According to reports, Washington, DC is facing an increase in homicides, but a decrease in the number of homicide cases that are successfully solved.
“DC is on pace to break a 20-year record for the deadliest year in the District. In 2003, DC saw 248 homicides. … Crime has gotten so out of control, businesses are closing their doors and going out of business. the city”, the local station SO reported last Monday.
However, even amid this increase in murders, there has been a drop in solved cases, leaving the families of the dead victims devastated.
“Asiyah Timimi’s husband, Aqueel, was stabbed in a dispute in January 2021 and died several days later. “You don’t feel safe until they get caught,” Timimi said. “He could be walking past the person who killed my husband,” according to the Associated Press.
“Natalia Mitchell wants justice for her son Morris, who was shot to death in March 2022, and closure for herself. A successful arrest of her son’s killer, she said, “doesn’t bring Morris back, but it would help.” the newspaper reported on Friday.
Homicides occur with such frequency in DC that I fear that we, collectively, no longer care or notice the violence that is trending around us. Unfortunately, we have accepted it as a normal way of life.
Walking out the front door each day counting on luck to take us home. @SafeDC #sad
— Bashon W. Mann (@bonsideream) November 20, 2023
The AP notes that the percentage of homicides the DC Metropolitan Police Department has solved has “declined dramatically” in the past year, so much so that the city is on track to record its highest “clearance rate” lower in more than 15 years.
As of November 13, only 75 of the 244 homicides committed this year had been solved. When combined with the 33 homicides from 2022 that were solved this year, the clearance rate rose to a minuscule 45 percent.
“This would be the lowest rate going back to at least 2007, based on statistics provided by the MPD. Nationally, the average clearance rate tends to be between 50 percent and 60 percent,” said Rick Rosenfeld, a professor of in criminology at the University of Missouri-St. Louis,” the AP notes.
The problem is that a low homicide closure rate hurts police morale and local community trust in the police, which means even less cooperation from the public.
“This whole process can spiral downward, where the community no longer trusts the police as much or there’s a lack of faith,” Christopher Herrmann, an associate professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a former crime analyst supervisor with the department of the NYPD, told the AP.
“There’s a lot less cooperation between the community and the police. And once the police see the lack of cooperation from the community, some of them will throw their hands in the air and say, ‘Why should we care when does anyone in the community want to help?” he added.
A DC cold case has homicide victim’s family calling for closure. Her loved one was shot and killed 32 years ago on Wisconsin Avenue and the killers are still at it. FOX 5’s Sierra Fox spoke with the victim’s son about the tragedy and sought… https://t.co/1jvIp69Pv4
— Erin Reed ✌️ (@DisfunkGlee) November 22, 2023
Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Lyndsey Appiah agreed, admitting to the AP that the closure offers “some sense of justice for the victims.”
“The guarantee of consequences is a deterrent to crime. Therefore, it is important that we close cases and resolve cases as soon as possible,” he added.
Testifying before the House Judiciary Committee earlier this year, he bluntly acknowledged that this shutdown problem is a serious crisis.
“Oxford defines a crisis as a time of intense difficulty, trouble or danger. So I would say there is a crisis,” he said.
As for why there has been a decline in closures, Appiah cited both staffing issues and difficulties with crime scene analysis.
“MPD is at about 3,300 officers this year, down from 3,800 officers since 2020, a decrease of 500 in three years. Police union officials have publicly blamed the D.C. Council for what they say are anti-police policies that they’ve pushed agents out and stifled recruiting efforts,” the AP notes.
The D.C. Department of Forensic Science crime lab also lost its accreditation in the spring of 2021 due to allegations of flaws in its analysis. Appiah said the lab hopes to regain its accreditation in early 2021. next year; Meanwhile, the city is outsourcing its crime scene analysis, a process that consumes time and money, he said.
#corrupt @charlesallen he ignored the alarms sounded by various agencies about @DCDFSthe DC Department of Forensic Sciences tasked with investigating #crimes. The same agency was referred for criminal investigation @USAO_DC and lost his accreditation for fraudulent conduct pic.twitter.com/GXgFfRvD5N
— Government_Crimes (@GovCrime) March 24, 2023
Ronald Moten, a community activist whose 1991 slaying of his half-sibling remains unsolved, also agreed that closure is necessary for people to move forward.
“[Lack of closure] it devastates the black family and it can devastate the police department. It always gives the family some sense of relief if there is closure. It doesn’t help you heal by itself, but it’s part of the healing process,” he said.
“It hurts because you feel like someone got away with killing your child without consequences. That’s painful. You want closure and you want someone to be held accountable,” she added.
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