The District has recorded its 199th homicide of the year, topping 2020’s tally with more than a month left to go in 2021. It’s the city’s single highest homicide count in 16 years.

The city reached this number, up 13% from the same time last year, after two recorded killings on Monday — the first in Anacostia and the second an apparent road rage incident on Benning Road NE — and a third early Tuesday. The victims were Nathaniel Martin, 62; Jamalijnanya Butler, 47; and Albert Young, 62.

“We have days upon days upon days left [in the year],” said Mayor Muriel Bowser at a press conference on Tuesday, sounding frustrated with the increased killings and the reality that fatalities could continue in what’s left of the year. “We’re obviously very concerned about the increased number of people who lost their lives senselessly. We’re literally throwing every resource we have available at it.”

The grim milestone comes amidst a broader spike in killings nationwide since the COVID-19 pandemic hit. According to data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in October, homicides across the country jumped 30% from 2019 to 2020. (Data from the FBI released a month before found a similar spike.) The FBI’s data found that more than three-fourths of the homicides were committed with a gun, largely matching the trends in D.C.

But as in other cities across the country, D.C.’s increase in killings hasn’t been replicated across other crimes; overall crime is up only 2% this year, according to data from the Metropolitan Police Department. In 2020, violent crime was down 4% from the year prior. And while homicides have risen steadily in D.C. since 2018, the city is still at less than half the annual death tolls during the drug-fueled killings of the early- and mid-1990s, when homicides hovered around 450 each year.

As with years past, the victims of homicides in D.C. in 2021 have largely been Black — and most killings have occurred east of the Anacostia River. According to city data, 115 homicides through mid-November took place in wards 7 and 8. The average age of the victim was 32, though at least nine were minors. That included two 15-year-olds — Jamarid Robinson and Dayvon Lewis — who were killed in separate incidents in January. In July, six-year-old Nyiah Courtney was killed during a shootout outside a liquor store in Southeast. A month later, Kemon Payne, 15, was fatally stabbed outside his school in Northeast.

A number of the killings happened in mass shootings. In late March, two people were killed and three injured during a shooting in Congress Heights. In October, one person was killed and three injured during a shooting on Independence Avenue near the D.C. Armory. And in the single deadliest incident of the year so far, in September three people were killed and another three injured during a shooting on Longfellow Street NW.

As in many other cities, the jump in homicides has fueled political debates over whether more police are needed to stem the killings. The D.C. Police Union, which represents rank-and-file officers, has placed the blame with the D.C. Council for passing “misguided” police reform legislation. (The last significant police reform bill the council approved was in 2020; lawmakers have since introduced a number of bills focusing on police tactics and discipline.)

But the spike has eluded clear explanations; local public officials haven’t pinpointed a single driver for the rise in homicides, though they say the pandemic and the increased use of guns may be playing a role. The police union has also argued that public scrutiny and proposed police reform bills in the wake of George Floyd’s murder in 2020 have made officers more cautious—and perhaps less effective—in doing their jobs.

“While I can’t point to a single thing… we know the global pandemic has affected our cities and towns in ways that are still to be fully determined,” said Bowser during an event hosted by The Washington Post in late October.

After a spate of killings in January, Ward 8 Councilmember Trayon White called on Bowser to declare a state of emergency. The following month she declared gun violence a public health emergency, hired a new director of gun violence prevention, and put $15 million towards funding Building Blocks D.C., an initiative that focuses government resources — both related to public safety and other services — on 151 blocks that were the location of 41% of gun violence in 2020. Bowser and the council also directed additional funding to violence interrupters as part of the 2022 budget, which took effect in October.

“Those initiative are going to take time,” Bowser said on Tuesday.

But the mayor has similarly been pressing on the issue of police staffing. City officials say they are worried that MPD’s roster of officers is likely to fall to 3,500 next year, lower than it has been in two decades. (Part of that is due to Bowser, who cut hiring in her budget proposal to the council earlier this year.) In August, Bowser made a last-minute request to the council for $11 million to hire 170 new police officers, but lawmakers unanimously granted her only half that amount, saying there was little evidence that the department would be able to hire that many officers quickly or that doing so would have an impact on gun violence and homicides.

In October, Bowser announced her Fall Crime Prevention Initiative, replicating the usual summer push to focus more police resources on certain neighborhoods that have seen upticks in crime. Despite the initiative, October has so far been this year’s deadliest month, with 31 killings.

Speaking during the Post event, D.C. Police Chief Robert J. Contee III indicated that addressing homicides in the city would take a mix of both police and non-police resources. “You really have to look at this holistically. It’s not just law enforcement. You can’t arrest your way out… you can’t program your way out,” he said.

Advocates who focus on gun violence say that while D.C. has numerous non-police initiatives and efforts on the ground, what has been lacking is coordination.

“The red tape is producing yellow tape, and the yellow tape is producing hopelessness in our community. Open up the doors and let our community get more involved with… decision-making,” said Tyrone Parker, executive director of the Alliance of Concerned Men, during a roundtable on gun violence hosted by Peace for D.C. in late October.

That changed in part this year with the Building Blocks Emergency Operations Center, an office located in Anacostia that implements plans and organizes government services for areas that experience high levels of gun violence. The D.C. government has also been working with the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform to analyze data around homicides and come up with a citywide strategic plan to reduce homicides — similar to what cities like Oakland have created and found success with.

Still, the ongoing tally of homicide victims has devastated many communities and frustrated some lawmakers, including Ward 8’s Trayon White.

“We are in a place where we’re trying to find solutions, but we are a day late and a dollar short,” he said during a council hearing on gun violence in the wake of 6-year-old Nyiah Courtney’s killing. “We like to build buildings but put very little emphasis on building people.”

The issue could well become a political matter in the upcoming election cycle, where Bowser is running for a third term — and being challenged by White and Councilmember Robert White (D-At Large). Speaking in October, Attorney General Karl Racine, who is supporting Robert White, directly criticized Bowser for her approach to addressing violence and homicides in the city.

“Slogans are catchy. They can even last for a year or two, or maybe even seven,” he said. “But when there’s action that doesn’t follow the slogan, then we know those are mere words.”

Jenny Gathright contributed reporting.