Unlike last week, there’s no good news. As of 9am today, D.C. had reported five more homicides this week (though one of those occurred several weeks ago), yielding a total for the year of 37*. At this time last year, there had been 72 homicides, and in the surge year of 2023, over the same time period, there had been 103 homicides. Still a vast improvement over last year, but a very bad week.

That said, other categories of crimes nosed down, so that’s some good news. And we are still well on pace for another 33 percent drop in homicides for the third straight year.

Hoping for a better week next week.

*Three of the 40 murders reported this year actually occurred in other years (e.g., a missing persons case from 2023 turned into a homicide case this year with new evidence).