Los Angeles Police Department detectives solved more homicides in the city last year than in either of the two previous years, officials said Monday, March 28, with the department appearing to bounce back from a significant drop in solved killings in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.
LAPD’s homicide clearance rate, the term police use to refer to the percentage of crimes they solve in any given year, jumped to 75% in 2022, according to numbers the department released this week. Out of 382 cases LAPD investigated last year, they solved 291 of them. (The total number of killings in LA last year was 387, but the clearance rate includes five cold cases.)
That’s an increase over LAPD’s clearance rate in 2021, when detectives solved 68% of 402 homicides.
Those figures from the last two years were much improved from 2020, when the coronavirus first began to spread and upend life across the globe. That year, LAPD detectives solved slightly over half of the homicide cases they investigated, just 56% of 355 homicides.
LAPD Chief Michel Moore credited at least part of that turnaround due to life simply returning to normal: With fewer people sheltering at home and more public services coming back online, everyday residents had greater opportunities to come forward with information that might help solve crimes.
With the onset of COVID-19, Moore said, “the bar of civility dropped, to a terrible point.”
“So did participation (in society),” the chief said. “As we come out of the pandemic, we’re seeing the social fabric coming back together.”
The solve rate for homicides in L.A. also increased despite tumult in LAPD’s ranks. The department’s staffing levels fell to a low over the last year to around 9,200 sworn officers. That’s down from a high of over 10,000 the city maintained for years.
The department has struggled to keep its staffing levels up after several waves of retirements and resignations. That has hit its specialized units hardest…
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