What is The Homicide Report?The
Homicide Report is a weekly listing of all homicide victims reported by
the Los Angeles County coroner, combined with updates every few days
from law enforcement agencies of new homicides not yet listed. Any
human being who dies at the hand of another in Los Angeles County, and
whose death is recorded by the coroner, is included in the report.
The
report seeks to reverse an age-old paradox of big-city crime reporting,
which dictates that only the most unusual and statistically marginal
homicide cases receive press coverage, while those cases at the very
eye of the storm -- those which best expose the true statistical
dimensions of the problem of deadly violence -- remain hidden.
Selective
news coverage is a practical necessity for most news organizations
operating in a county where nearly 1,100 people die from homicide
yearly. The Los Angeles Times, for example, is limited by the number of
pages it prints, and in a recent year, found room for stories on fewer
than 10% of L.A. County homicides, according to an analysis by a Times
researcher. Such selectivity ensures that the people and places most
affected by homicides are least likely to be seen, while the safest
people are inundated with information about crimes unlikely to ever
touch their lives.
In L.A., people understand this paradox well,
as numerous letters to the Homicide Report attest. When a celebrity's
wife or girlfriend is killed in Brentwood or Studio City, or when a
female student is killed in Westwood, we know reaction will be swift.
Such cases, catastrophic in their own right, traditionally generate a
forceful response--not just from the press, but also from politicians,
activists, institutions and the general public.
But Angelenos
also know that not all suffer equally from homicide. Night after night,
vastly higher numbers of young men, most of them black or Latino, many
with criminal records, are shot in drive-by shootings in Lynwood,
Compton, Watts, South-Central Los Angeles, Willowbrook, Westlake, Boyle
Heights, or any of a number of neighborhoods in the county long
associated with relatively high crime rates.
We know the press
takes little notice of these deaths. Immense private heartbreak and
shattering communal events are thus rendered footnotes or ephemera,
while the phenomenon of routine killing in the public streets of a
major, first-world city is diffused into virtual invisibility. The
public comprehends there is an elephant in the room, but is never given
more than a glimpse of its massive bulk; meanwhile the press focuses on
a toenail, or the tip of a trunk.
With The Homicide Report,
however, The Times seeks to exploit the advantages of the web to
eliminate selectivity in homicide coverage and give readers a more
complete picture of who dies from homicide, where, and why -- thus
conveying both the personal story and the statistical story with
greater accuracy.
Why does the Homicide Report give the race of victims and suspects?The
Homicide Report includes information on race or ethnicity in its weekly
lists of homicide victims issued by the Los Angeles County coroner, as
well as the name, gender and age of each victim, and the time, place
and manner of death. A number of readers have asked why race is
included. Some have criticized the practice.
Racial information
was once routinely included in news stories about crimes, but in recent
decades, newspapers and other media outlets stopped mentioning
suspects' or victims' race or ethnicity because of public criticism.
Newspapers came to embrace the idea that such information is irrelevant
to the reporting of crimes, and may unfairly stigmatize racial groups.
The
Homicide Report departs from this rule in the interest of presenting
the most complete and accurate demographic picture of who is at risk of
dying from homicide in Los Angeles County.
Race and ethnicity,
like age and gender, are stark predictors of homicide risk. Blacks are
vastly more likely to die from homicide than whites, and Latinos
somewhat more likely. Black men, in particular, are extraordinarily
vulnerable: They are 4% of this country's population, but, according to
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, they represented 35% of
homicide victims nationally in 2004. Local numbers mirror these
national disparities. According to an analysis for The Times by county
health officials of homicide data between 1991 and 2002, Latino men
ages 20 to 24 were five times more likely than white men the same age
to die, and black men were 16 times more likely.
The Homicide
Report recognizes the peril of dehumanizing victims by reducing their
lives and deaths to a few scant facts--particularly racial designations
which provide only the roughest markers of ancestry and history. But
given the magnitude of difference in homicide risk along racial and
ethnic lines--and the extremity of suffering which homicide inflicts on
subsets of the population--we opt here to present information which
lays bare racial and ethnic contours of the problem so conspicuous in
the coroner's data. The goal is to promote understanding, and honor a
basic journalistic principle: Tell the truth about who suffers.
