Times coverage: Los Angeles on track for record low homicides

Despite the economic downturn in the last several years, the city of Los Angeles is on track to end 2010 with fewer than 300 killings, the first time in more than 40 years. Remarkably, Los Angeles is likely to record the fewest number of killings since 1967, when its population was almost 30% smaller.

L.A. homicides have dropped by about one-third since 2007, according to a Times' analysis of coroner's records. Throughout the rest of Los Angeles County, which is patrolled by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and individual cities' police departments, homicides during the same period tumbled by nearly 40%. The Times' analysis showed 159 homicides in areas patrolled by the Sheriff's Department and 164 in the rest of the county through mid-December.

The city's total translates into roughly 7.5 killings per 100,000 people and puts it in league with New York City and Phoenix as having among the lowest homicide rates among major U.S. cities.

Times reporters Joel Rubin and Robert Faturechi have more on the story: Killing in L.A. drops to 1967 levels