Six homicides have been committed in San Francisco since Friday, including three in 2007, as city officials tout the first decline in homicides in three years.

With one homicide Tuesday and two Monday, the first days of the new year proved bloody. Additionally, three people were shot to death in a car in the Bayview district on Friday. A fourth victim survived but is in critical condition.

As Mayor Gavin Newsom and San Francisco police Chief Heather Fong walked Divisadero Street on Tuesday to highlight crime-prevention policies, the decline in homicides in 2006 from 2004 and 2005 was showcased. However, the 2006 homicide rate remains high compared with previous years.

The City closed 2006 with 85 homicides, 11 fewer than 2005 and three fewer than 2004. However, 2004 and 2005 were the bloodiest years in nearly a decade. From 1996 to 2003, The City averaged 67.4 homicides annually.

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“It’s even awkward for me to be out here,” Newsom said, referring to the bloody holiday weekend as he walked Divisadero. “We recognize that 85 homicides is 85 homicides too many.”

He credited the slight decline to programs such as saturating certain areas with police, a civil injunction against a Bayview-district gang and city-sponsored alternatives to violence.

In The City’s latest homicide, police officers responding to a well-being check at 370 Magellan Ave. on Monday morning found an elderly married couple suffering gunshot wounds in their home. The husband, Hans “Henry” Lattman, 76, was pronounced dead at the scene, while his wife, Rebecca Lattman, 66, was taken to San Francisco General Hospital where, at press time, she was still alive.

Newsom characterized the incident as a murder-suicide attempt, but police have not officially designated it as such.

On Monday, in apparently unrelated incidents, two people were killed within two blocks of each other. At 6:50 p.m., in the 1800 block of Sunnydale Avenue, an unidentified victim was shot in the head in a domestic violence incident.

At 9:40 p.m., in the 1600 block of Sunnydale Avenue, a woman found her boyfriend in his house suffering from stab wounds. George Minor, 55, died at the scene.

Police have not made arrests in any of the incidents over the long weekend, nor in Tuesday’s. Newsom said Tuesday that “unexpected” crimes such as the suspected murder-suicide and the domestic violence incident are practically unpreventable.

“Even if there was a police officer a block away, I don’t know if he could have stopped it,” Newsom said.

amartin@examiner.com

Staff writer Bonnie Eslinger contributed to this report.