December 13, 2004 - Editorial - The public needs to know

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EDITORIAL
The public needs to know
(Published December 13, 2004)

As year's end approaches, the public can expect to hear a crescendo of trumpeting from Metropolitan Police Chief Charles Ramsey as his department continues its monthly drumming about crime going down in the nation's capital.

Through the first 11 months of 2004, reports of "serious" crime in the District of Columbia – felonies that must be reported as part of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Uniform Crime Reporting Program – dropped 11.6 percent compared with the same period a year ago.

Among the most highly publicized numbers, homicide in the District is down this year. Forty-two fewer people were murdered from Jan. 1 through Nov. 30 in 2004 compared with 2003. That's 184 people who have lost their lives this year as a result of being shot, stabbed or otherwise fatally harmed at the hands of others.

While the decline is good news, numbers alone fail to tell the whole story. Far too many people are still dying in a city once notorious as America's "murder capital," even though the city's most-talked-about crime is one of the least frequently occurring (only arson occurs less often).

For years, there's been a preoccupation with the District's homicide rate, while the sorts of "lesser" crimes that overall have a greater impact on people's lives have been virtually ignored.

That would be the 7,364 cars reported stolen so far this year in the District, or the other 6,749 vehicles that thieves have broken into. It includes 7,230 thefts not related to vehicles, from felony shoplifting to stealing a momentarily unattended laptop or purse. And the 4,118 D.C. homes and businesses that have been violated by burglars. Then there are the 3,520 robberies that run the gamut from bank stickups to street muggings to holdups of mom-and-pop stores – during which physical injury often occurs. And 3,252 assaults with deadly weapons have left hundreds of victims with permanent scars.

We don't hear enough from local authorities about those crimes. It took police almost two months, and not until a third gunpoint robbery occurred on Nov. 30, to tell the public that since early October, people had been getting held up near elevators inside Northwest Washington hotels. And there were no official announcements about the intentionally set midday fire on Nov. 23 at Patricia Roberts Harris Educational Center, which spread to carpets, walls and a ceiling at the Livingston Road SE school. Or about the two people armed with a gun who on Dec. 2 accosted a 34-year-old woman inside Mildred Green Elementary School on Mississippi Avenue SE.

Last month, burglaries went up 61 percent in the Fifth Police District and 55.6 percent in the First District compared with November 2003. Robberies increased 73.6 percent in the Fourth District and auto theft increased 32.1 percent in the Third District. Assaults rose 66.7 percent in the Second District and 37.5 percent in the Sixth District, where robberies also went up 20.5 percent. Arson increased 300 percent in the Seventh District. But overall, crime went down.

Preventing crime is supposed to be a major part of policing. But it's hard for the public to stand guard against crime or demand changes in public policy related to crime when people aren't told what's happening in a timely manner.