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Crime in D.C.: What Might the Summer Bring?

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty ImagesIF ONLY CRIME, like the weather, could be predicted ...

Last July, the District sprang into action after a young British political activist was brutally murdered on Q Street NW outside the Georgetown mansion at right, which was then owned by developer Herb Miller. While the number of muggings and other street attacks had been increasing across the District — and in concentrations in areas of the city — it was the Georgetown attack, the attention it elicited and the spike in crime that July that brought about a declared crime emergency. (The two charged in that Georgetown death, Christopher Piper, 26, and Jeffrey Rice, 23, pleaded guilty on Monday and face up to 100 years in prison each for that death and three other robberies in Georgetown and Adams Morgan.)

But will the summer of 2007 be much like the summer of 2006? Will warmer temperatures bring criminal elements out in full force? According to an analysis of crime data from last year by The Post, the city's "robbery core" is centered in Ward 1, which includes neighborhoods like Columbia Heights, Adams Morgan, Mount Pleasant, Dupont Circle and Logan Circle, which are under the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan Police Department's 3rd Police District.

As The Post's Allison Klein and Dan Keating wrote at the time:

... [R]obbers are traveling farther from home to strike, according to police officials. During the first six months of [2006], about 40 percent of juveniles arrested in robberies and other crimes in neighborhoods just north of downtown did not live there, police said.
In particular, Friday and Saturday nights see an uptick in crime.

So far, at least on Capitol Hill, the spring has sparked its own crime spike, with 19 robberies logged from Friday night through Monday. As Klein reports this morning:

No one was seriously hurt, police said, although some victims were knocked to the ground. In some cases, assailants brandished knives. Other robberies were purse-snatchings, including one at 3 p.m. Sunday about two blocks from Eastern Market.
And police don't know why criminals are targeting the Hill, making the art of predicting what could happen as summer approaches anyone's guess.

» "Guilty Pleas in British Activist's Death" [WaPo]
» "Liveliest D.C. Neighborhoods Also Jumping With Robberies" [WaPo]
» "Robberies Shake Up Residents, D.C. Police" [WaPo]

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

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COMMENTS (1)

  • it is sad to think that the world has to be like this

    things should be getting better
    instead of getting worse

    By gwadzilla , Posted June 6, 2007 10:32 AM
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