The death of a gunshot victim early Tuesday in Southeast cemented 2023 as one of District of Columbia’s bloodiest years in decades, as the nation’s capital struggles to rein in the violence that has tormented residents and dogged local leaders.
The District recorded its 249th homicide Tuesday after 3 a.m. when Metropolitan Police said a man died in a hospital from a gunshot wound to the head in an incident east of the Anacostia River.
It marked the most homicides in the District since the 248 slayings recorded in 2003, when yearly killings were gradually descending from the rampant, gang-driven violence of the 1990s.
“It’s hard to overstate how devastating it is that this year the District has seen the highest number of homicides in two decades,” Brooke Pinto, Ward 2 Democrat and chair of the D.C. Council’s public safety committee, told The Washington Times in a statement.
“Behind every one of those homicides is a person whose life was cut too short, a family that will have to live with the trauma and loss for the rest of their lives, and communities impacted more broadly in so many immeasurable ways,” she said.
The District showed signs of exceeding 2003’s homicide total at various points this year.
When the city recorded its 100th homicide in June, it was the earliest in 20 years that the District had reached triple-digit killings. The nation’s capital documented its 200th homicide just over three months later — the earliest date the District had recorded that number since 1997.
Homicides are up 35% from the same period last year, according to police data. It’s the third year in a row that the District has recorded more than 200 slayings, another grim total that hasn’t happened in two decades.
The slayings have contributed to the 40% increase in violent crime that has created a sense of lawlessness in the city.
The rising violence also makes the District an outlier among major American cities such as New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, which have reported significant declines in killings this year as they distance themselves from the COVID-19-fueled crime surge in 2020 and 2021.
A police report identified the 249th homicide victim as 29-year-old Gary Lavon Love III.
Authorities said officers found Mr. Love lying unconscious with a gunshot wound to the head near a 7-Eleven parking lot on South Capitol Street Southwest.
He was admitted to a hospital, where he died from his injuries overnight, police said.
Hours earlier, the 2003 homicide total was matched. Police said Rodney Eugene Snead was shot dead near an apartment complex on Fourth Street Southeast, just blocks from where Mr. Love was fatally wounded.
Nearby Hendley Elementary School was locked down and briefly delayed its dismissal because of the shooting that killed Mr. Snead around 3:30 p.m. Monday.
Police haven’t announced arrests in either killing.
The two men were killed during a violent four-day stretch in which two 18-year-olds were gunned down in Southeast and an up-and-coming Maryland boxer was fatally shot in the Shaw neighborhood.
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, Metropolitan Police Chief Pamela Smith and D.C. Council members have tried to stem the crime wave, though few initiatives have produced the immediate results for which residents clamor.
The council passed emergency legislation over the summer that gave judges greater latitude to lock up adults and juveniles accused of certain violent crimes.
More young people have been held for pretrial detention since the temporary law took effect in July, but some lapses have led to tragic outcomes.
Court documents submitted by police said Lorinzo Thompson was arrested in connection with a robbery investigation on Oct. 25. Nine days later, police said, the 17-year-old fatally shot another teen boy along 14th Street Northwest.
Police said Mr. Thompson, who has been charged as an adult in the slaying of 14-year-old Niko Estep, bragged about the killing during an Instagram Live broadcast.
Chief Smith’s robbery suppression unit, established to reduce the number of armed robberies and carjackings, has produced mixed results.
Robberies were reduced 10% during her first 90 days, according to police data shared with The Times.
When Chief Smith took over as top cop in mid-July, robberies were up roughly 60% year over year. Now, muggings are up 67%.
The 894 carjackings that police documented this year are close to double the 484 violent car thefts reported last year — a record-high at the time, according to MPD data.
Kelly Mikel Williams, the chair of an advisory neighborhood commission in Ward 8, suggested that D.C. police collaborate with the dozens of other law enforcement agencies in the city to quell the District’s violent crime wave.
“I’ve said a number of times that we have 32 police agencies in the city — more than any other state in the country — yet we rely on MPD to try and police everything,” Mr. Williams told The Times. “That’s disingenuous in the sense of realizing that we have a decline with MPD officers retiring, leaving or transferring, and we have so many more police officers and other agencies and aspects that could — and should — be helping to patrol the city.”
Mr. Williams wondered why Metropolitan Police and other city leaders couldn’t replicate the model they used to arrest 48 fugitives over a three-day period last month.
During Operation Trident, the MPD joined forces with the FBI, the U.S. Marshals Service, the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency and the U.S. attorney’s office to take wanted criminals into custody and close 72 outstanding warrants.
An additional 24 charges were brought against suspects with criminal histories that included gun, drug and violent offenses.
“Think of what we can do if we had that task force in place all the time,” Mr. Williams said. “Think how you can reduce and prevent crime if you had 32 police agencies working together … [in] a regular, daily operation of police patrolling.”
Ms. Bowser issued a public emergency over youth crime last week to allow the District to put more children in shelter homes, treatment centers and other secure facilities and to expedite the creation of an additional 10-bed unit at the city’s juvenile detention facility.
The public emergency also allows for detained juveniles to participate in rehabilitation programs and gives incentives to private providers to create more shelter homes, particularly for girls.
Ms. Bowser introduced her Addressing Crime Trends Now legislation last month. It seeks to remove some restrictions on what qualifies as an illegal neck restraint for police officers.
The bill also aims to make it illegal to wear a ski mask while committing a crime and increases the penalty for people who operate retail theft crews.
Ms. Pinto introduced a bill in September that would enshrine into law the broader pretrial detention standards included in the city’s current emergency crime legislation.
Other aspects of the temporary law Ms. Pinto is seeking to make permanent in her ACTIVE Amendment Act are the new felony offenses for strangulation and for firing a gun in public, as well as illegally disposing of a gun or ammunition.
Ms. Pinto’s proposed legislation also seeks to give D.C. police the option to search gun offenders on parole at any time if the ex-convict is in public. If the bill passes, police wouldn’t need a warrant or cause to pat down the paroled offender.
• Matt Delaney can be reached at mdelaney@washingtontimes.com.
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