Summer Murder Rate Down to 1967 Levels

At yesterday's LA Police Commission meeting, Chief William Bratton reported the crime stats for the summer. Statistically speaking, it was a good summer. From the LA Times: "From the beginning of June through the end of August, there were 84 homicides in Los Angeles -- a level of relative calm not seen since the summer of 1967, when the city had 79 killings over the same period. By comparison, summer bloodshed in the city peaked in 1991, when there were 323 slayings during the same three months. More recently, the totals have hovered around 125 killings each summer over the last decade."