Violent crime drops 11% in Los Angeles in the first half of 2010, but homicides are up slightly.

The number of homicides in Los Angeles increased slightly in the first six months of 2010, but overall violent crimes continued to decline, according to crime statistics.

Violent crime in Los Angeles dropped 11.3% during the first half of 2010 compared with the same period last year but over the same period, the city experienced a 3% increase in homicides and an 8% jump in the number of shooting victims, according to crime statistics released Tuesday.

As of Sunday, there have been 151 homicides in the city so far this year compared with 147 slayings last year. The number of shooting victims rose from 667 to 720 during the same period.

FOR THE RECORD:
A headline on an earlier version of this article said that violent crime dropped 11% in L.A. County through 2010. Violent crime dropped 11% in the city of Los Angeles in the first half of 2010.

FOR THE RECORD:
L.A. crime: A headline on an article in Friday’s LATExtra section about the number of violent crimes in Los Angeles and L.A. County during the first half of 2010 said that L.A. County saw an uptick in homicides during the period. L.A. County reported a 17% drop in slayings over the same period last year. The city of Los Angeles had a 3% rise in homicides during the same period. —

Total violent crime fell to 10,919 reported incidents in the first six months of 2010 from 12,309 in the same period last year. Property crime was down 6% from 47,065 to 44,225 incidents over the same period. Overall, the numbers follow several years of declining crime numbers.

The homicide numbers include a mass shooting at a Valley Village restaurant in April that left four people dead.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department reported a 17% drop in slayings (from 104 homicides in 2009 to 85 through June 2010.

The sharpest drops took place at the sheriff’s Century Station, which saw a 27% decline in murders and in Compton, where there were 30% fewer killings for the comparable period.

The trend follows a five-year reduction for the Sheriff’s Department, which reported an overall decline of violent crime of 3.81% in the unincorporated areas of the county and within its 40 contract cities through the middle of 2010.

In March, Sheriff Lee Baca reduced the time that nonviolent male offenders spent in the jails from 80% of their jail time to 50% for crimes that included check kiting, petty theft and drunk driving.

andrew.blankstein@latimes.com