Compton Records Its 68th Homicide

A teenage girl allegedly stabbed to death her 15-year-old sister Wednesday morning on the edge of Compton, the third homicide this week in a city that has had at least 68 killings this year, far outpacing the rest of Southern California and its own recent homicide rates.

The stabbing -- apparently the result of a family dispute -- took place shortly before 9 a.m. in the 14000 block of North Central Avenue. Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies arrived to find the 17-year-old alleged assailant on the front lawn with her sister, Carmen Duncan, 15, who was fatally wounded, authorities said. Sheriff’s deputies detained the suspect, whose name they have not released because she is a minor. They said she told investigators that she and her sister had been involved in a fight.

The latest homicide came within days of two fatal shootings, one Tuesday night that killed Derrick Richard, 23, and left another man wounded. In another double shooting Sunday, Lubrina Pullard, 17, was killed and her boyfriend wounded as they sat in a parked car on a residential street.

The rise in violence this year in Compton has been “absolutely incredible, absolutely too much death,” said the Rev. Carl Washington, a former assemblyman who represented the area until forced out by term limits in 2003. “All around town today people are saying, ‘Why are so many people dying in this city?’ That’s what we have to answer.”

In addition to the deaths reported within the city limits, at least nine other homicides have taken place in unincorporated areas just outside Compton. The vast majority of the killings have been blamed by sheriff’s officials on gangs.

Washington announced Wednesday that he intended to create a community task force to respond to the violence, including efforts to broker a truce among the city’s many active street gangs. Washington, who helped mediate a gang truce in the early 1990s in Watts, said he believed that the time had come to try again.

“We’re calling on gang members to cease-fire,” he said, standing alone on the city’s concrete civic plaza to address half a dozen television cameras.

His message to gang members: “You are killing innocent people. Let the people live decent lives here.”

Washington said he planned to bring together a coalition of ministers, community activists and city officials to reach out to local troublemakers.

At the same time, Washington said, residents have to tell law enforcement personnel what they know about crimes in their community.

“It takes good citizens to step forward and get involved,” even if that means turning in a relative who committed a crime, he said.

Washington later surveyed the square, adorned by murals of civil rights leaders that, like the nearby Compton City Hall sign, bear the scars of frequent graffiti.

As he watched passersby go about their business, some shouting hello to their former assemblyman, Washington shrugged with frustration at so many years of so little change in the city of 10 square miles and about 96,000 people.

“It’s small enough that you’d think the problems could be dealt with,” he said. “I feel like everybody’s asleep and haven’t woke up.... Am I the only one awake?”