The report also includes information about the death penalty, the number of peace officers killed in the line of duty and justifiable homicide. Data came from the Homicide File (willful and justifiable homicide), the Monthly Arrest and Citation Register (race/ethnic group, age and gender of persons arrested for homicide) and the Offender-Based Transaction Statistics system (types of dispositions and sentences). Highlights included: (1) The black homicide victim rate was 9.5 times that of whites and more than 2.5 times that of Hispanics; (2) Sixty-five percent of homicide victims knew their assailant; (3) More victims were killed by firearms than by all other types of weapons combined; (4) By the end of 1997, 493 persons were under sentence of death in California; 40 were sentenced in 1997; and (5) Seven peace officers were killed in the line of duty in 1997. Tables, figures, notes, appendixes