As
you read The Homicide Report, keep in mind the racial breakdown of the
population of Los Angeles County. We are, according to the Census
Bureau, about 47% Latino, 29% white, 12% Asian and 9% black. If
homicide were distributed equally among racial groups, not quite half
the victims included in The Homicide Report's weekly listings from the
coroner would be Latino, and fewer than one in 10 would be black.
Why Does The Homicide Report List Killings by Police?Any death of a human being by the hand of another is included in The Homicide Report.
This
is the Los Angeles County coroner's definition of homicide. The
definition wraps in both criminal homicides and justifiable homicides
by police, as well as justifiable homicides by civilians acting in
self- defense.
The coroner's investigation, which is separate
from a police investigation, is what determines how the case is
categorized. Coroner's investigators take intent, as well as other
factors, into account. To the coroner, the word "homicide" is a medical
examiner's term of art, not a legal concept, said coroner's spokesman
Craig Harvey. "If the D.A. chooses to file charges, or not file
charges, it's of no concern to the coroner," he said.
That's why
vehicular homicide and manslaughter cases often don't qualify. The
exception is cases in which a driver had a clear intent--in the eyes of
the coroner's investigators--to use a car as a waepon to kill another
human being. Thus, the victims of the Santa Monica Farmers' Market
crash were not labeled homicide victims by the coroner, although the
driver was prosecuted. But Joseph Mendoza, who was killed Feb. 14 when
a fistfight escalated into an apparently deliberate
car-versus-pedestrian assault, was listed by the coroner as a homicide
victim.
The same accounting method is used by the Centers for
Disease Control for its national mortality reports. The method differs
from that used by the FBI, which collects data from law enforcement
agencies. The inclusion of justifiable homicides, police killings, and
other deaths not listed by law enforcement as homicides, means that the
Centers for Disease Control routinely places homicide numbers at a
higher point than the FBI does. In 2004, for example, the CDC reported
more than 17,300 homicides; the FBI that same year reported 16,137.
The
Homicide Report presents this larger data set. It is not a catalog of
first-degree murder cases but rather a measure of lethal conflict
between human beings in any form.
That includes cases in which a
police officer is menaced with a deadly weapon, and fires back in his
or her own defense. The Homicide Report presents such incidents simply
as a fatal encounters between human beings. Thus, victims can be
instigators and still make the Homicide Report. They need only to be
dead to qualify. There is, as Harvey said, "no judgment on it."
Are there a lot of homicides in Los Angeles?
A note to readers: This portion of the FAQ was written in 2007,
and all figures should be taken in that context. We will attempt to
update this document with more current information as time allows.
Not particularly, although it depends on the point of comparison.
To
be sure, the raw number of homicides is large, making for a lengthy
list on The Homicide Report. But that's mostly because of the size of
the population. Big populations make for big statistics; thus L.A.
County accounted for 43% of the total number of homicides in California
in 2005, and about 6% of all the homicides in the nation.
Measured
as a rate per capita, though, the number of homicides here is pretty
middling. Among major cities, L.A. city ranked 16th in the nation in
homicide rates, according to a list compiled by the Los Angeles Police
Department. (L.A. County's rates are similar to the city's.)
With
about 13 deaths annually for every 100,000 people last year, the city
of L.A. was tied with San Francisco and Boston in the rankings, and
placed just a hair above Denver. Detroit, Washington, D.C.,
Philadelphia, Las Vegas, Baltimore, and Kansas City, Mo., all ranked
higher.
L.A. looks even better when its demographics are taken
into account. A recent study funded by the National Institute of
Justice found that when homicide rates are adjusted for several
factors, such as poverty, unemployment and the percentage of blacks in
the population, the city of L.A. ranked 39th on a list of 67 American
cities.
In short, our high-risk demographics (lots of poverty,
lots of single-parent homes) put us at a disadvantage with wealthier,
whiter cities such as San Diego, which are blessed with low homicide
numbers thanks in part to low-risk demographics.
