Drive-By Shootings Average One a Day, Police Study Shows

Gang members were responsible for an average of one drive-by shooting a day in South Los Angeles during the first five months of the year, a Police Department gang investigator told a City Council committee Monday.

Drive-by shootings accounted for 38 of the 96 homicides attributed to gang members in the city through the end of May.

Los Angeles Police Department gang specialists this year began keeping separate statistics on drive-bys, the most bedeviling consequence of gang rivalries. Officials counted 299 of them through the end of May, about half of them in the department’s South Bureau, Lt. Bob Ruchoft said.

The drive-by incidents accounted for 445 crimes. In addition to the 38 homicides, they included 61 attempted murders, 335 felony assaults and 11 incidents in which shots were fired into an inhabited dwelling.

Ruchoft said that while police have not counted the total of drive-by shootings separately in past years, he estimates that this year’s total is running 20% ahead of 1987. That is the same proportion that homicides by gang members rose during the first five months.

Another 57 homicides attributed to gang members occurred during the same period in the area patrolled by the county Sheriff’s Department.

Ruchoft said overall crime committed by gang members appears to be decreasing in recent months. It was 2.6% lower in May than in May, 1987, he said.

The most prominent decrease has been in robberies committed by gang members. Police, along with numerous residents in South Los Angeles, believe that there is a correlation between the number of gang members making money through selling cocaine and the decrease in robberies attributed to them.

Ruchoft said the department’s recent crackdown on gangs, including much-publicized sweeps by as many as 1,000 officers, apparently has been effective in reducing gang activity.

However, he acknowledged that the sweeps appear to have only limited effectiveness against the gangs’ sudden and seemingly random attacks from moving vehicles.

“Homicides, unfortunately, are not down. That’s all anybody cares about,” he said. “Murders are not considered to be preventable kinds of crimes.”

Three people died in gang-related incidents during the weekend. In the latest, Marvin McFee, 22, of Pasadena, was killed and Anthony Brown, 19, was wounded in a drive-by shooting Sunday night in Altadena.