Getting Away With Murder, 42% of the Time

When the homicide detectives arrived, Tom MacDowell’s friends offered a lukewarm greeting. It’s been a year since Tom’s murder, after all, and still there is no arrest.

That’s why Gil Sotelo, Bruce Cohen and a dozen other old pals staged this unusual press conference one recent evening in North Hollywood, not far from the hedge where Tom’s BMW rolled to a stop. Tom was found inside, dead from a gunshot wound.

The detectives theorize that MacDowell, a budding filmmaker who tended bar at a comedy club, was killed by a robber who wanted his car. The friends don’t buy it. They suspect that Tom was murdered because he was an honest man who got mixed up with some of Hollywood’s shadier characters.

“The police want to make it out to be a carjacking,” Sotelo said. “For some reason.”

“A carjacking,” Cohen muttered, “is easier to sweep under the rug.”

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It’s easy to understand their frustration. It’s also easy to believe Los Angeles police Detectives Oscar Carballo and Jim Rahm, who say they have dutifully pursued every lead, to no avail. Tom MacDowell’s murder may be the stuff of a whodunit or just more proof that Los Angeles is the carjacking capital of the world. But this much is no mystery: Getting away with murder is a lot easier than it used to be.

You could look it up. Thirty years ago, according to the FBI, police in the nation’s cities solved more than 90% of murders. The “clearance rate” has fallen steadily since. In 1992, it was down to 65% nationwide and 58.2% for the LAPD. How soon before a killer’s chances of getting away becomes an even bet?

These sad statistics should be remembered every time you hear someone say that the public has exaggerated the crime problem. A recent ABC News special titled “Are We Scaring Ourselves to Death?” highlighted Justice Department data showing that during the last 20 years, the overall crime rate has dropped about 25% and that violent crime is down about 2%. In a similar spirit, the Los Angeles Times Magazine on April 10 featured “Crime and Embellishment,” in which writer Katharine Dunn noted: “The number of murder victims . . . is a very tiny percentage of our huge population, less than 0.001% of the total population per year. Fewer than suicides. Far fewer than those killed in motor vehicle accidents.” This is Dunn, not Donne. Ask not for whom the bell tolls--it’s just part of that unlucky 0.001%.

If you live in Los Angeles, national statistics offer little comfort. In Los Angeles County, guns kill more people than traffic accidents. Concern over crime isn’t a reaction to the tragedy of Polly Klaas or TV shows like “COPS.” It’s a reaction to your own brush with crime or the robbery that occurred down the block.

Anybody who soft-pedals the crime problem would be wise to look up The Times’ 1990 series “Justice in Distress” by David Freed, which showed the impact on L.A. courts and police--how burglaries go uninvestigated, how the courts have become plea-bargain mills, and how some crimes that are felonies elsewhere are handled as misdemeanors here. Alas, the public sighed and shrugged.

In this age of fingerprint computers and DNA analysis, why are more killers getting away with it? Once, detectives were fairly safe in assuming that a victim knew his killer, narrowing the field of suspects. Today, the perpetrator is very likely to be a stranger. Another reason is that law enforcement is spread so thin. The LAPD of today is only a fraction larger than it was in the early ‘70s, but we’re averaging twice as many homicides, more the 1,000 a year.

Only now is there a response, in ways smart and dumb. Mayor Richard Riordan’s efforts to finance more police are long overdue. “Three strikes” legislation, meanwhile, will back-load billions into prisons and prison guards that could more wisely be invested in education, juvenile crime programs, police and prosecutors.

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Some of Tom’s friends may be cynical, but Detectives Carballo and Rahm were grateful for the press conference last week at the corner of Laurel Canyon Boulevard and Hesby Avenue. One of their biggest problems, Carballo says, is that people don’t want to get involved. Tom’s friends, however, have increased the reward money from $30,000 to $50,000.

Friends are suspicious because they found some tape recordings Tom had secretly made of his business dealings. Carballo and Rahm say they checked it out. Now the detectives find themselves waiting for a tip--the phone call that might solve the case.

“We need every little bit of help we can get,” said Carballo. “. . . I know people think we get callous. But I haven’t.”

“Nothing bothers a detective more than an unsolved case,” his partner added. “They eat at you after a while.”