But even so, we
do fairly well. "I wouldn't think to characterize L.A. as a major
homicide place," said Al Blumstein, criminologist at Carnegie Mellon
University.
Los Angeles' homicide rates today also compare
favorably with rates in the past. In 1992 and 1993, peak years of a
national homicide epidemic, the rates were easily double what they are
today. There are, on average, almost three homicides daily in Los
Angeles County now; six per day was the average back then. Downward
trends have continued: The decrease in county-wide homicides between
2005 and 2006 was 6%.
But there remains a grim side to this
picture. Los Angeles homicide rates are nowhere as low as New York
City's, and like most American cities, L.A.'s homicide rate is much
higher than that of surrounding suburbs and small cities. The average
national homicide rate hovers between 5 and 6 deaths per 100,000
yearly, which is less than half the L.A. city rate.
Moreover,
citywide and countywide homicide rates are deceiving because, like all
big cities, Los Angeles County is a combination of safe and dangerous
neighborhoods. Areas with very few homicides, such as Brentwood,
Malibu, Santa Monica, Beverly Hills and Woodland Hills form a patchwork
with areas with a lot of homicides, such as Compton, South-Central,
Watts, Crenshaw and Athens.
The differences are so extreme that
they render the county- and citywide rates almost meaningless. The Los
Angeles Police Department's Southeast Division in Watts, for example,
had a homicide rate of 45 deaths per 100,000 people last year, triple
the citywide average.
West Los Angeles, meanwhile, had a
homicide rate of less than 1 death per 100,000--so low that people
living there might as well be living in Europe. Such high- and
low-homicide neighborhoods cancel each other out, producing a medium
rate overall. But this may be little comfort to people in neighborhoods
where homicide rates quite literally parallel those of Third World
countries.
In general, statistics don't argue strongly for
viewing Los Angeles as an exception. Our bad neighborhoods are likely
similar to bad neighborhoods in other large American cities, and the
people most at risk of being victimized here--young male adults of
minority background--would also be at risk elsewhere.
So when
you scroll down the list of victims on The Homicide Report, think of
what you see not as an L.A. problem but as an American one. You are
looking at the local version of a longstanding national homicide
problem.
Are Black vs. Brown race tensions driving homicide?
A note to readers: This portion of the FAQ was written in 2007,
and all figures should be taken in that context. We will attempt to
update this document with more current information as time allows.
No.
A few high-profile cases, including the suspected racially motivated
killing of 14-year-old Cheryl Green in LAPD's Harbor Division, have
fueled speculation of rising racial conflict in L.A. But among
detectives and police officers who deal daily with homicides, the
prevailing view is that the race problem--for now, anyway--remains
marginal. "I don't think it's there," says Watts homicide Det. Chris
Barling. Det. John Radtke, a South-Central homicide investigator,
agrees. "We don't see it happening," he says. Statistics back them up.
Take the four most violent Los Angeles police precincts--Newton, 77th Street, Southwest and Southeast.
These
racially mixed divisions cover South-Central Los Angeles and
surrounding areas and consistently rank highest in homicides among the
19 LAPD precincts. Last year they accounted for nearly half of all the
murders in the city.
But out of a total of 236 homicides in
these four divisions last year, just 22 involved Latinos killing
blacks, or blacks killing Latinos.
The vast majority--nearly
90%--involved suspects and victims of the same race. In a few other
cases, the suspects are unknown, and could represent disparate races.
But even in those--a mix of stray-bullet, gang- and narcotic-related
killings--race is not believed to be a motive.
Detectives puzzled by racial homogeneityIn
areas patrolled by the L.A. County Sheriff's Department, too, the
pattern of killings on the street is “almost the opposite” of the
picture lately highlighted in the media, sheriff's Cmdr. Pete Amico
says.
The tilt is so far the other way that some homicide
investigators say what actually perplexes them is how little racial
crossover there is in killings.
