The report – “Bias at the Core? Enduring Racial Disparities in D.C. Metropolitan Police Department Stop-and-Frisk Practices” – accuses the department of discriminatory practices, saying Black people in the District are overwhelmingly more likely to be searched.

As part of a D.C. law passed in 2016, the Metropolitan Police Department is required to collect data around how often it conducts stop-and-frisk searches. This is the third time the ACLU-DC has analyzed that data, which it says shows D.C. police is moving in the wrong direction on this and the searches do more harm than good for both police and the community.

“There is a power dynamic at play, even if you know you weren’t doing anything at all. The fact that a police officer is approaching you can be very nerve-racking,” said ACLU-DC Policy Advocacy Director Scarlett Aldebot.

According to the report, in 2022, 68,244 people were stopped, resulting in less than 1% of guns being seized.

Last year, there was an increase, with 68,561 people stopped and searched with 1.2% ending with a gun recovery.

“When you really look at the harm of the practice on an individual and on communities and you look at what we’re actually generating from those stops, we find that that doesn’t outweigh the rationale for these stops or the manner in which they’re being conducted,” Aldebot told the I-Team.

The report found that most of the stops occurred in D.C.’s predominantly Black Wards of 7 and 8, although the practice happens throughout the city.

According to the data, Black people were stopped more than anyone. “We are at a place where I think we could call it a pattern. It’s pretty egregious,” said Aldebot.

In 2023, Black people made up 44% of the city’s population, but accounted for 70.6% of stops. White people represented almost 40%, with less than 12% of stops. Hispanic people made up 7.3% of stops, while making up 11.5% of the population.

“If you really want to think of that, just kind of in a in a patterned way, that is one Black person stopped every ten minutes for those two years,” said Aldebot.

“Twenty-three percent of the stops, or close to 16,000 of them, resulted in an arrest,” a D.C. police spokesperson told News4.

It’s unclear how many of those ended with a conviction.

Monday night, a D.C. police spokesperson responded to the ACLU report, telling the I-Team:

“The Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) continues its commitment to transparency by publishing comprehensive stop data twice a year, which supports the work of partners such as the ACLU in studying this data. However, it would be helpful for the public if descriptions about the data were also transparent. For example, whereas the ACLU gives the impression that all of the 68,940 stops in 2023 were “stops and frisks,” this is not at all accurate. Of the almost 69,000 stops, only 4,471 (less than 7%) included a protective pat down, sometimes called a frisk. Only 1% include a consent search. More broadly:

• The stops had a clear purpose. Almost 4 of every 5 stops resulted in enforcement action, either a ticket (58%) or an arrest (23%). The rest ended with investigation or other public safety response, such as mediating a dispute, educating a violator, or referral to services.
• The stops included many people traveling in or through the District. Sixty percent of the stops were traffic stops. Only 30% of the vehicles stopped and issued tickets for traffic violations were registered in the District; 70% were registered in another state.
• Most stops were resolved without any physical contact between the officer and the person stopped or his or her property. Only 10% of stops involved a protective pat down or a pre-arrest search of either a person or property.
• MPD stops play a vital role in supporting Vision Zero and making our streets safe for all users. Fifty-eight percent of all stops result in a ticket. Of these, almost one-third of the tickets were warning tickets. Eleven percent of arrests include a charge for a criminal traffic violation.
• Most stops are for traffic violations and have nothing to do with gun or gun crimes, but some stops help remove a significant number of guns from our neighborhoods. In 2023,MPD officers were able to remove 2,057 guns—64% of all guns recovered—from DC streets as a result of police stops.^[1]
• Most stops are brief. More than three out of four were resolved in about 15 minutes; 86% lasted 30 minutes or less.

The Department is committed to fair, professional, and constitutional policing in all aspects of its work as it strives to safeguard people and property in the District of Columbia. The Department works continuously to strengthen its service to the city. In the past year, the Department has focused on providing updated and comprehensive training for all its officers on the Fourth Amendment, including 10 hours of online and classroom training developed in partnership with the US Attorney for the District of Columbia. The Department is also supporting an independent study on Equity in Traffic Stops conducted by the University of Connecticut Institute for Municipal and Regional Policy. Researchers regularly stress that disparities, in and of themselves, are not sufficient evidence of racial profiling. We expect this study to be available in Fiscal Year 2025.

