A New Killing Season?

By Amanda Ripley

Americans reach for the death penalty with every rise in high-profile, senselessly brutal crimes. Several have made headlines in the country's larger cities recently. The granddaughter of the Los Angeles police chief was killed outside a Popeye's Chicken & Biscuits, apparently caught in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong companion. In a suburb of Pittsburgh, Pa., five people died after an immigration lawyer went on a 20-mile shooting rampage. And in New York City, seven people were bound, gagged and shot during a robbery at a Wendy's restaurant, prompting Republican Senate candidate Rick Lazio to call for the death penalty against the suspects.

Reality check: national crime stats continue to decline, including the murder rate. Nevertheless, in a few large cities, the murder numbers have spiked upward, sending a tiny shiver of concern among citizens. Just as stock-market tremors have presaged body blows to the new economy, are these sporadic rises in homicide omens of bad things to come?

The pattern, if there is one, is elusive. For example, New York City's murder rate is up this year, just as it was last year. But the 1999 total of 671 murders pales in comparison with 1990, when the toll hit 2,245. What goes down so dramatically must come back up, experts say, even if only a little bit. "It's like going on a diet. You can lose most of the fat in the earliest stages; then it gets harder to lose more, or even retain the loss," says Eli Silverman, a criminal-justice professor at John Jay College. New York's police officials also downplay the significance of the change.

San Diego's murder rate, on the other hand, is down almost 28% this year. Department spokesman Dave Cohen proudly attributes the decrease to "the partnership between the community and the police." And over the past decade, San Diego has indeed mirrored the national downward trend. But in 1999 San Diego's murder rate increased 36% over the previous year, proving how fickle these statistics can be.

In Baltimore, Md., murders are up significantly. But then again Baltimore has never enjoyed the decline experienced by the rest of the country. New Mayor Martin O'Malley, who won office with a promise to reduce violent crime, says an unintended side effect of his crackdown on open-air drug markets was to drive dealers into other neighborhoods, sparking turf wars that caused 24 homicides.

San Antonio, Texas, has had half as many murders during the first quarter of this year as the same period last year. Yet there is bad news. Aggravated assault is up almost 51%, and experts consider that crime a companion indicator for homicide, because it stops just short of death.

"Everybody should just stay calm," says John Dilulio Jr., a University of Pennsylvania political-science professor and co-author of the book Body Count. Dilulio is known for his dire predictions of a new wave of juvenile violent crime, but even he is not moved by the recent glitches in some cities' murder rates. Give it 18 more months, he says, then we'll talk.

For now, says Dilulio, since nobody predicted the dramatic drop in crime the country has experienced over the past five years, nobody has any business explaining modest and sporadic reversals. In hindsight, experts say, the dip in crime was caused by some complicated equation involving the economy, the aging population, more aggressive police and longer jail sentences. Understanding any new trend won't be any simpler.

--By Amanda Ripley. Reported by Harriet Barovick/New York, David Jackson/Los Angeles, Elaine Shannon/Washington, with other bureaus

With reporting by Harriet Barovick/New York, David Jackson/Los Angeles, Elaine Shannon/Washington, with other bureaus