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Los Angeles Suburb Heads for Dubious Title: U.S. Murder Capital

Jan. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Compton, California, is a Los Angeles suburb of single-family homes and apartment buildings, crisscrossed by tree-lined boulevards with Mexican food stands and grocery stores on the corners.
It's also a battleground for drug gangs, police say, and may have the highest murder rate in the U.S.
Homicides in Compton soared 72 percent last year, with 67 murders in a city of 97,000 people. That probably outstripped the rate in places such as Camden, New Jersey, that are perennially at risk of being branded as the country's murder capital, says Scott Morgan, president of Morgan Quitno Press, which compiles crime statistics.
Each killing in Compton, which is patrolled by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, costs about $1 million to investigate and prosecute, says R. Doyle Campbell, assistant sheriff. The crimes also scare away business, says Jack Kyser, chief economist with the nonprofit Economic Development Corp. of Los Angeles County.
``They're trying to grow their economy, but headlines like this would obviously make a business think twice,'' he said.
That stifles growth in the city, Kyser says. Compton's median household income of $31,819 is about 25 percent less than the U.S. average.
Compton's economy, once supported by heavy industry, is dominated by distribution companies that take advantage of its location along a freeway between the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach and inland cities. The city had 8.4 percent unemployment in November, more than the 5.1 percent in California and 4.8 percent national rate, according to the state Employment Development Department.
Against the Trend
The rise in murders contrasts with declines in many major cities. Los Angeles had 250 in the first half of 2005, down from 269 a year earlier, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. New York's homicides fell 14 percent to 238 in the period.
In 2004, Camden had the highest murder rate, 60.8 per 100,000 people, according to Lawrence, Kansas-based Morgan Quitno. Compton was seventh, at 40.2. That jumped to 69.1 last year. National listings from the FBI come out in October.
Gang Wars
``Everywhere you go in the city, it's someone's gang area,'' Sergeant Vincent Plair said while on patrol in Compton last month. About 50 gangs vie for control of the crack cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana markets, he says.
The crimes frustrate sheriff's deputies who resorted to gun trade-ins in an effort to get weapons off the streets. They collected 610 guns last month, including Uzis, Tec-9s and AK-47s. In exchange, they gave gift certificates for as much as $100 at retailers such as Circuit City Stores Inc., Toys ``R'' Us Inc. and Ralphs Grocery Co.
The killings didn't end. The final slaying of the year took place New Year's Eve, when 19-year-old Jose Casillas was shot and killed at 1:35 a.m. outside a party. The case remains unsolved, says Captain Ray Peavy, who runs the homicide bureau.
Murders increased partly because gang members are shifting to sidewalk assassinations rather than Southern California's signature drive-by shootings, says Captain Eric Hamilton, who runs the Compton station for the sheriff's department. About 120 officers work at the station.
Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca last week activated a task force that will devote 15 homicide detectives to Compton cases and add five narcotics investigators and 31 gang officers to the city's force, Campbell says.
Price of Violence
Compton's elected leaders, not the sheriff's department, are responsible for failing to curb murders in the community, says Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton, who has cut violent crime in his jurisdiction for three consecutive years.
``Compton is one of the most violent couple of square miles in the country,'' Bratton said this month after a news conference in downtown Los Angeles. ``You get what you pay for, and Compton has to wake up to the fact that they need to find the resources to fund more police.''
The sheriff's department took over patrols in the city in 2002 after then-Mayor Omar Bradley disbanded Compton's 113-member police force, saying it was too expensive and ineffective. He later was convicted of misappropriating public funds.
Compton's city council this month approved allocating an additional $225,000 to pay for more deputies. Mayor Eric Perrodin, a former police officer in the city who also was a Los Angeles County deputy district attorney, didn't return four calls and an e-mail seeking comment.
Citizen Fears
Besides gun drives and increased patrols, deputies in Compton are trying to change a culture among some in the city who abide murder because of fear of retribution, Hamilton says.
The department has set up block clubs to establish ties between officers and residents, including one on Poinsettia Avenue led by Brenda Postelle, 64.
When a shooting took place on her street last year for the first time, Postelle, a retired telecommunications worker who has lived in Compton for 45 years, and neighbors called an emergency block club meeting. Deputies attended and put a dummy patrol car on the street for three days, she says.
``If we see something out there, someone out there shooting someone or doing a crime, what good will it do to turn my back?'' Postelle asked. ``It's the citizens' fault as well as the person who is doing it.''