Homicide

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California’s murder rate drops

barjack

Earlier this week, the California Department of Justice released its annual report, “Homicide in California.” This most recent report, a good barometer for the state of violent crime, shows the homicide rate, now at 4.7 per 100,000 people, dropping for a fifth consecutive year to reach its lowest point since 1966. Other interesting facts from the report include:

  • While Monterey and Merced counties had some of the highest homicide rates in the state, the Bay Area’s rates also remained above average: Alameda County registered a 8.3 homicide rate and  San Francisco 5.6.
  • The most deadly days of the week in California are Saturdays and Sundays.
  • Of those deaths where a cause was identifiable, 71.2 percent of homicides were caused by a firearm.
  • The vast majority (87.7 percent) of those arrested for homicide in 2010 were male.
  • Almost half (48.7 percent) of homicide arrestees were Hispanic, while 25.3 percent were Black, and 17.9 percent were White.
  • Meanwhile, of those convicted of homicide in California in 2010, 34 were sent to Death Row, brining the condemned population in California to 709. Ten of those sentenced to death this year came from Los Angeles County.

Find the full report here.

Weekend in SF marked by nightclubs brawls, shootings, murder

lawreports.co.uk

Two Friday shootings in the Dolores-Mission and Western Addition neighborhoods and two brawls at the Temple Nightclub on Howard Street early Sunday morning left one dead, three injured and one man brain dead.

21-year-old Antoine Galloway was shot to death on the corner of Ellis and Steiner Street around 7:30 PM on January 8, when SFPD’s gunshot detection system, ShotSpotter, was set off by gunfire. Galloway was driven to Kaiser Permanente Medical Center on Geary Boulevard in a cream-colored SUV, where he was pronounced dead.

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Number 77: How Desiree Davis became Oakland’s 77th homicide victim of 2009

S. Howard Bransford

A mourner signs a photograph of Desiree Davis at her memorial services in 2009.

It was exactly a year ago yesterday that shots rang out on a hot summer afternoon in North Oakland. By the end of the day, 17-year-old Desiree Davis would become Oakland’s 77th murder victim for 2009.

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