South Gate’s Homicide Rate Shows Slight Increase at Start of 2012

In the first hours of the 21st of March of this year after being struck on the head, on the previous night, by a stray bullet near the intersection of Gardendale Street and Dakota Avenue in South Gate. 

“I remember hearing the noise of patrol cars during that night,” said Ana Muñoz, 65, a longtime resident of Taft Avenue, a residential area near the suspected scene of the Borboa incident. “I now feel little afraid because this this tragedy interrupted 18 years of tranquility.”

With the death of Borboa came be the second official homicide to have occurred in South Gate  during 2012. Which would in turn become the second of three homicides to have occurred in the first four months of 2012.  This is a total of two more than the first four months of last year.

The first reported homicide in , 28, whose body was found shot to death in the Los Angeles river near Burtis Street on March 3^rd of this year.

While the third homicide was that of a South Gate resident who passed away because of the wounds that they sustained from a fire in January. The classified this incident as a homicide upon further investigation. No more information was  given to South Gate Patch Latino on this fire related homicide prior to the publication of this article, despite our requests.

However, the South Gate Police Department did comment on the slight increase of this year’s first few months. Emphasizing that the increase, and total amount of homicides for both years, were too small for any conclusions to be drawn.  

“The numbers are not significant enough to draw correlations,” said Lt. Darren Arakawa of the South Gate Police Department, adding that it was possible to have three homicides at the beginning of the year and have none until the last months of the year. “South Gate does not have a murder problem.”

The almost half a dozen of the South Gate residents that Patch interviewed at South Gate Park shared a positive sense of security upon being told of this slight increase.  

Louie Martinez, 73, who has been South Gate Resident for over 30 years, expressed some of the most representative reactions of the group of residents interviewed.

“I will read about crime in the papers, but it hasn’t never affected me,” said Martinez. “I feel safe in South Gate.”

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