Long Beach Ends 2011 With Fewer Murders Than In 2010

(Jan. 2, 2012, 8:00 a.m.. updated Jan. 3, 6:35 p.m.) -- Following-up on a story LBReport.com previewed in November, Long Beach ended 2011 with an even lower number of murders than in 2010 when city officials said that year's total was the city's lowest since 1971.

On November 9 (in response to an inquiry from LBReport.com), LBPD Public Information Officer Lisa Massacani told us on that LB had 23 murders as of that date. Three more occurred in the final weeks of 2011.

On Wednesday Nov. 23, a 21 year old Long Beach man was shot to death while walking in the 5600 block of Elm Ave. on the night before Thanksgiving. On November 26, a man was fatally shot in the 5500 block of Ackerfield Ave. (south of South St. between Cherry Ave. and Paramount Blvd.), bringing the total to 25. And on December 12, a woman was found shot to death in an apartment in the 600 block of Orange Ave. along with a man who'd sustained gunshot wounds (at last report case was investigated as possible murder/attempted suicide).

By our unofficial tally, that would put LB's total murders for 2011 at 26. LB had 31 murders in 2010, its lowest number since 1971.

UPDATE Jan. 3: In response to our request for LBPD's figure on total murders in 2011, LBPD Public Information Officer Massacani emails us on Jan. 3 (the first business day of 2011) that LBPD tallies 25 murders for 2011.

As we indicated in a caveat to this story as originally published on Jan. 2, our unofficial tally and the officially cited LBPD figure are sometimes different. Among other things, police agencies are required to tally their annual crime stats to comply with federal reporting standards, and it's possible that some murders originally attributed to LB may subsequently be attributed to other jurisdictions (example: body found in one city but later found to have occurred elsewhere.) We don't know the reason for the difference this year, but we'll update this story as we learn further. However, as of Jan. 3, LBReport.com will cite LBPD's figure of 25 murders as the 2011 LB total. [end UPDATE]

In 2010, over half of LB's 31 murders were collectively in the 1st and 6th Council districts.

In 2011, roughly half of LB's murders were collectively in parts of the 1st, 2nd, 4th and 6th Council districts.

Caveat: Data on shootings in which the victim wasn't killed (just wounded) are more difficult to access and compare. We don't know at this point if non-fatal shootings in 2011 were up or down compared to 2010 or previous years

Caveat: L.A. County District Attorney Steve Cooley and others in law enforcement have forewarned that Sacramento's "realignment" (sending convicted felons from state prison to County jails, including L.A. where some will almost certainly be released early) invites increased crime.

And caveat: As with all crime data, cited by us or by officials, we urge readers to remember that the numbers are/were real people, not just statistics.