A man who robbed a Starbucks store at gunpoint near Los Angeles was still at large, police said on Monday.
The robbery occurred late Sunday night at a Starbucks in Torrance, a South Los Angeles suburb, when the man brandished a handgun and took an unknown amount of cash from the register, according to police.
Meanwhile, despite rising numbers of robberies and gun-related criminal activities reported in recent months, authorities said on Monday that violent crime dropped slightly in the Los Angeles area in 2008 for the sixth straight year.
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the city's law enforcement officials told a news conference that crime in the city continued to hit historical lows last year, a trend which officials credited to more police officers and interagency relationships.
Official numbers show that crime fell 2.5 percent in Los Angeles in 2008 compared with the previous year.
Los Angeles police chief William Bratton said crime will continue to decline in 2009 as more police officers are hired. The Los Angeles Police Department had about 9,600 officers six year ago when Bratton took office. The department has 9,854 officers today.
Mayor Villaraigosa said at the news conference that the city's crime rate is at its lowest since the Eisenhower administration, but he is still not satisfied and wants to add more officers to the police force.
Source:Xinhua
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