The Press in Washington | Shooting on 7th Street

Every Sunday, our correspondent in Washington tells us a slice of life in American society.

(Washington) My bags left, I started to catch up on the local news. I live in Shaw, a few blocks from Logan Circle, a 30 minute walk north of the White House.

First news on my phone: “Two people were killed and five others injured in a shooting Sunday morning, at the corner of 7^e Rue and Rue P…”

That’s pretty much exactly my address, 7^e and P…

The crime had occurred a week earlier, on the night of St. Patrick’s Day. A group of people were leaving the Play DC bar at closing time, around 3 a.m., when the shots rang out.

I look out the window: the licensed establishment with a dubious reputation is directly opposite.

I talk to Ali about it, who serves huge slices of pizza at Duccini’s, right next door. He shrugs and smiles, “What do you want, it’s DC.”

Same fatalistic response from my neighbor: “It’s DC Shit happens. »

The American capital is no longer the “murder capital,” but gun violence is still a scourge. While in 2023 the United States saw a 13% decrease in the homicide rate (2,000 fewer deaths in the country than in 2022), the District of Columbia experienced its worst year in 25 years. There have been 274 murders in the American capital, which has only 700,000 inhabitants – in comparison, Montreal has deplored around 30 murders per year for 10 years, for a population of 2 million.

Shaw, where I live, had its darkest years in the 1980s and 1990s. Those were the days of crack houses and the sale of dope “in the open”. In those years, the city already had almost 500 murders in one year. Between 1988 and 1997, Washington averaged more than 400 murders per year – up to 482 in 1991.

Since then, the city has become much more peaceful. Several neighborhoods have gentrified. In Shaw, large blocks of new condos have been inserted between triplexes, Victorian or Queen Anne row houses and social housing. But gang wars still cause occasional casualties, precisely in the quadrangle where I am, and where everything is seemingly quiet during the day in these charming streets full of restaurants, cafes and pet supermarkets.

Last year, at midnight on Labor Day, two teenage girls, ages 18 and 19, were killed in a shooting involving 100 bullets on the 7^e at the angle of W. Shots also rang out at the Giant, the local supermarket, where guards are permanently present.

“Twenty years ago it was shootings almost every day, now it’s almost every week, but there’s still a lot to do,” city councilor Alexander Padro told a local TV station. He was woken up by the first gunshots on March 17 – we might as well say we’re neighbors.

At the district council, the representative of the metropolitan police was told “I’m tired of being fed up” by a citizen. The exasperation of some traders is also reaching new heights. Many are calling for the Play DC bar to be closed – another murder took place there, this time inside, last summer.

The city responded to the sudden increase in gun violence (71 more murders over a year) with “Secure DC”, a regulation adopted last month that provides harsher penalties for a range of minor crimes and the creation of “drug-free zones”, which is enough to raise eyebrows in this student town where a scent of jar (decriminalized) fills several neighborhoods.

For the first three months of the year, we observed a relative decrease in the city (43 homicides compared to 60 on the same date). But isolating three months of statistics is very misleading, and, in any case, even at 43 murders per quarter, the police will remain overwhelmed.

Which brings us to another problem, which affects the entire United States: the declining rate of solving homicides.

In Washington, this rate has fallen below 50% for two years, which is already a very low bar. Homicide is historically the crime with the highest clearance rate. But the success of investigations has steadily declined over the past 60 years. This is also true in Canada, although resolution rates in cities like Montreal and Toronto regularly vary between 67% and 80%.

Why is the resolution rate declining particularly in the United States?

Thomas Hargrove, a former journalist, created a national homicide database.

“There are several reasons for this, but clearly there is a lack of resources in the police,” the founder of the Murder Accountability Project, which created an algorithm to identify the actions of serial killers, told me.

“All police forces are struggling to recruit. There is a lack of detectives, patrol officers, technicians and laboratories. »

An even more disturbing fact is hidden in the general statistic: “100% of the decline in the clearance rate of homicides is driven by African-American victims,” says Thomas Hargrove. For the rest of the US population, the resolution rate has been stable over the past few decades or has improved slightly.

For what ? “It’s complicated,” says the analyst, according to whom detectives put just as much energy into solving all the murders. Note that 55% of murder victims in the United States are black.

“Clearly, the relationship between black communities and police across the United States has deteriorated dramatically since the death of George Floyd [survenue après qu’un policier l’eut asphyxié en restant agenouillé sur son cou pendant près de 10 minutes], which was only one case among a hundred similar cases. Distrust has set in and the police are often seen as the enemy, not the ally. » This makes prevention and investigations more difficult, he says.

More generally, he said, “it’s shocking how detectives lack tools. Normally, an investigator should not work on more than 4 or 5 cases per year. Most are now overwhelmed. »

I wrote to the DC police to ask if there was anything new in the shooting at my neighbors’ house across the street.

“Our homicide bureau is actively investigating the case. No arrests have been made. »

We are looking for a black Infiniti seen on surveillance cameras.

The morning of the shooting, once the crime scene technicians left, the firefighters hosed down the sidewalk and everything returned to normal.