Homicides increased by 10 percent while violent crime overall fell slightly during the first half-year of D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier’s reign, according to preliminary numbers compiled by the Metropolitan Police Department.
There were 92 murders in the first half of 2007, eight more than over the same time in 2006, a year that finished with the fewest homicides in more than two decades.
Police spokeswoman Traci Hughes said it’s difficult to make any kind of year-end predictions based on the first six months, but she said Lanier and the top commanders constantly review the statistics to determine the best strategies to fight crime.
“Any homicide is one too many,” Hughes said.
Lanier has vowed to be more proactive than her predecessor and mentor, former Police Chief Charles Ramsey, who a year ago this week declared a citywide crime emergency after the District suffered 13 homicides in 11 days. Under the emergency, Ramsey ordered all uniformed police to work six-day weeks, a move that cost the city more than $14 million in overtime and put a strain on the rank and file.
So far this year, violent crime has dipped 6 percent. The biggest improvements have come in the number of sexual assaults, which has dropped 22 percent, and in assaults with a deadly weapon, which has decreased 10 percent.
The property crime rate has gone up 1 percent.
The figures are preliminary and are based on the day-to-day crime statistics police use to track trends.
In January, the MPD boasted that 2006 was one of the safest in decades but then had to correct itself last month after conducting a more complete counting that concluded that violent crime actually jumped 9 percent last year.
