Parks, Top Staff Map Response to Surge in Crime

Alarmed by a sharp rise in violent crime, Los Angeles Police Chief Bernard C. Parks huddled with top LAPD officials Monday on how to arrest a trend that has pushed homicides up 23.5% so far this year.

Parks said before the session that “the No. 1 issue is to reverse the numbers” that show that violent crime--murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault--jumped 10.9% in the city from Jan. 1 through Aug. 19 compared to the same period a year ago.

“We’re developing a crime strategy for the rest of the year,” Parks said. “We want to show a significant deceleration of violent crime in the months ahead.”

With such a large increase since the beginning of the year, Parks said, it is unreasonable to expect that the city will record a decline in violent crime this year from last, even if the new strategies produce dramatic results.

LAPD Cmdr. David Kalish said Parks and his top command staff spent two hours reviewing the data and discussing the meaning and possible causes of the increase.

Department officials were directed to develop a strategic plan to address the specific crime problems within the LAPD’s 18 geographic divisions and report back next week.

“The idea is to move forward quickly during the last four months of this year and try and get a handle on this spike in crime,” Kalish said.

The strategies could include deployment of additional officers and special units, combined with crime prevention and other efforts. Parks “made it very clear they will be developed and implemented as soon as possible,” Kalish said. “Whatever we can do, we will do as soon as we can.”

According to Parks, department officials have culled through local crime data and discerned a number of potentially interesting trends.

Los Angeles has had about 4,000 more serious crimes so far this year than last and more than half of the increase has been in violent crimes. Most of the additional crimes are being committed by people between 14 and 24 years old, Parks said.

Most of the violent crime occurs between 6 p.m. and 3 a.m., and it is concentrated in the east, southeast and central parts of the city, according to the chief. The bulk of it is committed Thursday through Sunday, Parks said.

The LAPD analysis found one curious additional fact: While murders are up significantly this year, assaults have increased only modestly. That suggests that criminals may not be attacking many more people but rather, either because of the firepower of their weapons or because of problems with the area’s emergency care system, more people who are attacked die.

Eight of 10 murders in Los Angeles are committed with guns, Parks said, bolstering his contention that new and strong laws to take firearms off the street would help police and increase public safety.

The precise ability of police to control crime is a subject of endless and irresolvable debate. Los Angeles police, however, long have maintained that a significant portion of violent crime can be deterred by law enforcement--in the lexicon of policing, the LAPD considers those crimes “repressible.”

Street murders are thought to be repressible because they are less likely to occur if police are in the vicinity. Murder in the home, by contrast, is considered less repressible since even an officer on the corner might not deter some of those crimes.

But Parks, whose granddaughter was killed in a street shooting over Memorial Day weekend, said department statistics suggest that 70% to 80% of area murders occur in public view and, therefore, might be deterred by new police strategies. It is those strategies that the LAPD hopes to develop in the coming week.

Parks said the meeting of his top staff was not called in response to a new national crime survey but had been planned for several weeks. It was convened, he said, because Los Angeles crime has taken a significant turn for the worse since April, and department officials are looking for ways to address it.

Kalish said the LAPD does not know why the number of murders, rapes and aggravated assaults have shown double-digit increases this year over last. “It’s a complex equation and we don’t have all the answers as to why we have seen an increase,” he said.

The number of murders in the city increased to 326 from New Year’s Day to Aug. 19 compared to 264 in the same period last year. Kalish said there has been a slight increase in gang-related murders, although LAPD statistics show a dramatic rise in that category.

He said there could be some fallout from the Rampart police corruption scandal, which led to the dismantling of specialized anti-gang CRASH units.

The violent crime statistics reported by the department do not include aggravated assaults in domestic violence cases. They are tallied separately.

Both Parks and Mayor Richard Riordan have placed great emphasis on achieving a reduction in crime. They have made the crime statistics a key barometer of their performances in office.

Indeed, Parks, when he was selected as chief in August 1997, said he should be judged on whether he was successful in cutting crime. “If [crime] decreases it is a positive for . . . L.A.; if it increases, the chief of police hasn’t done his job,” Parks said then.

Kalish said the recent jump in violent crime runs counter to a steep decline that began nearly a decade ago. The city recorded more than 1,000 murders in 1992, a figure that dropped to little more than 400 last year.

Likewise, violent crimes have fallen every year since 1992, when the total reached nearly 90,000. The figure stood at slightly more than half that level last year.

“Although this spike is of concern, over the long term we’re doing pretty good,” Kalish said.

The unusual surge in crime has prompted a number of meetings of elected officials and community leaders in recent months aimed at identifying potential solutions to the violence, which has hit certain areas particularly hard.

In the period from January through June, LAPD statistics show that two-thirds of the city’s murders were committed in six police divisions: Newton, 77th Street, Southeast, Harbor, Southwest and Rampart.

The study found that 48% of the victims were Latino and 40% were black. Just 8% were white. The remaining 4% were listed as members of “other” racial groups. Sixty percent of the homicide victims during the first half of the year were under 30 years old.

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Rising Violence

Bucking nationwide trends, violent crime in Los Angeles has increased sharply this year. These citywide figures compiled by the Los Angeles Police Department reflect crimes from Jan. 1 through Aug. 19 compared to the same period a year ago.

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Crime 1999 2000 Increase Homicide 264 326 23.5% Rape 788 955 21.2% Robbery 9,083 9,531 4.9% Aggravated Assault* 10,315 11,857 14.9% Overall Violent Crime 20,450 22,669 10.9%

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Note: * Excludes domestic violence

Source: Los Angeles Police Dept.