Metro: No rhyme or reason to recent rise in homicides

For the first few months anyway, it seemed as if 1999 was going to be a pleasantly slow year for Metro homicide detectives. Through May Las Vegas was averaging a little more than six murders a month -- a pace that would have put the city well below the 116 homicides that occurred here last year.

Then came June.

In just 30 days 19 people were killed in the jurisdiction of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. It started June 3 with the much-publicized slayings of four Albertson's employees and ended June 28 with the killing of 18-year-old Mark Encarnacion, who was gunned down in a South Decatur Boulevard parking lot after a dispute with another nightclub patron.

Zane Floyd of Las Vegas pleaded not guilty this morning in the grocery store slayings. Francisco "Frankie" Fernandez, 27, of Las Vegas has been charged in the June 28 shooting.

"Up until June we were significantly behind last year," Lt. Wayne Petersen said. "June, for whatever reason, was a busy month for us."

Police say they don't know what's behind the most recent spate of killings. Hot weather doesn't seem to be a common factor, Petersen said. Beyond the Albertson's tragedy, some of the spike seems to have ties to gang activity.

"Three of the homicides in June may have been gang-related," Petersen said. "Typically a small percentage of our homicides are gang-related, but lately there ... seems to be continuing violence between a couple of different groups."

Beyond that, however, police are at a loss to explain why so many people were killed in June. There's no apparent increase in the typically small number of drug-related killings, and domestic cases still account for 20 percent to 30 percent of the homicide caseload, Petersen said.

"It's really hard to judge month to month," Petersen said. "Sometimes we just have a big spike like that." And, he added, there are no signs that indicate it will continue.

Through June, Metro homicide detectives had investigated 50 deaths, slightly fewer than the 53 that occurred through June 1998. Thirty-one of the homicides this year have been solved, "and we have some real good information on a few more of those cases," Petersen said.

The June spike hasn't been seen by other jurisdictions. North Las Vegas Police responded to eight homicide calls through June 30. At the same time last year, North Las Vegas had nine on the books. Four people have been arrested in connection with the killings, which seem to have no common thread.

Mostly, Lt. Chris Larotonda said, the slayings stem from "disputes over some thing, whether it's money or a grudge-type situation."

Boulder City had one homicide in March and Henderson has not recorded any.

Even with the June spike, Las Vegas' homicide rate is currently on pace to drop for the third straight year. The local statistics mirror crime and homicide rates that have been decreasing nationwide.

The overall crime rate in the United States dropped 3 percent between 1996 and 1997, according to the most recent figures available from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The national homicide rate in 1997 was the lowest in 30 years, according to the FBI.

"I've read lots of different reasons why the homicide rates have dropped," Petersen said. "It's probably a combination of several of them. Certainly the good economy is one of them, as are tougher sentencing and different police tactics."

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