A total of 91 people died at the hands of another in Sacramento County during 2011, continuing a gradual climb in the total number of victims since a record-low year in 2009.

However, the county's largest agencies – the Sacramento police and county sheriff's departments – still are investigating fewer deaths than their long-term average caseloads.

Of the 91 homicides recorded, nine were law enforcement-officer-involved shootings in which a suspect died. Such deaths are ruled homicides because they involve one person killing another.

However, law enforcement agencies are not required to count them in homicide data they report to the FBI. Such deaths also rarely lead to prosecution and are counted as "cleared" when determining clearance rates.

An additional two homicides were deemed to be the result of self-defense.

The average age of victims was 36; six of them were juveniles.

Of the 62 suspects arrested in connection with the homicides, the average age was 30, with five of them under the age of 18.

About 68 percent of homicides involved gun violence, down slightly from 70 percent in 2010. The next most common mode was stabbing, at 13 percent.

As is typical, Sacramento County sheriff's detectives investigated the largest number of deaths: 43, the same number as in 2010 and just below the 15-year average of 44 per year, according to department records.

Homicides most often occurred in the Florin area and in North Highlands and Foothill Farms.

Six of the 43 were officer-involved shootings and one was determined to be self-defense. Seven were in Rancho Cordova – the Sheriff's Department provides policing services to the city through contract.

One was in Elk Grove but is being investigated by sheriff's detectives because of a memorandum of understanding about such crimes on freeways.

Detectives closed 32 of the cases for a clearance rate of 74 percent, compared with a national rate of 65 percent in 2010, the last year for which such data are available.

Cases can be cleared through arrest or through exceptional means, such as a suspect's death – as in a murder-suicide – or when an officer-involved shooting is determined to be legally justifiable.

In the city of Sacramento, police investigated 39 homicides, up from 33 in 2010 but still below the department's 15-year average of 49 per year. Two of the 39 were officer-involved shootings and one was a case of self-defense.

Detectives cleared 24 of the cases for a clearance rate of 62 percent. The national rate for cities of Sacramento's size in 2010 was 59 percent, FBI records show.

Homicides were clustered in the city's north-central end – including neighborhoods such as Del Paso Heights, North Sacramento and Norwood – and in the Meadowview and Parkway areas.

Nationwide homicide statistics for 2011 are not yet available. But 2010 violent crime data reported by the FBI indicated the fourth year of declines. Homicides in particular were down about 4 percent from the previous year's estimates.

California saw an 8 percent decrease in homicides from 2009.

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