Compton la 19908/12/2023 A series of town meetings were held to discuss incorporation of their little town. īy 1887, the settlers realized it was time to make improvements to the local government. Many in the Compton party wanted to relocate to a friendlier climate and settle down, but as there were two general stores within traveling distance-one in the pueblo of Los Angeles, the other in Wilmington-they eventually decided to stay put. To gather firewood it was necessary to travel to mountains close to Pasadena. The weather continued to be harsh, rainy and cold, and fuel was difficult to find. Compton's earliest settlers were faced with terrible hardships as they farmed the land in bleak weather to get by with just the barest subsistence. However, to avoid confusion with the Camptonville located in Yuba County, the name was shortened to Compton. Originally named Gibsonville, after one of the tract owners, it was later called Comptonville. These families had traveled by wagon train south from Stockton, California, in search of ways to earn a living other than the rapid exhaustion of gold fields. In 1867, Griffith Dickenson Compton led a group of 30 pioneers to the area. The tree that marked the original northern boundary of the rancho still stands at the corner of Poppy and Short streets. The Domínguez family name is still applied throughout the area, including the Dominguez Rancho Adobe historical landmark, in the unincorporated community of Rancho Dominguez, located between the cities of Compton, Long Beach and Carson. Domínguez's descendants partitioned the land amongst family members, sold parcels to newly arriving settlers, and relinquished some when validating their legal claim with the Mexican government at 48,000 acres (190 km 2) in 1828, and with the United States government through a patent validating 43,119 acres (174.50 km 2) in 1858. In 1784, the Spanish Crown deeded Rancho San Pedro, a tract of over 75,000 acres (300 km 2), to soldier Juan José Domínguez. In 1767, the area became part of the Province of the Californias ( Spanish: Provincia de las Californias), and the area was explored by the Portolá expedition in 1769–1770. “And numbers like that are clearly staggering.The Spanish Empire had expanded into this area when the Viceroy of New Spain commissioned Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo to explore the Pacific Ocean in 1542–1543. “What’s significant is that each of those numbers represents a human being,” Gascon said. “It’s a little premature for us to analyze the numbers, but even without a full accounting for the number of murders in the city, they’re astronomical,” said Los Angeles Police Department Cmdr. These and other factors, he said, helped boost the national crime rate by some 400% between the 1960s and the 1980s-a trend that was echoed in Los Angeles, and that police are continuing to study. Women, too, are more at risk because they are dispersed in the job market, rather than congregated in neighborhoods, he said. Burglaries are much easier and more tempting now than they were a generation ago, for instance, because televisions, radios and other gadgets are so much lighter and easier to carry off. We just have much better weapons for people to grab when they’re angry than we used to.”Īdditionally, Felson said, societal changes have opened broader opportunities for crime overall. “There’s no indication that the person who, say, hits someone, is any less angry than the person who shoots someone. “Homicide is just a fistfight when you have a gun in your fist,” Felson said. The spring’s rioting played a part, contributing 52 deaths, but so, too, did hundreds of far-less-publicized slayings in homes and on streets countywide.īut Felson says there may be overarching trends as well-not the least of them the proliferation of guns. Gang violence is part of the story, but not as big a part as many suspect: According to LAPD statistics, for instance, only about a third of the city’s homicides this year were gang-related. The numbers include not only the many people who are beaten, shot or stabbed to death, but those who die as the result of vehicular manslaughter. Last year’s rate marked yet another record, 28 per 100,000 residents. By 1980, which for most of the decade stood as the county’s most violent year, the homicide rate was 24.4 killings per 100,000 residents.įor several years, the rate dipped, but it surged up again in 1991. In 1970, the county had 10.2 homicides per 100,000 residents. Los Angeles County’s homicide rate generally has been on the rise for at least the past 20 years, statistics show. “Yes, we have a lot of homicides,” said USC criminologist Marcus Felson.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |