Most everyone has a smart phone these days, and plenty of people aren't discrete about using them out in the open. But for D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier, every smart phone user is a potential victim, and today she joined Mayor Vince Gray in warning of a citywide uptick in robberies and thefts of phones and other electronic gadgets. more ›

Joining a pair of big-city mayors and another high-ranking civic official yesterday, Metropolitan Police Department Chief Cathy Lanier swapped recent murder and youth crime prevention statistics at a panel during the U.S. Conference of Mayors' winter meeting. more ›

After two men were stabbed early this morning outside Mood Lounge on Ninth Street NW, Councilmember Jack Evans (D-Ward 2) is calling for the troubled establishment to close. more ›

With only a few days left in 2011, the District is likely to see fewer murders this year than at any point in the last five decades. more ›

Nearly one year into his mayoralty, Vince Gray's report card is in, and it's not pretty. Kind of. A poll released overnight by Clarus reports sagging approval ratings for both the mayor and the D.C. Council. more ›

Yesterday, we discussed how D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier has sparingly used her emergency powers to shut down bars and restaurants after violent incidents. Now it looks like Heritage India, the site of a fight which led to a shooting that left one man dead last weekend, is faced with much more than having its doors shuttered for 96 hours. more ›

If you own a bar or a restaurant and a fight breaks out, just shooing the troublemakers out the door may not be enough. If things get worse once they get outside, you may see your business shut down by the police. more ›

Yesterday, in response to a march on and sit-in at her department's headquarters, Metropolitan Police Department Chief Cathy Lanier said that the Occupy DC protests had gotten "increasingly confrontational and violent." This morning, the Occupy DC media team has struck back. more ›

During a D.C. Council hearing on Friday, D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier cited new police radio scanning technologies and constantly emerging threats as reasons underpinning MPD's recent decision to encrypt radio communications. more ›

It's tough to measure how much being the chancellor of the District's public school system is actually worth, but Kaya Henderson's current salary seems to offer a hint: $275,000 a year, plus a $12,500 signing bonus. more ›

This morning, Mayor Vince Gray and Metropolitan Police Department Chief Cathy Lanier updated the public on the investigations into several shootings which took place last night. more ›

Via Homicide Watch D.C., The Daily Beast reports that the District has become something of an international model on how to combat high murder rates. more ›

After a year in which the District trained no new police officers, the Metropolitan Police Department today welcomed 35 new police recruits to its training academy in Southwest. more ›

Despite the resplendent weather, today may be one of those days to hole up indoors, shut the windows and wait until Monday morning rolls around. On top of the many events taking place around town this weekend, closing many roadways around the city -- not forgetting Metro closures as well -- a 60 percent spike in suspicious activity reports this weekend could cause more problems. In an announcement made today, police chief Cathy Lanier noted an increase of 60 percent in incoming reports related to the recent elevated terror threat. more ›

If George Orwell and Steve Jobs joined forces, they likely would have come up iWatch, the new anti-terrorism initiative rolled out this week by the Metropolitan Police Department. more ›

The 19-year-old that police arrested in connection with an attack on a group of lesbian women outside the Columbia Heights Metro station on July 30 has now been charged with a hate crime. more ›

Chief Cathy Lanier's on the war path. In addition to threatening to fire several police officers involved in a recent incident in Columbia Heights, Lanier has handed Commander Hilton Burton -- who sharply criticized Lanier during a Council hearing on the Charlie Sheen police escort fiasco -- a demotion. more ›

Yesterday, the District's Office of the Inspector General has wrapped up its report on the whole Charlie Sheen escort brouhaha, concluding that the police officers involved in the escort didn't do anything wrong. more ›

Ever since the District's sole licensed gun dealer went out of business earlier this year, residents have been unable to purchase handguns. Two different proposals offered today seek to remedy that. more ›

Representatives from WMATA on the Hill again this afternoon, speaking to the subcommittee which oversees the District about a variety of issues. But one topic of conversation -- the size of the transit police force -- caught our eye. more ›

The Metropolitan Police Department has made an arrest in last night's shooting death of Ralph Thomas of Temple Hills in the parking lot of McKinley Tech High School. Fifth district police officers responded to the 100 block of T Street, NE at approximately 8:30 p.m. and found Thomas, 36, dead from his gunshot wounds. MPD announced this afternoon that Oma Crawford, 25, has been charged with first degree murder while armed. more ›

On January 9, 1999, Joyce Chiang disappeared. Today, police announced that they had closed the case. more ›

Well, now this is just getting plain embarrassing for the Metropolitan Police Department. Despite the fact that the department's chief, Cathy Lanier, said on Friday that she was "100 percent confident the proper procedure was not followed for a reimbursable detail," the Examiner's Freeman Klopott reports that the New York Rangers received similar treatment on Saturday as they traveled to the Verizon Center for a playoff game against the Capitals. more ›

This morning, Martin asked: if Charlie Sheen could get a police escort from Dulles International Airport to DAR Constitution Hall, why couldn't he? Well, maybe if he ponied up $445, he could find out. more ›

It was, as even Mayor Vince Gray admitted, the worst-kept secret in town -- Interim D.C. Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson would be taking on the gig on a permanent basis. Gray made the official announcement today during a testy two-hour press conference in which local journalists were barred from asking questions about the ever-evolving Sulaimon Brown drama. more ›

Metropolitan Police Chief Cathy Lanier made an appearance on NewsTalk with Bruce DePuyt this morning for her regular meeting with the newsman to chat about goings-on with the D.C. police department. About three-quarters of the way through the hour, the topic of Lanier's initial comments about the DC9 case -- in which a man was allegedly beaten to death by five employees of the nightclub -- came up. more ›

Metropolitan Police Chief Cathy Lanier is live on The Kojo Nnamdi Show right this second, and the discussion got off to a hot start, with talk about last Friday's incident in which a man was allegedly beaten to death by five employees of the DC9 nightclub. "With an ongoing investigation, there's very little I can say," Lanier said, in an apparent backtrack of her comments the day after the crime, in which she called the incident an act of brutal vigilante justice. more ›

It's officially been another year of triple-digit homicides in the District of Columbia. Freeman Klopott noticed today that MPD's crime statistics show that, once again, D.C. has surpassed the 100 homicide mark. Attempting to keep D.C. homicides under 100 has been a bit of an obsession for Metropolitan Police Chief Cathy Lanier throughout the years; this year, the city at least made it into October before hitting the century mark. Last year, it was still September when the milestone was hit. more ›

Alright, it's time to hit the reset button on what we know so far about the incident during which a man died near DC9 last night. Metropolitan Police Chief Cathy Lanier addressed the media a short time ago and said that DC9 Owner Bill Spieler and four other employees of the club will be charged with second-degree murder. Lanier also said that she would invoke the police emergency powers and shut down the club today, though she wouldn't say for how long. Lanier identified the man who died as 27-year-old Ali Ahmed Mohammed of Silver Spring. According to Lanier, Muhammed attempted to get into the bar after closing time last night; after he was rebuffed, he returned with a brick and threw it through the front window of the club. Lanier said that club employees then "chased him down the block, tackled him and assaulted him severely." more ›

Metropolitan Police Department Chief Cathy Lanier was certainly on the offensive during a sit-down interview with TBD's Bruce DePuyt on Tuesday, vigorously defending her department's handling of crime statistics. more ›