D.C. is on the cusp of surpassing last year’s murder rate according to numbers that keep inching upward, very likely leaving a trail of grief in its wake.
According to the direction statistics kept by D.C. police, the homicide rate seems poised to surpass last year’s homicides.
About 10 more murders have already been tallied since the start of this year compared to this time in 2018.
Last year, there were 160 homicides. So far this year, there have been 157.
One of the latest happened Saturday just before 8 p.m. in the 2800 block of Shipley Terrace, Southeast. That shooting took the life of 22-year-old DeAngelo Ross, of Southeast.
Officers responded to the call of a shooting and found Ross, who had been shot multiple times. He was taken to a hospital, where he died.
An Upper Marlboro, Maryland, man was also killed in a shooting in D.C. on Thanksgiving Day. Michael Andre Francis, 28, was fatally wounded around 11:45 a.m.
According to police numbers, assaults without guns are trending downward, while those involving firearms are on the upswing compared to last year.
So far in 2019, there have been 655 assaults involving guns compared with about 579 at this time in 2018.
Arrests made during the Thanksgiving weekend include taking a man into custody on assault charges after he pushed his victim down to the ground, D.C. police said in an email.
The assault happened during an argument in which the suspect also brandished a gun, according to a news release.
While there have been fewer assaults committed with dangerous weapons that are not guns so far this year (799) compared to last year (947), those crimes have been more numerous than those committed with firearms.