 ^[1] The stop data only indicates that one or more guns was recovered. It does not indicate how many guns were recovered. This comes from another data system.“

The ACLU-DC argues the practice is ineffective and has a chilling effect that harms police relations with the community.

“Communities are less likely to call the police when there is something harmful going on – even if they themselves are experiencing a harm – because of that lack of trust that bias policing can engender in people,” said Aldebot. “We have to really ask ourselves what practices are making us safer and which practices are not.”

Reported by Tracee Wilkins, produced by Rick Yarborough, shot by BJ Forte and edited by Steve Jones.

Justin Robinson, 26, worked as a violence interrupter in the District.

Police say he was sitting unresponsive in a car with a gun outside the McDonald’s on Marion Barry Avenue SE prior to the shooting. His death sparked protests in the District after police’s body-worn camera video was released.

Robinson’s family members, along with their legal team stood, in front of the DOJ building in downtown D.C. on Monday, calling on the department to open a civil investigation into the deadly police shooting.

“When Justin’s life was taken away, so many opportunities were taken away. So many hearts are broken,” his sister, Tralicia Robinson, said.

Body-camera video released by D.C. police shows officers approach Robinson’s car on Sept. 1. They had their guns drawn, and one of the officers was carrying a ballistic shield.

Metropolitan Police Department (DC Police / MPD) Sep 10

Family calls for justice after DC man is shot by police

Metropolitan Police Department (DC Police / MPD) Sep 3

DC violence interrupter shot and killed by police in Southeast

Then, it appears that Robinson started to wake up. Police say Robinson had a gun in his lap and reached for one of the officers’ guns. One officer fired 10 times; another officer fired once.

Lawyers for the family argue that more should have been done by police to try to de-escalate the situation.

“If this was a young man with blonde hair and a much lighter skin hue in a McDonald’s drive-through in Georgetown, with a Georgetown hoodie on and a Prius with Virginia license plates, they would have mediated,” family attorney Jade E. Mathis said. “They would have mediated.”

Holding back tears, Robinson’s mother, Alicia, spoke about how she wants him to be remembered. She says he was passionate about his work in trying to make D.C. safer.

“He had the most beautiful smile. He would light up a room,” Alicia Robinson said. “If you were having a bad day, he would come and make you feel better.”

D.C. police tell News4 the incident is being reviewed the U.S. Attorney’s Office and is being investigated by their internal affairs division. Police say they have no comment on calls for the DOJ to investigate.

In a statement, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said Monday: “The U.S. Attorney’s Office and the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division is aware of the circumstances surrounding the tragic shooting of Justin Robinson. If evidence reveals potential violations of federal criminal statutes, the Justice Department will take appropriate action.”

News4 reached out to the Department of Justice for comment. The U.S. Attorney’s Office sent us back a statement in which they said the DOJ would take appropriate action if evidence revealed potential violations of federal criminal statutes.

Her devastated family is asking for help as police attempt to identify the driver of the car.

Pippen’s aunt, Tracy Jackson, sat in the living room of her Fort Washington home on Friday and described the pain of losing her sister’s daughter. Her niece.

“Loved to joke, loved to dance, loved to have fun. She loved her family. She would be in tears each time she saw us, no matter how many times she had seen us,” Jackson said. “She was just a loving person. You know, you hear people say that all the time, too, but she really, really was, and she is going to be missed. Truly missed.”

Pippen, known as “Mocha,” was a fixture along Minnesota Avenue NE, where she would sell her oils. But just before 10 p.m. on Aug. 20, Pippen went to cross Minnesota near Benning Road when she was hit by the driver of a stolen car.

Police say that car has been recovered, but they have not identified the driver.

Jackson says the lead investigator has told her the car stopped a few blocks away and four people jumped out.

“Besides the guys jumping out of the car and running, they said they had footage of not only the accident, but of them leaving the vehicle,” Jackson said. “They said the vehicle was stolen. They were trying to cover their face [from] the police cameras, their cameras, the street cameras, so they were trying to hide their identities.”

Jackson said that by sharing her niece’s story, someone reading or watching will come forward with information. So far, she says, D.C. police have told her no one has come forward.

