On WAMU's DCentric, Elahe Izadi explores why murder rates have dropped to a 50-year-historic low in D.C. One thing's for sure: It's not due to gentrification.
Since 1990, the percentage of people living in poverty has remained relatively stable or slightly increased in the east of the Anacostia River communities, places which also experienced the biggest recent [...]

The Occupy D.C. movement descended on the Metropolitan Police Department's headquarters Monday afternoon to demand an investigation into an incident Friday night, in which four protesters were struck by cars outside the Walter E. Washington Convention Center while protesting a meeting of Americans for Prosperity.
One of the protesters, Heidi Sippel, told a crowd at a press [...]

Occupy This: Everything was going relatively well between the Occupy D.C. protesters and the various police agencies charged with patrolling downtown D.C.—until, that is, a car hit three protesters Friday night by the convention center, and police declined to charge the driver because he had a green light. In response, Occupiers criticized the Metropolitan Police [...]

The Power Of Pepco: Next time the lights go off during a thunderstorm, and you grumble about the rates you're paying for electricity, just remember they could be higher, if Pepco wasn't getting so much money back from the feds. Turns out the company paid an effective federal tax rate of -57 percent over the [...]

Reagan Airport, District of Reagan, Reagan States of Reagan: The fourth (and final) privately-funded Ronald Reagan statue to mark the 100th anniversary of the president's birth has been placed—this one at Reagan National Airport, where, at nine feet tall, it towers menacingly over passers-by. To commemorate the commemoration, WTOP checked in with travelers at the [...]

Sommer Mathis takes to the pages of the Atlantic Cities to talk about the decline of @dcfireems, the Twitter account for the District's fire department. On the removal of Pete Piringer, the fire department's public information officer, Mathis writes:
The hiring and firing of individual public information officers is the kind of story that only journalists [...]

The Post editorial board weighs in on the practice of arresting those whose license plates have been expired for more than 30 days:
Make no mistake: No one should be driving with expired plates or a lapsed registration. Those who do — whether by oversight or commission — should be penalized. We recognize the legitimate police concern [...]

The pop and crackle and confusion of D.C. police radio chatter this weekend made it apparent that local badges, like most other law enforcement, were doggedly chasing the terrible specter of terrorism because of the tenth anniversary of 9/11. In the wake of a "credible but unconfirmed" warning about al Qaeda detonating car bombs in [...]

The D.C. cop who was just demoted after clashing publicly with Metropolitan Police Department Chief Cathy Lanier, Hilton Burton, says his lawyer is preparing yet another lawsuit against MPD. "They can say what they want," Burton says of getting his career shifted into reverse. "It's a bunch of shit."
Burton already has two civil suits pending against [...]

In D.C. Superior Court on Tuesday, 36 people were scheduled to be arraigned for carrying marijuana. The alleged offenders were collared by police for marijuana possession in the latter half of July and the beginning of August, and faced up to six months in prison time and up to $1,000 in fines. Court records [...]

Despite the fact that, as this week's cover story points out, Metropolitan Police Department Chief Cathy Lanier enjoys widespread popularity among D.C. residents, some cops aren't as adoring. Anti-Lanier police I've talked to say she's too strict of a disciplinarian and that her stringent approach to control was famously showcased in 2000, when she was [...]

Assistant Chief Dianne Groomes was at the center of the allegations that Metropolitan Police Department officers cheated on mandatory exams last year. And now she's got something to say about it: She did it.
Groomes says she tried to help some police brass pass a 50-question test whose deadline was imminent.
That seems to contradict a [...]

A D.C. Office of Inspector General investigation has concluded that the cops who gave Charlie Sheen a police escort through the District didn't screw up.  It's also concluded that it doesn't trust Sheen's Twitter feed.
In a report the OIG said non-dignitary escorts "have been routine for years." In June, two officers who participated in [...]

Always Low Prices On Guns: It turned out Walmart didn't need much of a hard sell to get D.C. government officials to welcome them to town; the only argument the city's really putting up so far is about whether they'll deign to give us four stores, or five, not about whether they'll do things like, [...]

The D.C. police commander who suggested that chauffeuring celebrities like Charlie Sheen around has been "standard operating procedure"  for his department for years says he's in trouble.
Commander Hilton Burton says he's been "ostracized" by other police officials. He also says that, last week, Internal Affairs officers questioned him for a second time regarding Sheen's law [...]