D.C.’s Spike in Homicides: Police Union Criticizes MPD Tactics

When I left the office of the Georgetowner Newspaper on Tuesday, deadline day, Aug. 18, after writing an editorial on the rising homicide rate in the District of Columbia, the number of homicides for the year in the city stood at 93, an alarming 30 percent or so increase over last year at this time.

By the time I got home two hours later, the number had gone up to 95.

Today, at this writing, around 3 p.m., the count stands at 98. The latest victim was a man who had been found dead Wednesday, Aug. 19, behind a building by a woman walking her dog in the 3000 block of Stanton Road SE just before 8 a.m., according the D.C. Police Union daily crime updates.

No homicides at this point in time have been reported since.  But the beat surely goes on as relentless as a summer heat wave.

After several community and news briefings, Mayor Muriel Bowser and Metropolitan Police Department Chief Cathy Lanier have had to recalibrate their response to the almost daily carnages and barrage of killings, as well as robberies and other crimes.

In a community meeting in the homicide-plagued Shaw neighborhood, which has also experienced a population shift over the last few years, Lanier insisted that the District’s and the police department’s response has largely and in the long run been working. The chief blamed the most recent shootings and killings on an influx of guns (along with offenders released recently).  Lanier and Bowser have announced an increase in the bounty for reported illegal firearms.  A tip leading to an illegal weapon is now worth $2,500.

But if you read the union crime reports and news reports, there is also a nascent feud and argument, ongoing but more heated, in recent days between between police union officers and Lanier over policing strategies. The union is criticizing its chief for disbanding drug and vice units. It is one of the causes, the union argues, for the increase in violent crimes. Others — such as Ward 2 Councilmember Jack Evans in his Georgetowner column and elsewhere — have called for a hike in the number of police in the force.

The pace of the homicides have been astonishing. In the waning days of summer, the D.C. is nearing, and may actually eclipse, last year’s total number of homicides, which was 105.

On Tuesday, there were three killings in the course of the afternoon, a startling figure for a weekday.

No further shootings or homicides had been reported as of 3:15 p.m. on Aug. 20, although there was a report of a robbery at 1100 5th Street NW.  The suspect was described as a black male, seen wearing dark clothing and armed with a gun.

And the beat goes on.