Notes on 2007: Missing Cases

The Homicide Report endeavored to cover every homicide in Los Angeles County in 2007. It has failed to do so.

The HR tally displayed here is inaccurate by a margin of at least 10%. Possibly 100 homicides or more are missing from the lists that have been posted here throughout the year. Anyone tempted to use this list or the accompanying map for statistical purposes, please be aware this is not a comprehensive catalog of 2007 homicides.

For this reason, a full accounting of how many homicides have occurred in Los Angeles County this year versus last year will require further analysis. The findings will be published here later.

We know homicides have fallen sharply this year--not just in the city of Los Angeles, but also countywide. It is not yet clear by how much.

Homicides are missing from HR for many reasons. In some cases, lengthy investigations were required to determine that some deaths were homicides, and not accidents, suicides, or natural deaths. Some infant deaths fall into this category. Following this post are several produced by LAT staff writer Jack Leonard which attempt to address this fault.

In addition, a number of cases were missed early in the year as HR evolved a system for tracking all homicides, and corrected flaws in its approach. Los Angeles County has 10 million people and dozens of police jurisdictions. The Los Angeles Times has never attempted to track all homicides before, and a considerable learning curve was involved.

Mistakes or omissions also happened because, in some cases, a victim died in a hospital very long after being injured, making it more difficult to link a death to the initial assault. Sometimes confusion over AKAs or discrepancies between various agency reports were to blame. And finally, the relentless demands of this beat have at times exceeded the abilities of this reporter, and names have gone missing because HR is guilty of lapses in vigilance.

Apologies to loved ones of those victims whose names were omitted; HR is trying to add them all.

Above, Christmas flowers for Christmas Eve murder victim Diego Cruz, 15.

Comments

[chris]

You're doing an excellent job. We appreciate the work.

[Mark]

Its my understanding that the LA County Coroner is always involved in every single homicide reported in the county.

How can the coroners list not be accurate? If they are not reporting the homicides to the public, then that can be rectified. But if even they dont know the numbers of homicides, then thats unacceptable.

[Gabe]

I think you are being a little hard on yourself. The blog was a noble endeavor. You may not have tracked evey single homicide in the county, but you did get almost all of them. It was enough for those of us who visited this blog throughout the year to learn a few things we didn't know before about, such as where most of the county's homicides occur, how they occur, and what some of the risk factors are. We learned a little about what the survivors endure in the months after a homicide. We learned about "where you from" and what that means (or doesn't mean). So again, this was worth doing.

I regret that the blog did not evolve into a very high-level discussion of homicide and its pathology in the community. On rare occasions, there were meaningful discussions, but too often the forum was hijacked by some provocateur. More often the discussion resembled a legacy.com blog, and that did have its place. I confess to being elitist about this.

I'm trying to remember what were, for me, the most striking of the homicides you reported. There are three that come to mind: (1) the legal secretary in Newton who was bringing fast food to her kids in the car when the killer walked up and shot her in front of the kids and she died in front of their eyes; (2) the man whose son was shot outside his home, and who ran out into the street to chase down the killers and was shot down himself; and (3) the guy just a day or so ago who moves to LA from Santa Rosa, and two guys show up at his door and stab him to death in an argument in front of his son. I suppose we'd have to add that poor baby who was shot by the gangbanger in the park, and the guy who was shot on his birthday (or was it is his sister -- I don't remember) when the family was having a late-night party that got crashed by some hothead.

What ties these homicides together, and I suppose all the homicides you catalogued, was the utter senselessness of it all. Not one of the homicides you reported made any sense from a human perspective. What possibly could drive a human being to the drastic step of taking the life of another human being, or to the boundless anger and recklessness that leads to the taking of human life? I don't understand it. Your blog didn't help me understand it. I come away from this with a keen reminder of the senselessness of homicide, but not much more.

Thanks just the same, and I hope you and the Times editors continue to come up with ways to continue caring about this issue and looking for ways to address it appropriately in the paper.

[kb]

i would not be so quick to beat on yourself "HR" you guys have done
a very good job so please keep this blog and the reporting going

happy 2008!!

[Lisa]

The Homicide Report in the L.A. Times is one of the first sections I read when I log on to my computer. I believe it is one of the most important sources of information regarding the violence that brews in our city, and does a great job of pinpointing on a map where it occurs. The fact that the homicide rate is down means nothing to me - 820 people dead in the year 2007 is astounding to me, whether or not it is lower that the prior year or has some missing. I wish more people would make suggestions in the blogs on how we could work together to reduce the violence. In my own daily life I've talked about this blog with friends and have discussed issues like installing video cameras on important corners and in private homes with our own money, or one of my own neighborhood blocks choosing a crime area block to clean up, etc. The problem - we're afraid to approach those areas! If anyone reading this would like to start this kind of dialogue and work on it, post your ideas! And thank you, The Homicide Report!.

[pam]

I read this report every sunday and I don't even live in CA! I'm in FL! I find it very interesting. I've noticed one of your past reporters took a job with the Orlando Sentinal in Orlando and now has created a blog for homicides, just like yours. Keep up the good work!