“She was a giver, you know, not a user, and I love that she gave us that experience as a family to be able to know her for as long as we have,” Jackson said. “… We have memories but we were also robbed of some as well.”

News4 asked D.C. police to release the video in hopes it would aid in the investigation, but they have so far not made it public.

If you know anything that might help the investigation, you are urged to call D.C. police.

After an emotional three-day hearing in federal court, a judge sentenced Officer Terrence Sutton to 5 1/2 years in prison for the 2020 death of Karon Hylton-Brown. Sutton was convicted in 2022 of second-degree murder, conspiracy to obstruct and obstruction of justice.

Sutton was the first D.C. officer to be convicted of murder in the line of duty.

Lt. Andrew Zabavsky was sentenced to four years after his 2022 conviction for conspiracy to obstruct and obstruction of justice.

The officers will appeal and were allowed to go home on Thursday. U.S. Marshals had them escorted out through a back entrance, out of fear for their safety.

Sutton’s attorney criticized the sentence.

“This is the most unjust prosecution and sentence that I have ever experienced, and I have always respected this judge. But I’m deeply disappointed,” Candace Hernandez said.

The mother of Hylton-Brown’s child, Amaala Jones-Bey, said she was happy the judge had “an unbiased opinion through the whole trial.”

A moped ride ended in a deadly crash

Sutton started pursuing Karon Hylton-Brown, who was riding a moped on the sidewalk in the Brightwood Park area of Northwest D.C. on Oct. 23, 2020. Sutton chased Hylton-Brown for several minutes, until the moped rider exited an alley and was hit by an oncoming driver.

Hylton-Brown suffered severe head trauma and died in a hospital two days later. He was the father of an infant.

His death sparked protests, including outside the Fourth District police station.

The U.S. Attorney for D.C. says Sutton and Zabavsky failed to preserve the crash scene for investigators and turned off their body cameras.

“As Mr. Hylton-Brown lay unconscious in the street in a pool of his own blood, Sutton and Zabavsky agreed to cover up what Sutton had done to prevent any further investigation of the incident,” the office said in a statement.

Karon Hylton-Brown Dec 21, 2022

DC Police Officers Found Guilty in Karon Hylton-Brown's Death

Karon Hylton-Brown Oct 26, 2021

Mother of Karon Hylton-Brown Reflects on Indictment of Officers in Her Son's Death

Northwest DC Dec 7, 2023

Mother of man killed in DC police chase not guilty of assaulting US marshal in court

At the police station, the officers denied that a chase occurred, falsely implied that Hylton-Brown was drunk and downplayed his injuries, prosecutors said.

The judge said that with the sentences, he wanted to send a message about the officers’ behavior and the cover-up that followed.

In court, Sutton said he was sorry for the loss of Hylton-Brown. Zabavsky directly addressed the victim’s family and apologized. He went on to speak about his need to care for his mother, who he said has dementia.

The officers’ appeals are expected to be filed in the coming days. An attorney for the mother of Hylton-Brown’s child said he will file a civil suit against the Metropolitan Police Department.

Stay with NBC Washington for more details on this developing story.

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David died in August after a gun he was trying to recover from a storm drain went off. He was 52.

David is set to receive full line-of-duty death honors in his procession.

It’s expected to go from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m., taking the Beltway inbound to Route 50 and passing the police’s Violent Crime Suppression Division on New York Avenue. Then, it’s set to turn right onto Bladensburg Road to Fort Lincoln Cemetery. Drivers should expect extra traffic during the procession.

‘This wasn’t just a job’: Officer David remembered fondly

Since 2007, David worked as a crime scene search officer, recovering illegal guns across the city.

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said he took hundreds of weapons off the streets and called him a good man that many people looked up to.

Bowser and D.C. police chief Pamela Smith are scheduled to speak at David’s funeral at Ebenezer AME Church in Fort Washington, before the procession.

At David’s church, National Community Church in Southeast D.C., he was remembered as a man with a big heart and a big smile who loved to give back.

As a member of the congregation, he also provided security for the church.

“Very easy to talk to, very easy to engage and a non-threatening presence, in spite of the badge, in spite of having all the regalia,” Pastor Ernest Clover said.

