O.C. Homicide Rate Down Markedly From Record ’93 : Crime: Officials attribute decline in 1994 to fewer gang killings and the unusual level of violence the previous year.

With gang-related killings declining in Orange County’s largest cities, the total number of homicides in 1994 dropped markedly from the previous year, which had shattered county records for violent deaths, officials said.

Throughout Orange County, 179 people died at the hands of someone else by year’s end, an 18% drop from 1993’s tally of 219 and a return to levels seen prior to 1993, according to the county coroner’s office.

The lower murder rate was cheered by police and prosecutors, who said the decline in the overall number of slayings was partly because of the drop in gang killings, which were seen as the main cause for the record slaughter the year before.

Countywide figures for gang killings in 1994 were not yet available, but police noted reductions in the largest cities. In Santa Ana, the number of slayings classified by police as gang-related dipped to 40 from 48 the previous year, while the number of homicides dropped to 72 from 86, according to coroner’s figures.

In Anaheim, police said gang killings dropped from 16 in 1993 to nine in 1994, as the total number of killings decreased from 32 in 1993 to 27 in 1994.

“Our gang-related shootings were down, which contributes to a lower homicide rate,” said Sgt. Steve Rodig, who heads the homicide detail at the Anaheim Police Department.

Authorities could not pinpoint a reason for the decline but suggested that a broad range of law-enforcement efforts, such as the Tri-Agency Resources Gang Enforcement Team, or TARGET, and other programs aimed at gangs have helped cut down on the violence.

“I’d like to think it’s due in part to law enforcement and social programs,” said Assistant Dist. Atty. John D. Conley, who oversees homicide and gang prosecutions. “Gang stuff goes in spurts. I’m not prepared to say that we alone are responsible.”

Others speculated that the reduced murder rate was probably little more than good fortune and said the statistics reveal more about the unusual level of violence in 1993 than about efforts to suppress violence in 1994. Fueled by a record number of gang killings, the 219 homicides in 1993 was a sharp increase from the 186 recorded the year before. Orange County had 155 homicides in 1991 and 174 in 1990.

Researchers who study homicide rates said murders are, statistically, random events that make single-year fluctuations impossible to interpret; a big increase is likely to be corrected by a large drop.

“The reason you have such a big decrease (in 1994) is because you had such a big increase” in 1993, said UCI professor Richard McCleary, who studies mortality. “People try to over-interpret things that are inherently random events.”

Even police who track gang killings were reluctant to read much into the numbers.

“We have so many gangs in town--45 active gangs,” said Santa Ana Police Lt. Robert Helton, whose department joined federal authorities in a widely publicized five-month crackdown on the city’s most notorious gang.

“For every gang pushed out of the streets or shut down by law-enforcement activity, it seems somebody else steps forward,” he said. “That’s the tragedy.”

In attempting to explain the lower number of homicides in 1994, police also noted the fine line between a victim who survives a gunshot wound and one whose wounds are fatal. Sometimes, they said, only luck keeps a victim out of the homicide count.

“You’re talking sometimes a matter of inches,” Rodig said. “Instead of taking it in the arm, you could take it in the neck.”

The coroner’s figures are considered preliminary until an annual report is issued in the spring, but they include all deaths in 1994 that were deemed homicides. A handful of other cases are still under investigation.

Santa Ana and Anaheim--the two largest cities in Orange County--had by far the most homicides in 1994, the figures show. Orange ranked third with eight killings, while Costa Mesa and Garden Grove each had seven. Fullerton and Huntington Beach each had six homicides. Stanton and Westminster had five apiece.

Men represented 79% of all victims, whose ages ranged from 3 weeks to 87 years old, with the majority of them 25 years old or younger, the coroner’s figures showed. In 1994, three-fourths of the victims, or 134 people, died of gunshot wounds, according to the tally.

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Less Murderous

Orange County’s homicide total decreased 18% in 1994 from the previous year. The city of Santa Ana had the highest 1994 murder rate. Here’s a comparison of the last two years and the rate per 100,000 residents for each jurisdiction:

Jurisdiction 1993 1994 1994 Rate Aliso Viejo 1 0 0.00 Anaheim 32 27 9.29 Brea 3 1 0.34 Buena Park 7 2 2.74 Corona del Mar 1 0 0.00 Costa Mesa 6 7 6.83 Cypress 2 2 4.35 Dana Point 2 0 0.00 El Toro 1 0 0.00 Fountain Valley 5 1 1.82 Fullerton 7 6 4.94 Garden Grove 13 7 4.61 Huntington Beach 4 6 3.17 Irvine 1 1 0.82 La Habra 5 0 0.00 La Palma 0 2 12.74 Laguna Beach 0 0 0.00 Laguna Hills 1 3 11.86 Laguna Niguel 0 1 1.84 Lake Forest 1 0 0.00 Los Alamitos 1 0 0.00 Mission Viejo 3 1 1.16 Newport Beach 2 3 4.33 Orange 4 8 6.78 Placentia 3 3 6.80 Rancho Santa Margarita 1 0 0.00 San Clemente 3 0 0.00 San Juan Capistrano 2 1 3.53 Santa Ana 86 72 23.19 Seal Beach 1 1 3.84 Stanton 3 5 15.50 Tustin 2 0 0.00 Villa Park 0 0 0.00 Westminster 10 5 6.13 Yorba Linda 0 2 3.48 Other 6 12 -- County total 219 179 6.89

Source: Orange County Sheriff-Coroner’s Office