DC police chief marks 203 homicides in 2022, shares policing strategies – WTOP News

For D.C. police, 2022 ended with the lack of greater than 200 individuals to violent crimes. A quantity that police chief Robert Contee stated is “one crime too many” regardless of “an total lower in crime in 2022.”

“Final yr, 203 individuals misplaced their lives to mindless violence in our metropolis. That’s 203 too many, interval,” Contee wrote in a message to the group Sunday. “Again and again, we see individuals turning to unlawful weapons to commit acts of violence. It’s fully unacceptable, and it should cease now.”

Contee additionally famous a roughly 7% discount in violent crimes from the earlier yr whereas acknowledging that these statistics don’t consolation victims’ households.

“It’s as much as all of us, as we begin 2023, to do every part in our energy to proceed the downward development of violence within the District of Columbia,” Contee wrote.

The chief added that the yr additionally marked a document variety of unlawful weapons retrievals, the continued use of “an intelligence-led policing technique,” and a give attention to group policing. Contee stated these instruments don’t match as much as the ability of the group in serving to resolve violent crimes.

“All of us have the chance to proceed the downward development of crime in our neighborhoods and maintain individuals accountable,” Contee stated.

Contee’s message comes after a yr of a disconcerting feeling throughout the District that he stated “scares the hell out of individuals.”

“It’s the sensation that individuals have of being unsafe, and that must be acknowledged,” Contee stated in October.

It additionally follows a yr brimming with controversies for D.C. police and officers throughout the nation, together with the revelation that greater than $91 million {dollars} had been paid to settle police misconduct circumstances within the District, Fairfax County and Prince George’s County mixed.

D.C. police spent the earliest components of the yr navigating criticisms, together with a steep racial divide in reported use of pressure by its officers, a lawsuit alleging that the Metropolitan Police Division maintained a watchlist of its critics, and an investigation of the police union’s vice chair for an alleged misdemeanor intercourse abuse cost months earlier than the District agreed to a brand new labor settlement.

Particular person officers additionally remained mired in controversy all year long, some for violent crimes of their very own.

Officers Terence Sutton and Andrew Zabavsky have been discovered responsible in December for the demise of 20-year-old Karon Hylton-Brown, who was hit and killed throughout a police chase in 2020

However, police union representatives have blamed the greater than 200 homicides in 2022 on the D.C. Council, claiming that the legislators had some accountability for the variety of violent crimes. Union Chair Gregg Pemberton advised WTOP that the measures handed over the earlier years restricted stops based mostly on cheap suspicion or positioned a heavy quantity of labor and legal responsibility on officers, discouraging them from doing their jobs.

“The message that’s obtained by the rank and file police officer is that the town doesn’t need them partaking in … accountable, proactive police work. They need them sitting of their vehicles, sitting on the nook, and simply telling residents that they’re round,” Pemberton stated, including that it led to the violence.

Some measures handed embrace the requirement that D.C. police be recognized and physique digital camera footage launched in the event that they use lethal pressure within the wake of George Floyd’s homicide.

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