Violent crime in the District of Columbia increased by nearly 7 percent in the first half of 2010, while the rest of the country saw a decrease in violence, according to the FBI crime statistics released Monday. The FBI’s semiannual crime numbers show that reports of violent crime around the nation dropped 6.2 percent from January to June. That wasn’t the case in the nation’s capital, where 4,057 murders, rapes, robberies and aggravated assaults were reported in the first half of the year, compared to 3,801 over the same period last year.
| FBI’s numbers | ||||||||||||||
| City | Year | Violent crime | Murder | Rape | Robbery | Agg. assault | Prop crime | |||||||
| Washington | 2009 | 3,801 | 66 | 88 | 1,990 | 1,657 | 13,610 | |||||||
| 2010 | 4,057 | 59 | 82 | 1,833 | 2,083 | 12,426 | ||||||||
| Alexandria | 2009 | 127 | 2 | 9 | 51 | 65 | 1,616 | |||||||
| 2010 | 132 | 2 | 10 | 63 | 57 | 1,542 | ||||||||
| Baltimore | 2009 | 4,606 | 114 | 71 | 1,742 | 2,679 | 13,967 | |||||||
| 2010 | 4,374 | 100 | 81 | 1,482 | 2,711 | 13,181 | ||||||||
| Source: FBI | ||||||||||||||
D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier dismissed the FBI report, saying it doesn’t reflect a true picture of the crime scene in the District. Lanier prefers to use the department’s own crime calculations, which show a 7 percent decrease in violent crime.
Although the FBI report uses crime numbers provided by D.C. police, the report “is not a good measure of District crime,” Lanier told The Washington Examiner. District police go by the D.C. Code to determine the city’s crime rate and to make strategies for fighting crime.
The FBI and D.C. Code classify certain crimes differently. Under the D.C. Code, a punch can be considered a simple assault and not a violent crime. Under the FBI’s definition, it’s considered an aggravated assault and a violent crime, D.C. police said.
Jaclyn Holmes, a friend and co-worker of Neil Godleski, the Catholic University student who was killed in Sherman Circle while biking home from work this year, said she was troubled that the District uses its own numbers to claim that crime is improving while the FBI says it’s getting worse.
“I find it hard to believe that crime is getting better,” Holmes told The Examiner. Besides Godleski’s tragic death, she said other co-workers have reported being robbed, including one who was stabbed. “It just seems like violence has been more prevalent.”
Aggravated assaults in the District jumped 25 percent in the first six months this year, the FBI reports. The other categories of violent crime ?– murders, rape and robberies — all went down.
Murders in D.C. dropped 10 percent, compared to 7.1 percent around the rest of the county.
Property crime in D.C. dropped 8.7, compared to a 2.8 percent decrease nationwide.
The FBI’s report only included cities with populations greater than 100,000.
Alexandria showed a 4 percent increase in violent crime, having 132 incidents of violence compared to 127 last year.
