No Simple Explanation for Jump in L.A. Murder Rate

In the Hollenbeck Division on the Eastside of Los Angeles, police detectives watched a remarkable crime trend unfold this year.

In February, the division disbanded its anti-gang CRASH unit, after the scandal in a similar unit in the Rampart Division. Over the next two violent months, until Hollenbeck reestablished an anti-gang unit, 11 people were killed in the division--nearly triple the average monthly rate recorded for the rest of the year.

“When gangs don’t see police, crime starts to go sideways,” said a supervising detective, Rick Peterson.

Or, more precisely, crime goes up.

In Los Angeles this year, murder rates have spiked by almost 25%, reversing some of the encouraging gains made in the 1990s.

According to the LAPD, 76% of the city’s increase in homicides through mid-July occurred in the southern and central parts of the city. The murder victims were almost exclusively black and Latino males between 17 and 32, and most of the killers were between 14 and 24. Many are believed to be gang affiliated.

Police and criminologists offer various explanations for the increase, including the impact of the Rampart scandal on gang suppression efforts and the possibility that criminals in Los Angeles have become better armed and better trained.

Most cities in the region and throughout the country still enjoy the declining crime rates that have made the past few years among the safest in decades.

Some are just getting there.

“We’ve turned the corner,” said Baltimore police spokesman Kevin Enright, crowing about a 9% decrease in homicides so far this year. “We got a new commissioner. He rocks.”

But Los Angeles is not the only city to see its crime rate suddenly rise after a long, satisfying downward spiral.

Some experts suggest that the city may simply be on the leading edge of an inevitable, if unwelcome, trend.

Trend of More Murders Continues

In 1999, several major cities in California and across the nation saw their murder numbers either level off or increase after years of declines, including Los Angeles, Long Beach, San Diego, Sacramento, San Francisco, New York City, Denver, Phoenix and St. Louis, according to FBI figures released in May.

That trend appears to have continued. Boston, New Orleans and Philadelphia are among the other big cities that have seen increases in their murder rate so far this year, while New York is exactly tied with last year.

“All these cities are victims of their own success,” said James Alan Fox, a professor of criminal justice at Northeastern University in Boston who is among the nation’s foremost experts on homicide. “The big cities--New York, L.A., Boston--led the way in the wonderful 1990s crime drops, and they were the first to hit bottom. . . . It’s the criminal justice limbo stick--you just can’t go any lower. The only realistic way to go is up.”

Margaret Zahn, a professor of criminology at the University of North Carolina, said she believes there are five basic reasons for the decline in crime in the past decade: a prosperous economy, programs that have taken guns away from young people, a decline in the crack cocaine market, improvements in police practices and declines in the number of homeless people.

Reversals in any of those trends could cause an increase in homicides, she said. “Of course,” she said, “you’ve got problems with the Police Department” in Los Angeles.

Homicides also have gone up in the territory policed by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. In Orange County, Santa Ana has seen a slight rise, set against a countywide decline, officials said.

Still, Fox conceded that the 25% increase in homicides reported in Los Angeles this week is more than just a nudge of the bar. In an informal sampling of major cities, only New Orleans came close, with a 23% increase that police have blamed on narcotics trafficking.

Among the possible reasons for the increase in Los Angeles, Fox and others said, could be a rise in the city’s population of young people, especially those in the crime-prone 14-24 age group, and a sudden release of parolees from state prisons.

“The more people you send to prison, the more come out eventually,” he said.

This last explanation--an increase in parolees--is among those cited by Los Angeles police officials. But at street level, LAPD officers seem more likely to blame other factors, including the impact of the scandal in the Rampart Division, where anti-gang officers have been accused of lying, stealing and covering up crimes that include drug-dealing, assault and homicide. That scandal led to the suspension of the anti-gang CRASH units.

“The gangsters knew CRASH was suspended,” said Det. Jesse Valle, who works in the Newton Division. “The gangsters are like, ‘Now we’ll do whatever we want.’ ”

Even some of those who don’t blame Rampart problems said an increase in gang activity is contributing to the increase.

In the 77th Street Division in south Los Angeles, Det. Rudy Lemos said 40 of 65 killings this year have been gang-related. At the same time last year, he said, gangs had been blamed for 20 of the division’s 50 homicides.

“And there’s still a month to go,” he said. “It’s just the hatred that they have for each other--it’s hard to pinpoint why.”

In the nearby Southeast Division, homicide Det. Linda Compton said there have been 63 homicides so far this year, 39 of them gang-related. Still, officers there said gangs weren’t the only ones responsible for the increase in killing.

Det. James Lovelace said his area is faced with deteriorating relations between Latinos and blacks.

