at gunpoint. The billboards’ caption reads, “Warning: This Can Be You Without the Police Dept.”

Police Protective League officials said the campaign was designed to hurt the city’s tourism industry and to point out the essential services provided by police. The officials had hoped the strategy would lead to a quick settlement with the city, but it didn’t.

On Monday, the league issued a statement expressing grief over the deaths of Ito and Matsuura and offering assurances that it is “dedicated to bringing the perpetrators of this heinous crime to justice.”

The statement went on to add that the families of the slain youths “are probably unaware of our contract dispute . . . and rightfully it has no place in their time of mourning. Therefore, no action or comment will be issued in response to the Police Protective League’s current public information campaign and this very tragic incident.”

Ito, a Japanese national, and Matsuura, a U.S. citizen who grew up in Japan, were shot in the head at close range at about 11 p.m. Friday as they got out of their car in the parking lot of a Ralphs supermarket at Capitol Drive and Western Avenue, detectives said.

Declared brain-dead soon after the attack, the young men--students at Marymount College in Rancho Palos Verdes--were both were taken off life-support systems at the Harbor-UCLA Medical Center and pronounced dead Sunday night. Acting on an anonmymous tip, police found their stolen Honda Civic late Sunday near where the students were shot.

The Los Angeles County coroner’s office said last weekend’s death toll of 24 was heavier than normal, but not all that unusual.

On average this year, 16 people have been slain during a typical weekend, which is measured from 6 p.m. Friday through 6 a.m. Monday. On the weekend that began Feb. 18, 29 people were killed. On the weekend that began May 21, 1993, 30 people were slain. Each weekend, most of the victims have been slain with guns.

The number of carjackings in Los Angeles increased steadily from 1990 through 1992, before dropping significantly in 1993. There were 4,169 carjackings in 1990, 4,404 in 1991, 4,671 in 1992 and 3,886 in 1993. Police said there was no obvious explanation for the drop in 1993.