East L.A. Homicides in 2001 Lowest in Decades

It looks like unincorporated East Los Angeles will finish 2001 with the lowest number of homicides in decades.

The area, home to 128,000 people and patrolled by the Sheriff’s Department, has had only five homicides as of Thursday, compared with 18 killings in 2000.

“That is kind of incredible,” Sheriff’s Homicide Bureau Lt. Ray Peavy said. “I almost don’t want to say anything because I don’t want to jinx it.”

You have to go back to the 1970-71 fiscal year for an East L.A. homicide total in single digits. Nine homicides were recorded that year.

Although this year’s decrease in homicides is dramatic, unincorporated East L.A. has been experiencing a significant decline in slayings in the last five years. Homicides there peaked at 52 in 1995 and have hovered at about 20 for three years.

The drop in homicides does not hold true for the rest of the area served by the Sheriff’s Department. In those 41 cities and dozens of unincorporated areas, killings have risen 17% from last year, Peavy said. In Los Angeles, homicides are up 9% from last year, paralleling a rise in killings in most major U.S. cities.

Perhaps most striking is the comparison between unincorporated East L.A. and the neighboring areas of Boyle Heights, Lincoln Heights and El Sereno, served by the LAPD’s Hollenbeck station. Thirty-five homicides have occurred so far this year in the Hollenbeck area, which is twice as large as the East L.A. station sector.

There were two homicides in the Hollenbeck division this week. Unincorporated East L.A. hasn’t had a homicide since Sept. 29.

No one is certain why killings in unincorporated East L.A. are down or whether 2001 is just an anomaly.

East L.A. sheriff’s investigators say the drop can be attributed to a combination of years of proactive police work, major arrests, longer prison sentences and a downturn in gang activity.

The detectives said they have not performed their jobs any differently this year and know of no truce among the 25 gangs they monitor most closely. An estimated 4,000 gang members are believed to live in the primarily Latino area of 7.48 square miles.

The homicide rate is “like everything else, it comes and goes,” said Det. Danny Batanero of the station’s gang unit, Operation Safe Streets. “Next year might be hellacious.”

That’s what most gang intervention workers say as well. They say gang violence comes in waves. Right now, East L.A. is enjoying a lull.

“There’s a pattern of activity with gangs,” said Ron Noblet, of the nonprofit Earn Respect Intervention Program in Lynwood and Compton. “When a certain generation is maxed out because they’re dead, locked up or strung out, there’s a precipitous drop until others come of age.”

At the same time, some investigators are reluctant to call the drop in homicides simply good luck.

“We’ve just been out there, serving warrants, making arrests and it’s starting to show,” said Det. Mario Castro.

Since 1999, the gang unit has served 278 warrants and made 337 arrests.

One of those search warrants led to an arrest in the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Rudy Olagiver in March 2000. Six days later, East L.A. sheriff’s deputies arrested Christian Velez, 24, while serving a warrant on an unrelated charge.

While in custody, Velez was charged with the murder. He was convicted last week of second-degree murder and causing death with a firearm. He is facing 15 years to life for the murder conviction and 25 years to life on the weapon charge, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Stephen Gallon.

Gang investigators also said their success in arresting gang “shot callers” has had a profound effect on the gang members’ activity.

“Once they’re in jail, it makes it more difficult for other gang members to make decisions on the street,” said Operation Safe Streets Sgt. Joe Gonzalez.

Det. Michael Delmuro said arresting the young, most active gangbangers has also contributed to this year’s low homicide numbers.

“You’ve gotta get . . . the crazy ones that are willing to do anything. Those are the most dangerous ones.”

The East L.A. sheriff’s office has also participated in the East L.A. Task Force, a group of law enforcement representatives. The group, created by County Supervisor Gloria Molina, discusses legal ways to rid the area of troublemakers.

Deputies and community advocates say the homicide statistics are not indicative of the overall level of violence in the area.

Among other serious crime in unincorporated East L.A., the number of aggravated assaults is also down, but rape and robbery have increased.

Gus Frias, of the Safe Schools Program County Office of Education, said violence, whether it results in death or not, has a devastating effect.

“The area itself has been victimized for years,” Frias said. “There’s no way of measuring the terror and fear that just one drive-by shooting has on an entire community.”

Molina says violence in East L.A. has not been eliminated, “but we’re not seeing the incidents of the past when gang members would kill innocent children.” There is still “a long way to go,” she said.