Same-race murder predominates
even where blacks and Latinos mix the most. In LAPD’s Southeast
Division in Watts, for example, the population is at least 56% Latino
and 40% black, according to U.S. Census numbers. But of 70 homicides
reported there last year, only one was confirmed as black-on-Latino. No
Latino-on-black killings occurred at all.
To be sure, tension
between blacks and Latinos does exist in L.A., and a few murders
result. For example, a string of racially motivated gang killings in
Highland Park in the late 1990s went to trial in federal court last
year.
And detectives think the December killing by Latino gang
members of Cheryl Green, who was black, was as purely race-driven as a
crime can get. The subsequent killing of a witness in that case, and an
unrelated racial beating case in Long Beach, has further inflamed
public concern about racial violence.
But even in LAPD’s Harbor Division, where Green was killed, racial murder is an aberration.
Of
the 20 homicides in the Harbor City-area precinct last year, only one
other is confirmed to have involved Latino suspects and a black victim.
That case had to do with a drug deal, not race, said Det. Jim Perkins,
supervisor of Harbor's homicide squad.
In two other cases the
suspects are unknown and may be of different races. But in general,
Perkins said, Harbor-area killings involve Latino gangs fighting other
Latino gangs over territory.
Where the trend is going is hard
to gauge. Law enforcement officials throughout the county describe a
fairly stable mix of Latino-vs.-Latino and black-vs.-black homicides
over the years, punctuated by a few scattered skirmishes between gangs
of different races, especially in border areas.
The sheriff’s
Firestone area had one such flare-up two years ago. The dispute,
purportedly over a drug deal, became so violent and so racially charged
that black gangs began hunting Latinos indiscriminately and vice versa,
said Sheriff’s Lt. Joe Hartshorne. At least two noncombatants--an older
man and a fruit vendor--were killed simply because of race, he said.
More
common, though, are black-vs.-Latino gang wars over traditional gang
issues--such as territory or revenge, said Det. Kelle Baitx, of LAPD’s
Newton Division. “It’s on gang lines. It’s territory, not a race
thing,” he said.
Cross-racial homicide motivesSometimes, black/Latino gang fights suggest as much about racial integration as they do about hostility.
Perkins, the Harbor detective, recalled two such conflicts in his division in recent years:
In
one, a black and Latino gang had long agreed to share their drug
territory, but a fight broke out over which gang could sell during the
day and which at night. Retaliatory shootings played out for months.
In
another, a local Latino gang that had welcomed black members was
ordered by Mexican gang higher-ups to kick them out, and two people
were killed, Perkins said.
Elsewhere, the smattering of black-vs.-Latino killings usually involve motives identical to those driving same-race killings.
In
77th Street Division, for example, a traditionally black Crip gang had
welcomed a Latino into their midst, said Radtke, the 77th Street
detective. The Latino Crip was later killed as the result of in-house
gang argument.
In Newton Division, a black man killed a Latino
neighbor in a dispute over loud music, and a Latino man killed a black
acquaintance who had criticized his parenting style. There also have
been recent black/Latino killings arising from narcotics deals,
robberies, parties, insults and fights over women--all garden-variety
motives common to same-race murders.
The fact that homicide
seldom crosses racial lines here is not unique to L.A. Nationally,
whites mostly kill whites, blacks mostly kill blacks, etc. It's been
that way for a long time, both here and in the rest of the nation.
“When you look at the trends, you don’t see tremendous change,” said
Marianne Zawitz, statistician with the federal Bureau of Justice
Statistics.
Concern is warrantedStill, there’s reason for concern, Radtke says.
Racial
strife is rampant in prisons, he says, and drug-market competition
between Latino gangs and black gangs could someday come to a head.
Black
gangs are shrinking as Latino ones grow, he says, and while a balance
of power may be keeping the status quo in place for now, authorities
should keep watch. “I’m actually glad there has been such a response to
the Harbor case,” Radtke says. Gangs that provoke racial conflict
“should have the full force of the government on them.”
But
other investigators are frustrated by what they call over-hyped stories
of rising violence between races. “Crime here is race on race,” says
Barling, the Watts detective. “The politicians always miss it.”
