The District’s homicide count eclipsed last year’s toll of 181 Tuesday, marking the first time since the early 1990s that the number of killings in the city rose for two straight years.
Early Tuesday, police found the bullet-riddled body of 35-year-old Durval Martins lying in the street on the 1600 block of 11th Street Northwest. That homicide, along with the death of a child last week that police reclassified as a homicide Tuesday, raised the 2008 total to 183.
The city hasn’t had back-to-back increases since 1989 to 1991, when D.C. was “Murder Capital” of the nation.
Since 1991, when homicides peaked at 479, killings have trended down. In 2006, they reached a two-decade low, city records show.
But they have since begun rising, despite efforts of city leaders to stop the increase. Police Chief Cathy Lanier has already taken what she calls drastic actions: She’s armed her officers with assault rifles, sealed off the violent Trinidad neighborhood with barricades and flooded the city with cops for her All Hands on Deck weekends.
She has also reshuffled her command staff numerous times.
Those measures have yielded mixed results. Crime spiked during the weekdays surrounding All Hands on Deck, when the officers were given comp days.
And departmental e-mails show that the barricades in Trinidad drew away help from neighborhoods east of the Anacostia River.
Next year is already promising to challenge the department, which is facing a $4 million budget cut, the largest for any city agency.
Lanier didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Public safety committee Chairman Phil Mendelson, D-at large, said he will hold hearings early next year on what to do about violent crime.
Some residents have their own suggestions.
“What I think they should do is redistribute the police in the districts based upon need,” said Tijwanna Phillips, an advisory neighborhood commissioner in Ward 8, whose neighborhood has led the city in homicides for decades. “We definitely need the help.”
George Mason University criminologist Karen L. Bune says it’s unfair to ask the chief to solve the problem on her own.
“No community welcomes an increase in homicide,” she said. “Many factors can play into why that occurs.”
Ward 8’s Phillips says the key factor is the number of young people. Her ward has a lot of youngsters; therefore, it has a lot of crime. She doesn’t blame the chief for failing to get on top of the problem.
“I have a good rapport with Chief Lanier, so I would never say anything bad about her,” she said.
