Crime Statistics

As gang violence increases from San Clemente to La Habra, gangs have become a growing concern throughout Orange County and a Priority for police and the district attorney's office. Gangs of all kinds operate within the county. Some are so-called "territorial" or "turf" gangs, whose members believe they control specific areas; others are considered "nomadic," operating in various places in he county with no special turf. Some are considered violent; some are not.

Where many saw tragedy for New Yorkers still homeless from Superstorm Sandy over the Thanksgiving holiday, others apparently saw opportunity. Adding to the woes of those who live on the Rockaway Peninsula in Queens - where the storm killed eight people and destroyed more than 100 homes - thieves burglarized at least three residences in a Breezy Point neighborhood last week, police confirmed Saturday. Many of those who survived Sandy have been staying with friends, family or at relief shelters during the week and returning to the Rockaways on weekends to pick up what remains of their lives.

At least 72 people were killed in Compton in 2005, the highest toll in a decade for a city that has ranked among the most dangerous in the nation for 30 years. The rise in homicides frightened residents who have long lived with high levels of gang violence but had seen a downturn in violent crime in recent years. In addition to those killed in Compton, at least nine more people were shot to death in unincorporated areas within a few blocks of the city boundary.

SAN DIEGO - The husband of an Iraqi immigrant fatally beaten in the family home in El Cajon has been arrested and charged in her death, police said Friday. The killing in March was a case of domestic violence, not a hate crime, as a note found near the body had suggested, El Cajon Police Chief Jim Redman said at a news conference. Kassim Al-Himidi, 48, was arrested Thursday night on suspicion of murder after being asked to come to the police station. Al-Himidi's wife, Shaima Alawadi, 32, the mother of five children, was found bludgeoned and unconscious March 21 and died three days later.

Re "Top Officials Welcome State Audit of City Crime Reports," April 25. As a longtime property owner in the city of San Buenaventura, I am puzzled by the space you are devoting to the issue of whether crime statistics are being accurately reported by our city's police department. I think that if you polled residents you would discover that most of us would rather have our limited police resources concentrated on preventing, investigating and solving significant crimes here in Ventura rather than counting beans--or stolen bicycles-- or some federal bureaucracy in Washington, D.C. DENIS HIGGINS Ventura

Reported serious crime for the first six months of 1994 and 1995 in three Ventura County cities with populations of more than 100,000: OXNARD *--* 1994 1995 Homicide 5 4 Rape 13 31 Robbery 222 210 Aggravated assault 537 598 Burglary 955 682 Theft 2,037 2,108 Car theft 542 470 Arson 47 11 Total 4,358 4,114 *--* Major crimes per 1,000 residents: 1994: 29.5 1995: 27.

City Manager James C. Hankla is recommending a change in the way Long Beach crime statistics are reported to the public and the City Council. Hankla is calling for scrapping the current system of having the Police Department provide crime statistics for each council district on a quarterly basis. It would be replaced by periodic reports noting the crime problems in particular neighborhoods.

Crime increased slightly in California's largest cities in the first half of 2000, with Los Angeles skewing statistics upward with its 9.7% jump in crime, the state's top prosecutor said Monday. If Los Angeles were removed from the list, the state's crime rate would have dropped slightly compared with the first half of 1999, Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer said. Overall, however, crime increased 1.3% in the 77 California cities with populations of at least 100,000, Lockyer said.

How safe are you from crime? Federal, state and local law enforcement Web sites offer plenty of information to help people answer that question. But be careful. So much information is available that it's easy to get overwhelmed and confused. The Federal Bureau of Investigation offers extensive crime information on its site at http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/ucr.htm.

Are medical marijuana dispensaries magnets for crime? That question matters, because the assumption that such facilities are neighborhood nuisances is propelling a drive by Los Angeles and other California cities to craft regulations that limit the number of dispensaries and where they can operate. So when Rand Corp. came out with a study last month that seemed to arrive at the opposite conclusion, marijuana advocates stood up and cheered. The cheering stopped Monday, when Rand retracted the study.

A Rand Corp. study this week seemed to nip the conventional wisdom about medical marijuana dispensaries in the proverbial bud, contradicting statements from law enforcement officials that these facilities are magnets for crime. On the contrary, Rand researchers said, crime actually increased in the vicinity of hundreds of L.A. dispensaries after they were ordered to shut down. Does this mean that dispensaries decrease neighborhood crime rather than increasing it? Unfortunately, despite Rand's analysis, we still don't know the answer.

Medical marijuana dispensaries -- with storerooms of high-priced weed, registers brimming with cash and some clientele more interested in getting high than getting well -- are often seen as magnets for crime, a perception deepened by a few high-profile murders. But a report from the Rand Corp. reaches a startling conclusion: The opposite appears to be true. In a study of crime near Los Angeles dispensaries -- which the investigators call the most rigorous independent examination of its kind -- the Santa Monica-based think tank found that crime actually increased near hundreds of pot shops after they were required to close last summer.

Battling the widespread perception that U.S. border cities have become more dangerous, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano on Monday called on public officials to stop exaggerating the violence on the U.S. side of the border with Mexico and "be honest with the people we serve. " In a speech in El Paso, Napolitano cited FBI statistics showing that violent crime rates in Southwest border counties are down 30% over the last two decades and are "among the lowest in the nation.

New York remains a prime target for terrorists nearly 10 years after the attack on the World Trade Center, but the New York Police Department is constantly refining its efforts against terrorism and has thwarted a dozen plots against the city since Sept. 11, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Tuesday. FOR THE RECORD: NYPD: In the Jan. 19 Section A, an article about the New York Police Department incorrectly said that the nonprofit Police Foundation raises $100 million a year to support NYPD programs.

The decline in violent crime in Los Angeles has been among this region's most gratifying and encouraging trends in recent years. But some have worried that the decline must inevitably level off and give way to stasis. Happily, year-end data from the Los Angeles Police Department suggest there is still progress to be made. Sociologists and criminologists once doubted that police could do much about violent crime. Violence, the theory went, was attributable to any number of social phenomena ?

For car thieves working the streets of Los Angeles County, few stretches of pavement are more attractive than the two blocks of Alondra Boulevard that run from the 605 Freeway to Studebaker Road. At least 20 vehicles were stolen there in a recent six-month period. Across town, a block of Wilcox Avenue just north of Hollywood Boulevard has been the scene of more than a dozen burglaries. And the Mid-Wilshire neighborhood , which typically sees three violent crimes a week, had a recent spike of nine assaults and robberies.

There is the world of neoconservative columnists such as The Times' Jonah Goldberg, who in an Aug. 24 column asserted that the anti-Muslim backlash is mainly a myth. Then there is the world where the rest of us live. Anyone who is witnessing the debates over the proposal to build an Islamic center in New York City has watched an unraveling of emotions across America. Muslims in America — numbering between 4 million and 7 million — have been chastised for not being sufficiently sorry for the acts of 19 hijackers on that terrible day in September 2001, or sensitive enough to the victims' families.