Violent Crime Explosion Staggers Santa Ana Police

SANTA ANA —  Acting on a tip from an anonymous caller, police arrived at the parking lot of Carr Intermediate School on Thursday evening and found a man in the back seat of a stolen car, dead from a gunshot wound to the right side of his head.

Nine minutes later, officers answered a call near the intersection of French and 4th streets--just across from a police substation--where a man had also been shot to death in the head in an apparent robbery attempt.

The unrelated murder cases had police scrambling Friday. They are not even sure that the first crime was committed in the city because the auto’s rear window had been shattered, but there was no glass on the pavement. The victim remains unidentified.

But the killings underscored a sudden rise in the city’s crime rate. During 1991, the number of murders reached an all-time high of 59. The previous record was 53 homicides in 1989, police officials said; there were 43 in 1990.

Santa Ana’s crime statistics also show increases in other categories of major crimes, including rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, auto theft and arson. The only category that showed a decrease was larceny, according to annual figures released Friday by the Police Department.

Though the rising crime rate causes varying degrees of concern among city officials, civic leaders and citizens, many say it is simply a fact of life in Southern California, as the region’s population booms and demands on police increase.

“We take it in stride,” downtown barbershop owner Bob Benitez said. While downtown improved significantly after the city redeveloped 4th Street four years ago, Benitez knows that crimes occur more frequently in other sections of the city.

He hopes that there will be solutions, but asked: “Where do you find solutions like that? It’s something that’s awful hard to contain.”

Mayor Daniel H. Young said the crime rate will dip some years before going up again.

“It’s very unfortunate when the crime rate goes up,” Young said. “It does not seem to follow any particular pattern or reason, other than it’s a series of events that occur.”

While the overall crime rate increased almost 3% from 1990 to 1991, Police Lt. Robert Helton also noted that for every 1,000 citizens, 7.02 major crimes were committed last year, while the rate was 7.99 in 1980.

The increase in Santa Ana’s homicide rate was unparalleled in other major county cities, and Helton conceded that police are somewhat surprised by the record.

But he said the city’s exploding population, its economic makeup and the proliferation of gangs are some factors that make Santa Ana’s crime picture unique.

“You cannot compare any other city in Orange County with Santa Ana,” Helton said. “The diversity of our community, the size of our community, places us in a category where you cannot take Orange or La Habra or these smaller towns and make these comparisons.”

Helton credited the department’s anti-gang task force with finding the gang members responsible for a handful of killings that occurred early last year.

“Those people are in custody, behind bars, and they are going to be there for a long time,” Helton said, referring to prison sentences of 18 to 25 years that the gang members received. “If you can get them off the street, you should see a decrease.”

Of the 59 homicides committed last year, 13 were related to gangs, compared to 15 in 1990. Homicides stemming from arguments or disputes also numbered 13 last year, Helton said.

In property crimes, he said, the worsening economy may have been a factor, but money for drugs remained the dominant motive.

“Drugs are not cheap out there,” he said.

Ironically, downtown shopkeepers close to where one of the homicides occurred Thursday night said murders have been rare in the neighborhood since the city cleaned up the area and removed bars.

Police said the victim, Javier Tejada Hernandez, 22, of Santa Ana, was attacked by three young men just after leaving a video rental store on 4th Street.

“Some kind of scuffle took place that leads us to believe it was an attempted robbery,” Helton said. “He broke away and tried to run. One guy, with a single shot, hit him in the head.”

Downtown music store manager Juan Manuel Cruz said one of his employees was mugged a few months ago as she arrived for work, and another was attacked about a year ago by a suspected gang member who had tried to steal from the store. The first assault caused Cruz to hire a full-time security guard for the store.

“I think it’s dangerous,” Cruz said. “There’s a lot of attacks by the gang members.”

The store’s security guard, Jose A. Sorto, said he usually feels safe at work and in his home in the center of the city.

What worries him, Sorto said, is what he sees on the streets.

“It’s getting worse,” he said. “At the (grocery) store the other day, . . . I saw some boys beating each other up.”

While civic leaders strive to sell Santa Ana as a good place to do business, Santa Ana Chamber of Commerce President Michael Metzler said reports of increasing crime may have little impact on economic development efforts.

“We don’t think it has the impact that a lot of people think it has,” Metzler said. “What really matters to businesses is: What’s the economic climate for that business? What are the factors that will allow that business to operate profitably?

“And Santa Ana still comes out as a very good investment for businesses.”

Times staff writer James M. Gomez contributed to this report.

Grim Record

The number of homicides in Santa Ana last year set a city record. Los Angeles Times

1987: 31 1988: 38 ‘89: 53 ‘90: 43 ‘91: 59 Source: Santa Ana Police

Murder in the County

The number of homicides in 1991 hardly changed from 1990 in the county’s largest cities, except in Santa Ana.

City 1990 1991 Anaheim 25 26 Fullerton 6 6 Huntington Beach 7 6 Irvine 0 0 Orange 6 5 Santa Ana 43 59 Unincorporated 24 24

Figures for Garden Grove in 1991 were unavailable, but the Police Department reported no major increase from the 16 homicides in 1990.

Source: police departments