欧美文化:Killings in U.S. Los Angeles on pace to top last year's high: media

LOS ANGELES, May 3 (Xinhua) -- People are being killed in Los Angeles, the second largest U.S. city, so far this year at a slightly faster pace than 2021, when homicides hit a 15-year high, local media reported on Tuesday, citing police data.

Through April 30, there had been 122 homicides in Los Angeles, six more than were recorded during the same time period in 2021, reported the Los Angeles Times, one of the largest newspapers in the country.

According to an annual crime statistics release by Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti in January, last year recorded 397 homicides, up by 42 from 2020 and second only to 480 killings in 2006.

The bloodshed remains far below that of the early 1990s, when the city had more than 1,000 homicides per year. But it nonetheless marks another uptick, however slight, in the troubling surge of gun violence that erupted in 2020 and has become a top concern among residents as well as a key issue in the race for the city's next mayor, said the Los Angeles Times.

While the rest of the year could see a significant decrease in the rate of killings, the numbers so far likely scuttle any hope that the city would find a way to return to pre-pandemic levels of gun violence, the newspaper noted, citing experts.

"We certainly see instances of street violence that we tie into gangs, with a lot of ready and easy access to handguns and rifles," Los Angeles Police Department Chief Michel Moore told the newspaper in an interview, adding that "it's resulting in this loss of life and this high frequency of shootings."