In San Bernardino, toll of violence is mounting

The city, still recovering from the Dec. 2 terror attack, is on a pace to record its highest homicide total in more than 20 years

The sound of gunfire and sirens drew about a dozen people out of their homes on San Bernardino’s west side one recent Wednesday night.

A beat-up Honda sat in the street — a small cross dangling from the rearview mirror, two bullet holes in the door. Rescue workers pulled Alejandro Herrera, 28, from the driver’s seat and wheeled him into an ambulance.

“The other day, they killed someone down the street,” said a middle-aged woman, leaning against a fence next to her husband. All around this part of the city, she said, there are candlelight memorials to victims of violence.

“Before, we would hear about killings every once in a while. Now, there are so many,” she said, asking that her name not be published for fear of becoming a victim herself.

A few days later, in a neighborhood less than two miles away, investigators pulled the body of Jose De La Torre, 24, from the trunk of a Nissan.

The next night, Shonta Edwards, 33, was shot to death outside an apartment complex about half a mile from there.

And soon enough, Herrera, who died at the hospital, had his own candlelight memorial on the sidewalk in the neighborhood where he was shot.

San Bernardino, still healing from the Dec. 2 ter-

The city is on track to have a higher number of homicides this year than it has seen in more than two decades. Meanwhile, the number of police officers in the city has dropped by nearly a third since 2005.

Gina Ferazzi Los Angeles Times A MAN bleeding from a shotgun blast receives aid from a police officer and a resident in San Bernardino. He survived. The city has experienced a surge in killings, with 47 already this year and no clear reason for the rise.