Recognizing that Adams Morgan has seen an increase in robberies and break-ins, the D.C. mayor is starting a new nightlife task force in the neighborhood to help reduce them.
“As someone who has lived here for 40 years, I have never felt unsafe until my building was broken into,” one woman told Mayor Muriel Bowser following a news conference.
She is one out of a dozen neighbors in Adams Morgan, who applauded when Bowser announced the creation of a nightlife task force.
“Between June and December of last year, we drove down crime in three nightlife corridor areas — on Connecticut Avenue, U Street, as well as H Street Northeast, and saw an overall decrease by 28%,” Bowser said.
It’s part of the reason she wants resources allocated to Adams Morgan.
D.C. police Chief Robert Contee said that his team is “assessing our staffing along with crime trends, utilizing intelligence-led policing, to put our resources in the right places. But even with that, there are people out there who continue to cause harm to our communities; and they need to be held accountable. But we can’t do it alone,” he said, noting the importance the community played in the recent arrests of three men who police have tied to 25 robberies and break-ins around Adams Morgan.
“That video and other information helped us develop leads, build a case and arrest those three people responsible for a crime spree here,” Contee said.
