Fun with stats

From Walter Moore's blog: "You can read in the Los Angeles Times that crime rates are down, and there were "only" 208 murders so far this year. Groovy.

What they never tell you, however, is how very many crimes are committed in the City of Los Angeles. Nor do they ever tell you how much lower the crime rates in surrounding cities are.

So I will. When you look at those numbers, you realize that Villaraigosa's and Beck's self-congratulatory press releases about crime rates dropping are like a kid waving around his report card merely because he brought his "F-" grade up to a solid "F."

Let's start with the actual number of crimes committed in the City of Los Angeles so far this year:

The number of women raped so far this year: 541. You think they're pleased that the crime rate is supposedly down? By the way, do we still have a massive backlog of unprocessed rape kits? If City Hall had eliminated that backlog, you can bet we would have heard about it.

The number of people robbed in the first nine months of this year: 7,930. That's ROBBED, as in, "Give me your money or I'll shoot you, M.F." That's nearly as many robbery victims as we have police officers.

Aggravated assaults: 6,803. How much do you enjoy getting beaten up?

Then there's property crimes, including burglary, grand theft auto an so on: 62,481 victims so far this year.

Number of reports of shots fired: 2,146.

Here's one of my favorites. The number of shooting victims -- and the year isn't over -- is 1001 ..."

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In terms of disclosure, Walter Moore ran for Mayor of LA last time around and came in second. I voted for him and supported his campaign. I'll do it again. We need this kind of discussion about real numbers - and real people. In the sick world of spin, we celebrate the fact that only 541 women were raped thus far in LA. Sure, the number's down. I doubt that any one of the 541 are cheering. The real sad thing is that you won't find any of the official leadership of the city talking like Walter Moore ... and that's really sad.