Violence in L.A.

In their commentary of June 29, Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky and Councilman Mike Feuer state that there are more than 50,000 domestic violence crimes annually in the city of Los Angeles, many involving children. They imply that there are also “thousands of other crimes perpetrated on or by juveniles.” Yet, if one reviews Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer’s report on crximes reported by selected California jurisdictions for 1997 and 1998, the Los Angeles Police Department reported 56,538 total crimes of violence in 1997 and 49,199 total crimes of violence in 1998. These numbers include all homicides, rapes, robberies and aggravated assaults in the city of Los Angeles for those years.

The large disparity between what has been reported officially by the LAPD on one hand and the claims of the article on the other needs to be explained. Either Yaroslavsky and Feuer were exploring the outer reaches of statistical veracity or the LAPD is reporting less than half the violent crime in L.A.

ANTHONY CANALES

Granada Hills