Last week, my friend came back from his business trip to Washington D.C. As usual, he commented on how unsafe the place is. It wasn't that way ten or fifteen years ago. I have not been to D.C. in a few years but I hear a lot of concern from the people living there. A lady from ABC made that point on the air yesterday:
ABC News anchor Kyra Phillips on Monday recounted a harrowing encounter she had with a “half-dressed” homeless man who mugged her in downtown Washington, DC, as she noted that many in the nation’s capital are experiencing crime “firsthand” despite what official statistics show.
“I can tell you firsthand here in downtown DC where we work, right here around our bureau, just in the past six months, you know, there were two people shot, one person died, literally two blocks down here from the bureau,” Phillips explained.
“It was within the last two years that I actually was jumped walking just two blocks down from here,” she revealed.
“And then, just this morning, one of my co-workers said her car was stolen, a block away from the bureau,” Phillips added.
Trust your eyes or some bureaucratic numbers?
The larger issue is how this plays politically. Once again, President Trump is forcing Democrats to pick between common sense and the woke and they can't help themselves but to pick the latter.
Where is the Democrat who accepts the reality that crime is a problem? Who knows where he or she is, but no one seems eager to say that we should work with President Trump to fix common problems.
This is from Byron York:
The main argument of Trump’s critics is that violent crime in Washington is going down, so there is no reason for Trump to take over the MPD or call in the National Guard or direct federal law enforcement to the city’s streets. It is true that violent crime statistics are going down, although there have been questions about the accuracy of the police department’s crime reporting. But the undeniable fact is that crime is going down from some very high levels during the pandemic. Plus, just because the incidence of a particular crime is down from last year does not mean it is low today.
In any event, crime remains a serious, quality-of-life-changing issue in the district. In 2023, a bad year for crime in the district, there were 40 murders per 100,000 residents. In 2024, that number fell to 27 per 100,000. So is that good? It is certainly a positive thing to have fewer murders, but 27 per 100,000 is still quite a lot. In fact, according to figures compiled by the Rochester Institute of Technology Center for Public Safety Initiatives, the homicide rate of 27 per 100,000 is the fourth-highest among U.S. cities.
In raw numbers from the MPD, the city had 274 murders in 2023, followed by 187 murders in 2024. Now, in 2025, if current trends continue, it appears the district might be headed for around 170 murders. So you can look at it two ways: One, it’s good that murders might go down from 187 last year to 170 this year, or two, 170 murders is still a lot.
Beyond homicide and other violent crime, there’s no doubt that a sense of just-below-the-surface danger and disorder keeps many district residents in a state of unease.
A state of unease? Darn right. Just walk around and tell me if you feel safe. There is more to crime than statistics, especially when a lot of crimes don't get reported or perhaps manipulated, as Professor Turley pointed out:
That question is again at the heart of a debate following the announcement of President Donald Trump that he would be sending the National Guard into Washington and taking temporary control of the D.C. police. In response, Mayor Muriel Bowser and other democrats denounced the plan and claimed that violent crime is at a 30-year low after dropping by 26% so far in 2025.
However, those statistics were recently challenged after a scandal involving allegations of suppressing crime reports to artificially reduce crime rate statistics. The media is reporting the reduction claim despite only recently questioning those statistics.
Whether we question or don't question the statistics, the reality is that the nation's capital is unsafe. Can't the local leadership see that? They probably do, but can't admit it, which would require working together with President Trump. In the meantime, someone is going to get shot in D.C. no matter what the numbers say.
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Image: Tony Webster