Not a good week at all. As of Friday 9am, D.C. had reported four new homicides this week, and one homicide that occurred a couple of weeks ago, bringing the total for the year to 63*. Last year, during the same time period, we had 97 homicides, and in the surge year of 2023, there were 160 homicides during that time. The good news is that other crime categories declined this week.

At this point, it is unclear if we will achieve another 33 percent drop in homicides for the third straight year–the last several weeks have been brutal, and we would need to see dramatic declines in homicides to about one per week for the rest of the year to continue the trend that began during the Biden administration.

Here’s to hoping that next week gets us back to a zero homicide week.

*Three of the 66 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).