Los Angeles homicide increase appears to be slowing – NBC Los Angeles

The LAPD reported Friday that the city’s 2024 homicide increase continued to decline as of late April and as of April 27 was only 4.2% higher than the homicide rate reported at this point in 2023.

No information was available from the police about the number of shootings, the number of shooting victims, the numbers of rapes, robberies, serious assaults, burglaries or thefts in 2024.

Chief Dominic Choi said earlier this week that the spike in street violence that occurred earlier this year, which once pushed L.A.’s homicide rate to 30% above last year’s, has steadily declined since mid-March.

The LAPD has said the lack of data is due to the department’s efforts to update its crime reporting database, called the Records Management System, and promised that publicly accessible information would be fully restored, “no later than the fourth quarter of 2024 .”

NBC4’s I-Team often used this information to create independent analysis of crime trends and events.

“The Los Angeles Police Department is committed to data transparency and will continue to release as much information as possible,” a police spokesperson emailed last month.

The new registration system promises to deliver much better information, some of which will be accessible to the public, when it comes online later this year, and the upgrade will be compatible with the FBI’s new national crime reporting system, called NIBRS.