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Today's News
December 30, 2005: Environmental links to homicides
San Francisco Murder Rate Highest In 10 Years
Dec 30, 2005
(Bay City News) SAN FRANCISCO After 96 homicides in 2005, San Francisco's murder rate is at its highest in 10 years, but the San Francisco Police Department maintains that many of the killings could not have been prevented.
RELATED
San Jose Murder Totals Rise -- Still Low For Big City
In several recent news conferences and at last week's police commission meeting, San Francisco police Chief Heather Fong indicated that black-on-black, gang-related homicides decreased by 35 percent over the last two years, but that so-called "unpreventable" homicides had increased.
The chief cited the deaths of three children thrown into the bay in October, and described as "tragic" homicides related to domestic violence, bar fights and narcotics.
Fong said an environmental impact report is made after each homicide, "to see if there are environmental issues that might have, if addressed, prevented the scenario from occurring."
The chief said investigators look for burned-out or broken light bulbs, blight, graffiti and other environmental factors that might make a location seem like a good one for a homicide, "so that we can coordinate with the Department of Public
Health, with the city attorney's office, with all the entities that can step up to address these issues that may create a bad environment."
She also lauded the success of cooperation with state and federal prosecutors, whom she said won "close to 30" indictments on weapons, organized crime, and other homicide-related charges.
Inspector Michael Johnson of the Police Department's homicide division said that investigators within the department know of about 50 to 100 individuals involved with gangs who are responsible for the majority of the gang-related homicides in the city. They must be caught in a crime in order to be arrested, which Johnson said is the hard part.
"They're committing crimes all the time, but catching them is the deal," he said. "We've got people in jail on crimes other than homicide that we know have committed homicide, that we are building cases on."
The homicide rate is at its highest since 1995, when the city recorded 104 homicides, said department spokeswoman Maria Oropeza. Since that time the lowest rate, 60 homicides, took place in 1998. In 1993, 133 homicides occurred in the city, Oropeza said.
Oropeza indicated that, while black-on-black gang-related homicides have declined, Latino gang-related homicides have seen a slight increase.
"We've had a slight increase in the Latin gang homicides in the Mission, but of course any strategy we've used to reduce black-on-black crimes will be diverted and used in that area," she said.
Fong has told police commissioners that Deputy Chief Morris Tabak is preparing a comprehensive report on the city's homicide rate and the strategies the department will use to combat it, to be presented on Jan. 18.
(Bay City News)
http://cbs5.com/local/local_story_364151544.html
Topic(s): Healthy Communities News, Sustainable Living News
Posted By EcoBC
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