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Why have murders spiked by nearly 50 percent in the nation’s capital?

Metropolitan Police Department union says there aren’t enough officers on the street

October 27, 2015 5:00PM ET

by Lisa Fletcher @lisa_fletch & Saundra Young

WASHINGTON, D.C. – On Aug. 30, 2015, 13-year-old Taije Chambliss came face to face with the violence. While she and two other children were sitting on their front porch, a car pulled up and gunfire erupted.

The kids hit the ground. Taije covered her 8-year-old friend with her own body to protect her.

“I felt [the bullet], but it didn’t hurt until a long time after,” Taije said, sitting across the street from the scene of the crime.

Taije was shot twice – once in each leg. One of the bullets went completely through her limb, while the other remains buried in her thigh – too dangerous, doctors say, to try to remove.

Washington, D.C., is home to some of the country’s "most secure” neighborhoods: the U.S. Capitol, the National Mall and the White House, among others. But this year, proximity to power offers little protection.

So far this year, there have been 124 homicides citywide – up 44 percent over the same period last year.

The pain cuts across lines of race and economic status, and the frustration is shared by citizens and the police.

In some high-poverty neighborhoods in Washington, D.C., such as Wards 7 and 8 and the Seventh District, homicides have doubled this year, according to Greggory Pemberton, a violent crimes detective.

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Violent Crimes Detective Greggory Pemberton, who has spent more than a decade on the force, says there simply are not enough officers on the street. According to the MPD Police Union, 3,500 police officers tasked with policing a city of more than 650,000.

“I don't think there's any question given the number of people that I've arrested and spoken to, who've been willing to talk to the police, who've said, ‘Hey, we know that there's not as many police out there. We know there's no vice out there,’” he said. “So we're seeing a proliferation of guns and gun related violence because there's just not enough police out there. And the police that are out there are being deployed in a fashion that's not effective.”

Pemberton says homicides have doubled in some high-poverty neighborhoods, such as Wards 7 and 8 and the Seventh District.

And some of the more gentrified and affluent areas of the city are starting to feel the heat, with many rank-and-file police blaming the top brass.

Just days before Taije was shot, about 1,100 D.C. officers voted in a union survey that they had "no confidence in Chief Cathy Lanier's leadership.” Pemberton says only 28 of the officers surveyed supported her.

Pemberton says Lanier has been grasping at explanations, blaming everything from recidivism by ex-felons to gambling to high-capacity magazines and synthetic marijuana.

"Our leadership has decided that we'll sacrifice the crime spike in an effort to avoid any bad publicity," Pemberton said.

Interview requests made to both Lanier and Mayor Muriel Bowser, who has backed the chief's positions, were declined.

Our leadership has decided that we'll sacrifice the crime spike in an effort to avoid any bad publicity.

Greggory Pemberton

violent crimes detective

While the dramatic rise in the murder rate reflects poorly on the city, experts who take a long view warn against reading too much into a single year.

In Washington, D.C., there have been 124 homicides citywide this year – up 44 percent over the same period last year.

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A recent study by the Urban Institute found that violent crime has dropped dramatically over the last 20 years. The drop has happened not just in Washington, but also in other cities that have seen rapid crime spikes.

Criminologist Sam Beiler, the study's author, told America Tonight that the long-term positive trend can make short-term problems look worse than they are – and that Washington is nowhere near the crime trend of the ‘90s, when D.C. hovered around 500 murders in just one year.

Still, that brings little solace to 13-year-old Taije, who still fights nightmares about the innocent summer evening on her porch. She’s already spoken out at a community meeting about the escalating violence, and plans to do whatever she can, she says, to keep this from happening to anyone else. But she knows she’s just one person and says she hopes the people who are in a position to do something about the crime spike do it, and do it fast.

“I have no peace,” she said. “There is no peace in this community.”