“They find it hard to live together,” he said. “The only way you can stop it is to have more police officers. You have to have more police officers on the scene.”

Police Chief Cites Variety of Reasons

Police Chief Bernard C. Parks said much the same thing, adding in a brief interview that the increase in murders is unlikely to have been caused by any one factor. More likely, it was the result of some combination of changes in the city and its police force, each adding incrementally to the overall increase, he suggested.

Parks acknowledged that attrition within the department may be one reason for the spike in crime. There are now about 9,200 sworn officers, about 800 fewer than there were three years ago.

And, echoing Fox, the chief said a wave of convicted offenders has recently hit the streets. All of a sudden, “we’ve got large numbers of people on some form of supervision--on parole or probation,” he said.

The chief also cited a curious figure: Assaults have risen only about 7% so far this year, whereas homicides are up 25%. The same is true of figures issued by the Sheriff’s Department, which has seen aggravated assaults rise by less than 1%, while homicides have increased 9.5%.

Parks speculated that criminals may be using higher-capacity guns, including automatic weapons that fire dozens of bullets in a single burst. When such weapons are used, he said, even gunshots to an area such as the shoulder can turn deadly.

A spokesman for the Sheriff’s Department, Capt. Ray Leyva, said the increase of homicides within his jurisdiction might not be very meaningful. For instance, he said, it might have been caused by a few more multiple killings, not an increase in the actual number of incidents. Also, he said, the county is growing, and crime will naturally grow along with the population.

“I think we’ve kept a pretty good handle on crime,” he said. “The increase is small, given the increase in population.”

He also said the three-strikes law might have been a factor. Other police officials mentioned the same thing, saying the law--which sends career criminals away for 25-year-to-life terms--has raised the stakes and may be prompting criminals to kill their victims to ensure they won’t be able to testify in court.

Parks said the uptick in crime has prompted the department to consider the deployment of more officers on the street. He has ordered a citywide review of staffing in each division, with the goal of getting more patrol officers out on the street.

“Not to play around with words,” he said, “but hopefully we will get a handle on this and we’ll be increasing at a decreasing rate.”

Some of Parks’ officers, however, expressed skepticism at the chief’s efforts, and blamed him for problems that have allowed crime to rise.

“I don’t think Parks cares,” said Peterson, the Hollenbeck detective, who said morale in the department is extremely low. “They have officers leaving in droves from here. If they don’t do anything to make our department equal to other departments, why should someone stay here?”

Malcolm Klein, a professor emeritus of sociology at USC, said it may be impossible to ever know what has caused the increase in killing--just as it may be impossible to truly know why crime has declined so sharply over the past decade.

“I’m sorry,” he said when asked for an answer. “Wisdom fails.”

*

Times staff writers Ana Beatriz Cholo, Erika Hayasaki, Oscar Johnson, Eric Lichtblau, Eric Malnic, Dalondo Moultrie, David Pierson, Nedra Rhone, Jason Song, Thuy-Doan Le and Kurt Streeter, correspondent Louise Roug and researcher Edith Stanley contributed to this story.

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Homicides Rates Across the Country

A snapshot of some major cities’ homicide rates year to date,

compared with the same period last year:

*--* 2000 1999 % change Rate Atlanta 119 134 -11% 29.6 Baltimore 245 269 -9% 38.7 Boston 35 29 21% 6.3 Dallas* 203 143 42% 18.9 L.A. 483 387 25% 13.3 New York 619 619 0% 8.3 Phila. 286 253 13% 20.2 Phoenix 153 214 -29% 12.6 *--*

*

Note: Rate is number of homicides in 2000 to date per 100,000 residents.

* Figures are for January through October of both years.

Sources: Individual city police departments, U.S. Census Bureau 1999 population estimates

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Violent Crime in the City

Every bureau of the Los Angeles Police Department reports that homicides and violent crimes are on the increase this year compared with last year.

1 - Central Bureau

*--*

2000* 1999* % change Homicides 150 133 12.8% Violent crimes** 9,512 8,522 11.6% Population 926,466

*--*

2 - South Bureau

*--*

2000* 1999* % change Homicides 207 149 38.9% Violent crimes** 10,018 8,739 14.6% Population 661,763

*--*

*--*

3 - West Bureau

*--*

2000* 1999* % change Homicides 56 43 30.2% Violent crimes** 5,559 5,466 1.7% Population 873,526

*--*

4 - Valley Bureau

*--*

2000* 1999* % change Homicides 70 62 12.9% Violent crimes** 6,940 6,610 5.0% Population 1,319,745

*--*

* Through Nov. 25

** Incidents of homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault (excluding domestic violence)

(Please see microfilm for full chart information)

Source: LAPD Statistical Digest for 1999 and other LAPD data