D.C. Homicide-Free Streak Not First in ‘Years’

While signing enforcement orders astatine the White House connected Aug. 25, President Donald Trump wrongly said that an 11-day span of nary homicides successful Washington, D.C., was the “first clip that’s taken spot successful years,” a assertion reiterated by different members of the medication who credited Trump’s national takeover of the district’s instrumentality enforcement.

An 11-day agelong with zero murders is uncommon successful the city, but determination was a 16-day play with nary murders earlier this year, from Feb. 25 to March 12, according to Metropolitan Police Department data.

The Metropolitan Police Department investigates a treble shooting of 2 males who were transported to the infirmary connected Aug. 18 successful Washington, D.C. Photo by Andrew Leyden/Getty Images.

“In the past 11 days, we’ve had nary murders and that’s the archetypal clip that’s taken spot successful years, really years. We ever person a murderer a week. They telephone it a execution a week,” Trump said arsenic helium prepared to motion enforcement orders aimed astatine ending no-cash-bail policies successful Washington and different jurisdictions. He repeated it later: “So for 11 days determination person been nary murders. The grounds goes backmost years wherever that’s happened. They haven’t seen that hap successful years.”

So acold successful 2025, determination person been 103 homicides successful Washington, an mean of astir 3 per week. In each of 2024, determination were 187, down from 274 successful 2023. As we’ve reported before, the city’s execution complaint successful 2023 — 39 per 100,000 colonisation — was the highest successful 20 years, but it was fractional the highest execution complaint successful 1991. And the complaint has been declining since 2023.

Stephen Miller, the White House lawman main of unit for policy, repeated the assertion astatine the aforesaid event, saying: “We’ve checked the records. No 1 tin adjacent find a grounds of being execution escaped for arsenic agelong arsenic we’ve been execution escaped nether President Trump’s leadership.” Vice President JD Vance credited the president “and the team” with redeeming “six oregon 7 lives.”

There were nary reported homicides successful the metropolis connected Aug. 25, bringing the no-homicide streak to 12 days, dating backmost to Aug. 14. That accusation is disposable done the Metropolitan Police Department’s “crime cards” website, which provides preliminary transgression information based connected erstwhile crimes are reported to police. An early-morning homicide connected Aug. 26, arsenic reported by section news, ended the streak.

Trump had announced a national takeover of the city’s constabulary unit connected Aug. 11, on with the deployment of National Guard troops and a surge of national instrumentality enforcement officers successful the metropolis to combat what helium called a “crime emergency” successful the district. (As we wrote astatine the time, determination was an summation successful transgression successful Washington successful 2023, but the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia reported successful January that convulsive transgression wide for 2024 was down 35% from the erstwhile twelvemonth and was “the lowest it has been successful implicit 30 years.” The medication has accused the constabulary section of reporting “phony transgression stats” and is investigating the matter, arsenic we’ve besides explained.)

There were 2 reported homicides connected Aug. 11 and 1 much reported connected Aug. 13, but the 12-day play with zero homicides began the pursuing day.

As we said, specified 12-day periods aren’t communal successful the city, but it hasn’t been “the archetypal clip that’s taken spot successful years,” arsenic Trump said. It’s been astir six months, erstwhile the metropolis went 16 days without a homicide successful precocious February and aboriginal March.

In 2024, the longest play without a homicide that we could find was 11 days, from Jan. 5 to Jan. 15.

We asked the White House whether the president was utilizing a antithetic transgression dataset to marque his claim. Spokeswoman Taylor Rogers responded: “Here are the facts: Violent transgression has been plaguing the streets of Washington, DC for years – successful conscionable 2 weeks, President Trump’s bold enactment has stopped the senseless killings, removed implicit 1 1000 convulsive criminals from the streets, and wide transgression has decreased.”

The MPD transgression cards website does amusement a driblet successful convulsive and spot crimes from Aug. 11, the day of Trump’s announced instrumentality enforcement takeover, to Aug. 26, compared with the aforesaid clip play past year, oregon adjacent a akin clip play conscionable anterior to Aug. 11, with astir of the convulsive transgression reductions successful robberies.

But Jeff Asher, a co-founder of AH Datalytics, a information consulting steadfast that produces an aggregation of transgression data, cautioned that it was excessively aboriginal to analyse precise caller transgression information and to effort to tease retired whether the national government’s actions person had an impact.

The transgression information is “very preliminary,” and it could instrumentality weeks oregon up to 2 months for each the reporting to occur, helium told us. There is immoderate “underreporting of data,” helium said, “when utilizing a earthy dataset similar this.”

The transgression trends successful the metropolis were besides “already going down,” truthful measuring 2 points connected a downward slope volition amusement a decline. According to the preliminary data, determination were 32 less convulsive crimes reported from Aug. 11 to Aug. 26, compared with the anterior 16-day period, a driblet of 28%. The diminution was 48% compared with the aforesaid clip play successful 2024.

But arsenic Asher noted, convulsive transgression successful the metropolis had dropped 34% for the 2 weeks ending June 29, compared with the 2 weeks prior, and was 51% little than the aforesaid play successful 2024. “No involution oregon anything, conscionable randomness disguised arsenic meaning,” helium said. 

That doesn’t mean the national involution successful Washington hasn’t oregon won’t person an impact, but much clip is needed to find that, Asher said. “It’s challenging to spot the effect of an involution adjacent months down the line. Doing it portion it’s occurring … is not powerfully advised.”

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