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Clearance month, continued

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This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

The Homicide Report is devoting the month of November to updating the status of cases reported on this site.

HR has reviewed about 300 homicide cases throughout Los Angeles County in an attempt to find out which homicide cases in the county in 2007 have been solved.

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The result so far? Of the sample of 300 homicide cases classified as criminal, slightly more than one-third have been cleared by an arrest.

Agencies surveyed include portions of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, the LAPD and smaller agencies.

Clearance rates vary from agency to agency, but, with the exception of a single unit, not one of the homicide units surveyed so far has achieved a clearance rate of more than 50%.

(The Homicide Report’s survey includes only 2007 cases iin which charges have been filed; justifiable homicides and other non-relevant categories are excluded).

Most of the arrests have been noted in posts on the site. The absence of an arrest posting does not necessarily mean a case remains unsolved, since a number of units have yet to be surveyed.

Also, homicide cases frequently take months or years to solve. Many units reported solving old cases in recent months, in addition to newer ones. Still-unsolved cases may yet be closed by year’s end. More to come.

(Above, homicides cases in brown folders tend to stack up on desks and bookshelves at the L.A. County sheriff’s homicide bureau. Each brown folder represents a life lost to homicide.)

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