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Despite another fatal shooting in Northeast last night, it's worth noting that with less than two months left to go in 2009, the District has recorded 123 homicides all year long, according to D.C. police crime data. That figure continues to reflect a 25 percent decrease in the number of homicides compared to this time last year, when there were already 164 homicides on the books. By all accounts, the Metropolitan Police Department has also seen an improvement in homicide arrests this year.
We've given Chief Cathy Lanier a hard time for daring to predict that the city would see fewer than 100 homicides this year, a benchmark which of course we've long since passed. But the 25 percent decrease in homicides has remained consistent throughout most of the year, which is a significant improvement.
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There's an old proverb that says, "Four thousand throats may be slit in a single night by a running man." I'm pretty sure it's Klingon but I may be mistaken.
My grandmother used to say, "That which doesn't kill us just hasn't had enough time yet."
My brother used to say, "how much for my little sister?"
Is anyone in on an over/under betting pool for homicides? I'd like to get in on the action.
Sommer, will you be providing a line?
No doubt homicides are down from this time last year and for sure from back in the good old days of the early 1990s, but what's alarming about this that on August 19, when she made her bold prediction, we had 88 homicides... now, less than three months later we've got 123.
For those not mathematically inclined (trust me I had to use paper and pencil) that's 35 homicides since August 19. 35 homicides in 84 days, or one homicide every 2.4 days (calculator this time)...that is hardly anything to crow about.
Wow, we're down 25%. That may sound like a big improvement, but we're still on track for roughly 24 murders per 100k residents this year.
For comparison, that is 10x higher than most any large city in Europe. And D.C. isn't even a large city.
But hey, we're still 3x safer than those people living in Calcutta and Caracas!
improvement in homicide arrests, but what about convictions? just because they are arrested doesn't mean they are guilty, or that they'll be found guilty.
If you're going to crunch numbers, you might as well go all the way: On Aug 19th, the 231st day of the year, there had been 88 homicides. That's a homicide every 2.6 days, only moderately better than the days since. So while you can criticize the annual rate, the last few months haven't been any worse than expected... except for the unrealistic expectations set by the idiotic "under 100" proclamation.
That was in response to comment #5, but it didn't get threaded properly. Whatevs.
they should have said under 5000000000000. then we could have really celebrated.
See, this is why I shouldn't crunch numbers...
hey... enough of dc. lets talk about baltimore's numbers.
Once again, an article comparing DC's homicide rate to nothing other than itself. Here we go again. Is there a reporter in the DC area who would like to demonstrate an ability to look at data beyond the 8th grade level?
How are we doing compared to other cities? That's really all that matters. This statistic could very well indicate that we are worse off compared to the rest of the country, if most other cities have experienced greater declines. But since nobody who writes news can be bothered to do the basic research needed to put this into any useful context, it still means nothing.