Homicide Watch D.C.

Mayor Vincent Gray and Metropolitan Police Chief Cathy Lanier announced Thursday that the official number of homicides for 2012 is the lowest number since 1961. MPD’s official total is 88 homicides.

That number does not include the four deaths that were ruled self-defense. Homicide Watch D.C. has counted the self-defense cases, bringing the total homicide count to 92, because MPD includes those cases when tallying homicide case closures at the end of the year. The case closure rate for homicides in 2012 was 82 percent.

“While we’re going in the right direction, our goal is to get that number down to zero,” Gray said. “Public safety will remain as one of our top priorities. It has to be.”

Chief Lanier attributed the decrease in homicides, which is a 19 percent reduction from 2011, to the department’s increased focus on gangs and guns, an investment in technology, and the community’s willingness to help the police. Additionally, MPD and other federal and local agencies throughout D.C., Prince Georges County, and Montgomery County have collaborated more in their efforts to reduce crime.

“When we share information, we all succeed,” Deputy Mayor Paul Quander added. “As information comes in, we share it, we spread it out, we make sure we are responsive to all citizens.”
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Judge Herbert Dixon moved forward with Ellsworth Colbert’s trial Wednesday morning, denying a motion to continue the trial and insisting that it go forward as scheduled next week.

Colbert is charged with first-degree murder while armed, assault with intent to kill while armed, and three weapons charges in connection with the stabbing death of Robert Wright.
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In the future, homicides in the District of Columbia will still be investigated by police officers. But when those officers need key tests of evidence like ballistics analysis or DNA samples, they’ll turn to civilians in white lab coats, not their fellow cops.

And all of the city’s testing will take place under a single roof, at the new Consolidated Forensic Laboratory in Southwest D.C.

It’s a fundamental reorganization of the traditional police department, prompted by a 2009 National Academy of Sciences report that called for separating forensic functions from police agencies. D.C. is implementing it by creating the new Department of Forensic Science, whose director, Max Houck, reports directly to Mayor Vincent Gray.
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2013’s first Comment of the Day comes from Tanisha Hayes, who wrote in about Angelo Alphonso Payne. She writes:

I was his neighbor for more than 10 years and I will remember him as a polite, strong but silent type young man. Its a shame, no one deserve to die in the streets like that. I hope they catch whoever did this and they get what they deserve. May he rest in peace. He will be missed, God bless his family.

Today we mark what appears to be a milestone for D.C.: 2012 saw fewer than 100 homicides.

As of Monday morning the homicide count was 92, the lowest annual tally since 1963.

It’s worth noting that MPD’s official tally is 88 homicides. That number does not include four deaths that were ruled self-defense. Homicide Watch D.C. counts those cases because the cause of death listed on the case records is homicide and MPD includes those cases in tallying homicide case closures at the end of the year.
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Metropolitan Police Department Chief Cathy Lanier says things are turning around in the District.

Homicides, which numbered 479 when she joined the department in 1990, are on track for the lowest total since 1963.

Lanier credits the department’s strict enforcement of the city’s gun regulations and greater cooperation with communities affected by violence. She said the department received about 1,830 tips this year compared to just 292 in 2008, when the anonymous tip line first opened. Reward money paid for information about crimes has surged from about $200,000 per year in 2007 to more than $500,000 in 2012, Lanier said.

In an interview with Homicide Watch in her office at MPD headquarters, she said officers were making it harder for residents to carry illegal guns. That’s making it more likely that fights don’t end in fatalities, she said.
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On Wednesday, Dec. 5, psychologist Michele Godwin walked into Albrecht Muth’s room in Ward 9 of Saint Elizabeths Hospital, the District’s public psychiatric unit. Over the previous two days, both of them had sat through roughly 12 hours of testimony in D.C. Superior Court about whether or not Muth is competent to stand trial for murder, and Godwin wanted to know how he felt.

Muth told her that he thought his defense team, who had been arguing that he is not competent to stand trial, were doing a good job. Too good a job, maybe, because they seemed to be effectively arguing that he was incompetent and he disagreed.

Muth, doctors say, is adamant in his assertion that he is mentally competent and that he wishes to represent himself at trial. But he’s just as adamant that he is an East German spy and a brigadier general in the Iraqi Army. The murder of his 91-year-old wife, Viola Drath, for which he has been charged, was an Iranian attempt to assassinate him that went awry, he says.

For much of 2012, Muth’s mental health was the subject of extensive debate. He was found incompetent to proceed with court proceedings five times and spent much of the year either in the hospital or at Saint Elizabeths. Finally, on Dec. 20, Judge Russell Canan ruled that Muth was able to stand trial.

In his decision, Canan called him “eccentric, unique, manipulative, (and) arrogant.”

“The defendant’s conduct has been to create the illusion of a delusion,” Canan said.
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Update: Police have identified the victim as 23-year-old Angelo Alphonso Payne.

A man was shot and killed early this morning in Southeast D.C., the Washington Post reported. The victim has not yet been identified.

Shortly after midnight Sunday, police responded to gunshots in the 3400 block of Croffut Place.

The victim was taken to a hospital where he later died of his injuries.

The shooting was the second homicide in DC within about eight hours. A shooting victim killed Saturday night has not yet been identified.

The MPD press release has been added to this post.
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Update: Police have identified the victim as 22-year-old Darnell Rivers.

The Washington Post reports that a man was shot and killed in Southeast D.C. while driving Saturday night. The man has not yet been publicly identified.

Witnesses reported hearing gunshots before seeing the car jump a curb and crash into a tree a little before 8 p.m. last night in the 5000 block of Ayers Place SE.

The MPD press release has been added to this post. Read more

A yearly review of the Felony 1 calendar has reassigned murder cases in some of DC Superior Court’s busiest courtrooms.

Among the changes, cases assigned to Judge William Jackson will move to Judge John Ramsey Johnson’s calendar and casses assigned to Judge Thomas Motley will move to Judge Herbert Dixon Jr’s calendar.
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