Homicides fell 6% in Los Angeles County in 2006, totaling 1,085 in 2006 compared with 1,153 the year before, according to a tally by the Los Angeles County coroner.
Areas policed by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and some smaller police agencies saw the biggest decreases. The total number of homicides for unincorporated areas and contract cities policed by sheriff's deputies in 2006 was 323, a decline of 13% from 371 in the previous year.
By contrast, the Los Angeles Police Department reported only a 2.4% decrease in homicides for the year, a smaller drop than previously reported due to an end-of-the-year killing surge.
Over the last five years, there has been little in the way of a clear homicide trend in Los Angeles County. The mixed picture suggests that economic conditions and policing tactics influence homicide, said Richard Rosenfeld, a professor at the University of Missouri at St. Louis.
A recession in the early 1990s corresponded with high homicide counts, while economic boom times in the late 1990s were accompanied by a sharp fall in the rate. Since then, volatile, mixed economic conditions have corresponded with similarly mixed homicide trends, Rosenfeld said.
Asked if he thought police efforts were primarily responsible for homicide trends, Sheriff's Chief Ronnie Williams chuckled.
"Me?" he said. "I tell you, I pray a lot."
Much of last year's decrease in homicides countywide stems from Compton, which lies within the sheriff's jurisdiction and was last year the focus of a task force of two dozen additional Sheriff's Department deputies and investigators. Sheriff's officials, who use a different definition of homicide than the coroner, counted 28 fewer homicides in Compton in 2006 than in the previous year.
But Compton's decline was more than made up for by increases in homicide in nearby areas such as South Gate, and the sheriff's Industry, Lennox and Temple patrol areas. Homicides also increased in Lancaster and Inglewood.
The fact that homicides countywide still decreased overall represents small improvements across many cities and unincorporated areas, including Long Beach, Hawthorne and Glendale, where a fatal train crash, caused when a vehicle was deliberately driven onto the tracks, inflated the 2005 count.
There also were declines in areas that have received less public attention, such as the sheriff's Century district, which includes Lynwood and the unincorporated areas of Florence, Firestone, Walnut Park, Willowbrook and Athens. Homicides there dropped 43% between 2005 and 2006.
