Let’s Hope the Future Bails Chief Out

Not long after Bernard C. Parks learned he would become Los Angeles’ new chief of police, the city’s new top lawman spelled out an ambitious goal, vowing to make L.A. “the safest big city” in the nation.

Now, that would be an impressive feat.

But in that same news conference two months ago, Parks followed up this bold statement with a comment that struck this crime-fearing, taxpaying Angeleno as less than auspicious. “If [crime] decreases it is a positive for . . . L.A.,” Parks said. “If it increases, the chief of police hasn’t done his job.”

Willie Williams must have wished it were only that simple. If crime stats are so important, why were we talking to Parks, anyway? Say what you will about Willie from Philly--accuse him of the three Fs: freebies, fibs and fat--but there’s no denying that crime went down on his watch, big-time, every year Williams was chief.

You could look it up. Why, it might even make you sleep easier at night.

Or maybe not.

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L.A., contrary to popular perception, just isn’t as murderous and crime-ridden as it used to be. The latest dose of good news came from the California Department of Justice, comparing the first six months of 1997 to the same period of 1996. In Los Angeles, homicides were down 26.6%, from 389 to 271, and the overall crime index was down 14.5%, exceeding the statewide decline of 8.2%.

Add these stats to the annual FBI reports and you see an acceleration of an improving trend. Chart the numbers on a graph and, as one LAPD spokesman put it, “it looks like a little mountain.” The crime peak occurred in 1992, the year of the last great L.A. riot, the year Daryl Gates grudgingly gave up power to Willie Williams.

Consider the numbers for the past decade, compliments of Officer Jason Lee of the LAPD media relations office:

Homicide: In 1987, there were 812 in the big, bad city. That dipped to 736 the following year, then climbed to 874, then 938 and then 1,025 before peaking at 1,092 in ’92. Since then, it has slipped down to 1,077, then to 850, then 838 and last year 707.

Now, if this trend continues, if L.A.’s homicide count for the second half of ’97 equals that of the first half, the total would be 542--less than half the number of only five years ago.

Feeling safer yet? Me neither.

Still, take a look at other violent and serious crimes and you’ll note a similar pattern.

Robbery reports in Los Angeles jumped from fewer than 26,000 in ’87 and ’88 to more than 39,000 in ’91 and ’92. Last year, the number of robberies fell to 25,006.

Burglary reports, too, have fallen. There were more than 50,000 each year from ’87 to ‘93, with peaks exceeding 57,000 in ’91 and ’92. But in 1996, that number dropped to 35,859. The statistics for aggravated assault and other crimes show similar movement.

These are impressive numbers. It’s true that crime has gone down nationwide as well, but in L.A. the pace has far exceeded that of the country at large. It’s also true that New York has had more to boast about--one reason L.A.’s improvement has been widely overlooked.

But think back to 1992, when Willie Williams took charge of a beleaguered, demoralized LAPD. Would you have believed Williams if he had promised that L.A.’s murder rate could be cut in half within five years? Would you have believed him if he promised that within five years there would be more than 14,000 fewer robberies and 22,000 fewer burglaries?

Yet here we are five years later and those unspoken promises have come to pass. Even so, it was good riddance for Williams. Now we have a new, home-grown police chief suggesting that he be judged by the numbers.

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The point here isn’t that Williams deserved a second term as chief or that Parks shouldn’t be held accountable as the city’s top strategist for fighting crime. Nor is it that the fear of crime is at irrational levels. Sure, some people may be paranoid, but most of us have felt the criminal’s chilling touch. In the 12 years I’ve lived within L.A. city limits, my car has been burglarized at least twice and my home once. One afternoon I was in the passenger seat of a car on the Pasadena Freeway when the windshield was shattered by a thrown brick. And one night I was inside a Northridge liquor store when it was robbed at gunpoint.

The point, rather, is that crime statistics have limited value, subject as they are to so many political spins. Willie Williams would credit community policing and other strategies while state Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren credits “three strikes” sentences. Some criminologists look to the drop in the number of men in their crime-prone years and an improving economy. All seem reasonable rationales and many others have been advanced. The Northridge earthquake, remember, was credited with temporarily reducing crime.

Capt. Mike Aranda of the Lancaster sheriff’s station is one lawman who thinks that crime stats, while useful, tell only part of the story. The recent state report shows crime on the increase in 1997 in the Antelope Valley cities of Lancaster and Palmdale, bucking state and national trends.

Aranda supervises 261 sworn officers who provide law enforcement services for nearly 350,000 people who live in a 1,300-square-mile area. The recent upswing in crime, Aranda points out, comes after five years in which the Antelope Valley experienced a steady decline in the FBI’s “Part 1” crimes--homicide, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, theft, grand theft auto and arson. In 1992, there were about 520 of these crimes for every 10,000 residents in the Antelope Valley. By 1996, that figure had fallen to about 430.

The fact that the numbers are now heading in the wrong direction, Aranda says, has given him and his officers extra incentive to find ways to target and arrest the small number of criminals who commit the majority of crimes. Aranda said they are trying to determine, for example, how large a problem is being created by parolees from the local prison.

Aranda worries that there may be a more troubling explanation. Maybe the cycle is simply turning, maybe the Antelope Valley is at the front edge of a demographic trend that will send crime rates in the wrong direction everywhere. Aranda worries that Chief Parks may live to regret and explain away his statement that increasing crime means the chief isn’t doing his job.

So here’s hoping Parks won’t have to eat his words. America’s safest big city? Sounds good to me. Heck, second-safest wouldn’t be so bad either.

Scott Harris’ column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. Readers may write to him at The Times’ Valley Edition, 20000 Prairie St., Chatsworth 91311, or via e-mail at scott.harris@latimes.com Please include a phone number.