The Associated Press

LOUISVILLE - Louisville remains on pace to post its highest homicide rate in six years, despite the formation of a special team to deal with a spike in the number of killings.

Nine people have been killed in the two months since the task force was formed, and, at the end of August, Louisville had 44 homicides. That's above the 33 by this time last year. The city saw 51 homicides in all of 2003. Police commanders say they are frustrated by the increased number, but that they are seeing a payoff from the focus on violent crimes - more arrests and higher homicide clearance rates.

"I think we've been relatively effective," Police Chief Robert White said.

White said many of the most recent cases were domestic, which are more difficult for police to prevent but easier to solve than those related to drugs or gangs.

"Where would we be if we didn't have those initiatives?" White said of the violent crime task force. "No one knows the answer to that."

Task force members arrested 604 people in their first eight weeks, 293 of them for felony offenses such as murder, assault and drug trafficking, according to statistics kept by police. They also served 179 outstanding warrants, recovered 18 stolen vehicles and provided homicide detectives with information that led to arrests in two recent killings.

In late June, when White announced he was forming the task force, the department had cleared 13 of 33 homicides for the year, for a rate of 39 percent. The number of homicides has since risen to 44, but detectives have cleared half of them. Of the nine most recent homicides, the department has cleared five, and detectives have "good, viable information" in two other cases, said Lt. Col. Philip Turner, one of the leaders in establishing the task force.

The task force was scheduled to run through Oct. 2, but White said he and his command staff would determine if it is needed longer.

The task force consists of two federal officers and 15 metro police detectives from specialty investigative units who work in two squads in neighborhoods where the crime rate is the highest. The squads have worked in 32 neighborhoods, including downtown and the Central Park area as well as western Louisville.

Tomika Beasley, whose friend LeVeil Hines was fatally shot in June while hanging out with a cousin in the 600 block of South 23rd Street, said she is frustrated that so many killings remain unsolved. Beasley said Hines didn't have a police record and wasn't known to ever be in trouble - and she's mad that he's now "just another guy killed on the West End."

"He got killed in broad daylight," said Beasley, who began to cry when she described her friend. "You know somebody saw something, but no one is saying anything."