Crime Los Angeles

These Los Angeles Police Department figures show the number of reported crimes by precinct from Feb. 1 through Feb. 28.

With the first quarter of 2013 in the books, crime in Los Angeles is continuing its decade-long decline, according to statistics released Friday. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Police Chief Charlie Beck announced the notable gains at a press conference that served as a swan song for the mayor, who will leave office this summer after being termed out. More than anything else, the continued drop in crime has been a reliable, powerful success for the mayor to trumpet throughout his time in office.

Only weeks after she graduated from high school, the 19-year-old woman lay dying on the grass, an innocent victim caught in the gunfire of a gang shooting at a Watts housing project. A decade ago, odds would have been good that both the shooter and the victim would have been black.

Even since the economy began stalling several years ago, there have been dire warnings that crime would rise. But in Southern California, crime continues its long decline despite the weak economy. Indeed, 2011 brought new worries about a "double dip recession," yet streets in many parts of the region were the safest they've been in decades. The trend continues to puzzle some criminologists but has reinforced the view of many in law enforcement that factors other than the economy determine the rise or fall of crime.

At the intersection of Florence and Normandie, where television cameras caught the violent early moments of the Los Angeles riots, the 8-Trey Gangster Crips have established their stronghold. From this corner, where trucker Reginald O. Denny was brutally beaten, the loose affiliation of about 350 gang members claims an impoverished territory that runs roughly from Gage Avenue on the North to Manchester Avenue on the South and from Van Ness Avenue on the West to Vermont Avenue on the East.

Seven American cities recorded more than one fourth of all murders in the United States, the FBI said Sunday in releasing its preliminary crime report for 1990. Six of the seven cities saw more murders last year than in 1989. The exception was Detroit, where there were 582 killings, or 42 fewer than in the year before. According to 1990 Census figures, the seven cities account for slightly less than 7.5% of the U.S. population.

By almost every measure, Los Angeles police are succeeding: Crime is down, public confidence up, and police who were once reviled in many neighborhoods get far more respect. So it's particularly strange that assaults against police officers, rather than falling along with crime, instead have shot up. In the first half of 2010, the LAPD recorded 68 serious assaults against police; so far this year, that total is 105. That's discouraging because the number had dropped significantly in 2010, and police were hoping that was the beginning of a long-term trend.

The city of Los Angeles experienced a second year of increases in homicides, as well as jumps in other categories of violent and property crimes, according to 2001 statistics released Tuesday by the Los Angeles Police Department. Figures showed that 584 people were killed citywide over the past year, an increase of about 6% from 2000, when 551 people were slain, and about 37% above the 1999 level. Last year's total was half the record high of 1,096, set in 1992.

It's 11:15 a.m., and Gabriel Montoya sits calmly on a MacArthur Park bench staring at the group of crack dealers who control the south side of the lake. By noon, Montoya, who has visited the park for the last 18 years, will have seen a woman run around the park naked after getting her crack fix; a man casually urinate on the grass bordering Alvarado Street; and two men threatening to fight in front of him. Nothing out of the ordinary for a Friday morning in this park, he says.

Residents of Highland Park worried that an abandoned property near Garvanza Elementary School was being used for illegal activities, so they sought a way to make the neighborhood safer. On Thursday, the property, an abandoned house at 312 N. Avenue 62, was demolished by Los Angeles city workers as a "nuisance property." City Councilman Nick Pacheco, who arranged for the property to be boarded and fenced before demolition, and City Atty.

Los Angeles Police Chief Bernard C. Parks and City Councilman Nick Pacheco met with about 500 Boyle Heights residents Saturday to pledge their support for a community-policing project. Community leaders, motivated in part by the drive-by shooting death of a 10-year-old Boyle Heights girl in October 2000, developed the one-year pilot program and presented it to city officials at Dolores Mission Catholic Church.

An Antelope Valley convenience store owned by a Syrian American has been shot at twice this week in what detectives believe was retaliation for the East Coast terror attacks, sheriff's officials said Friday. Murhaf Maida's store on Avenue L in Quartz Hill was hit by two shots Tuesday night and four more Thursday night, officials said. No one was injured. Several shots missed the store, said Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputy Donald Rubio. Det.

Crime reports in Los Angeles' public housing projects have climbed 21%, while the number of Housing Authority police officers has declined and many areas have no patrols for 12 hours at a time, city officials said Monday. The problem has prompted City Council President Alex Padilla to call for an examination of the authority's police deployment practices. "The resources we are giving the Housing Authority projects are insufficient," Padilla said.

Nearly 30,000 times last year, the call came in to the Los Angeles Police Department. Each one began more or less the same: "Somebody stole my car." In the typical case, the car was eventually found but no arrest was made. Of all the major crimes in Los Angeles, auto theft is the most difficult to solve or prevent, police say. Last year, the LAPD's North Hollywood Division recorded 2,145 reports of stolen autos, but made just 80 arrests.