Los Angeles, the second largest U.S. metropolis, is on track to end this year with fewer than 400 homicides for the first time in nearly four decades, figures released on Sunday showed.
With 386 killings recorded as of Dec. 23, the city has experienced one-third the number of homicides it did in 1992, according to figures appearing on the Los Angeles Times website.
So far this year, homicides in Los Angeles are down about 17 percent compared to last year, and the number of shooting victims is down by 14 percent. Overall violent crime -- including rape, robbery and assault -- is down 7.8 percent.
Police called the decline a hopeful milestone for a city so long associated with gangs, drive-by shootings and sometimes-random violence.
The trend extends to other parts of Los Angeles County. As of Dec. 1, the last date for which figures are available, the number of homicides had dropped about 17 percent in the more than 40 communities patrolled by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and in cities such as Pasadena.
The total for those communities was 303 as of Dec. 1, down from369 in the same period last year.
The last year with a comparably low figure was 1970, when Los Angeles had a million fewer residents, guns were far less prevalent and street gangs were a much smaller part of life in urban neighborhoods.
Academics and Los Angeles Police Department officials attributed the drop to the gentrification of once-tough neighborhoods, improved emergency medical care and better policing.
Source: Xinhua
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