With two killed in D.C. Friday night, homicide tally matches all of 2014’s
Sharon Johnson, mother of homicide victim Omoni Johnson, is comforted by family and friends as she sits in the spot on the 4900 block of B St. SE where her son was shot Friday evening. (Amanda Voisard/For The Washington Post) (Amanda Voisard/For The Washington Post)
By John Woodrow Cox and Michael Smith August 29 at 9:35 PM
Despite a show of police force designed to curb a surge in violence, the nation’s capital reached a disturbing milestone Friday night when a rash of gunfire pushed this year’s homicide count to 105 — already equaling 2014’s total.
Two men died and eight people were wounded overnight, even as hundreds of police officers flooded Washington’s streets in an “all hands on deck” strategy meant to make this rattled city feel safer. Amid Twitter alerts about the spate of seven shootings, D.C. police were also posting photos of illegal guns they had seized. On Saturday, they announced that they had recovered nine weapons and made the same number of arrests.
The onslaught began just one day after Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) detailed her $15 million “Safer, Stronger DC” response to the spike in killings. Protesters angry about how the city has handled the rise in crime disrupted her announcement with chants of “Black lives matter!”
During the most serious incident Friday night, in Southeast Washington, witnesses estimated that at least 15 shots were fired.
Omoni Johnson, 26, who lived in Northeast, died about 11:45 p.m., police said. Shaheed James, 21, who lived in Clinton, Md., was taken to a hospital, where he also died. A third man, whom police have not identified, was wounded.
Mapping homicides in the District and the surrounding suburbs since 2000. View Graphic
Johnson’s mother, Sharon, questioned D.C. officials’ efforts to make the city safer.
“It’s supposed to be ‘all hands on deck,’ and they let something like this go on?” said a distraught Johnson, 63. “How can something like this happen?”
On Twitter on Saturday, D.C. Council member Kenyan R. McDuffie (D-Ward 5) called the mayhem a “crisis.”
“We need to treat this violence — particularly the homicides, like a health epidemic,” he wrote.
What has triggered the surge — which has taken lives across the District — remains mystifying. City officials have offered an array of explanations, including the increased circulation of illegal guns and the growing use of synthetic drugs.
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Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier has offered other possible reasons, including repeat violent offenders being involved in new crimes. On Friday, just hours before the chaos began, Lanier said in an interview with WAMU (88.5 FM), “We’re seeing a dramatically increasing number of people who are out on community release, under supervision, that have long, violent histories who are continuing to commit crime.”
Lanier and Bowser did not respond to requests for comment Saturday.
The mayor has proposed keeping a sustained police presence in the “hardest-hit areas” until the upheaval subsides, increasing penalties for those who commit crimes in certain public spaces and expanding law enforcement’s ability to supervise people on parole or probation.
The plan has encountered resistance both from activists and from the city’s police union, which this past week posted an anonymous online poll that asks its members whether they have confidence in Lanier’s ability to manage the department. They plan to tally the results Sunday.
Union leader Delroy Burton said he thinks that a number of factors have precipitated the rise in homicides. Burton, who estimated that about 3,000 officers would work this weekend, said he believes that the nationwide scrutiny of police shootings has made officers less assertive — the “Ferguson effect,” as it is known.
“The bad guys are emboldened,” he said, “because the officers are hesitant.”
He and other union members also insist that the police force is understaffed, and they have repeatedly criticized Lanier for eliminating plainclothes operations that police once used to monitor outdoor drug sales, which have declined.
Severing that connection to the streets, Burton said, has made it more difficult to gather information that could prevent violence.
The chief has dismissed his assertion, noting that the increase in violence started before she made the change and that many of this year’s homicides have had nothing to do with drugs.
Among those killed: Charnice Milton, a 27-year-old community journalist who was shot in Southeast in May as she was returning home from covering a community meeting at Eastern Market; Tamara Gliss, a 31-year-old mother who was shot during a Memorial Day cookout in Shaw; and Shaun Simmons, an 18-year-old who was about to start his senior year at Ballou High School when he was shot Aug. 1 in Congress Heights.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/gunfire-erupts-all-over-district-friday-night-as-police-step-up-patrols/2015/08/29/8a623eb8-4e05-11e5-bfb9-9736d04fc8e4_story.html