“Officer David was the epitome of community policing,” a fellow officer wrote on Facebook. “He regularly worked overtime at the Metro stations and would challenge high school students with trivia before they could pass, just to make sure they were keeping up with their studies.”

Metro recently honored David for helping disarm a woman who was threatening officers with a knife at the Fort Totten station.

“For him this wasn’t just a job,” Executive Assistant Chief of Police Jeffrey Carroll said. “Every day he went out, he engaged the kids that were out there, trying to put them on the right path. Talking to people, making sure they were doing the right things.”

The man accused of dumping the gun that killed David turned himself into police custody. He was charged with carrying a pistol without a license.

There were character witnesses for the defendants and victim impact statements in court Wednesday.

This all began in October 2020, when Officer Terence Sutton started pursuing 20-year-old Karon Hylton-Brown.

Hylton-Brown was on a moped, crashed into a vehicle and died.

Sutton was convicted of second-degree murder in 2022. Sutton and his supervising officer, Lt. Andrew Zabavsky, were both convicted of obstruction of justice.

Karon Hylton-Brown Dec 21, 2022

DC Police Officers Found Guilty in Karon Hylton-Brown's Death

Karon Hylton-Brown Oct 26, 2021

Mother of Karon Hylton-Brown Reflects on Indictment of Officers in Her Son's Death

Northwest DC Dec 7, 2023

Mother of man killed in DC police chase not guilty of assaulting US marshal in court

News4 sends breaking news stories by email. Go here to sign up to get breaking news alerts in your inbox.

They are set to be sentenced Thursday. The judge said will not hand down the lengthy prison sentences prosecutors are pushing for.

Surveillance video and police body camera video on Oct. 23, 2020, showed the 3-1/2-minute chase up and down a neighborhood street. The chase ended when Hylton-Brown ran into an oncoming vehicle and was killed. His death sparked a protest that turned violent outside the Fourth District police station.

Sutton is the first D.C. officer convicted of murder in the line of duty.

D.C. police say he was unconscious in a car that had crashed into the McDonald’s on Marion Barry Avenue SE.

Police just released the body camera footage Monday night.

For several minutes, officers can be seen trying to figure out what to do. D.C. police said Robinson was unresponsive in his car with a gun in his lap.

The video shows officers moving their cars to block him in, with one officer giving instructions to the others. They approach the car with guns drawn, one officer carrying a shield.

That’s when it appears Robinson starts to wake up.

“I don’t think there was any effort to de-escalate the situation,” said Brandon Burrell, the attorney for Robinson’s family.

He says the officer shouldn’t have put a gun through the window and believes that Robinson was only trying to move the gun out of his face.

“I think that would be a natural inclination for anyone who’s woken up out of their sleep, surrounded by multiple officers, firearms pointed at you,” Burrell said.

One former police officer says he believes Robinson was trying to take the gun but that the officers could have taken steps to avoid the situation.

“From my vantage point, the officers were justified in using force, but then the question on the back end will be, did they need to get that close from the onset of it?” said TJ Smith, a former Anne Arundel County police commander.

Smith says the officers could have approached it as a barricade and brought in negotiators to talk to Robinson.

“If you startle them with a weapon out, it’s tunnel vision kicking in where they’re not even looking at you as a police officer; they’re perceiving you as a threat,” he said.

Robinson worked as a violence interrupter in D.C. His family’s attorney says they believe the city is liable for his death.

“He definitely meant a lot to his family,” Burrell said. “They’re distraught about what happened. They’re preparing to bury their family member.”

Both officers who fired their guns are on routine paid administrative leave.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office is now reviewing the matter to determine if charges should be filed.

The internal affairs division of D.C police will also conduct an investigation after the U.S. Attorney’s Office reports its findings.

The Robinson family’s attorney says they’d like to see what the autopsy report says, but they’ve been told it won’t be ready until December.

The five people in custody are facing charges including burglary and fleeing from law enforcement.

In the statement, police said that several areas in D.C. were affected in City Center, Georgetown, H Street, Logan Circle and Columbia Heights.

Video shows several police cars lined up along the streets of City Center and a helicopter above them searching the area.

Police are investigating six burglaries and six destruction of property offenses.

As a result of the burglaries and property damage, D.C. police will increase their presence across D.C.

Metropolitan Police Department (DC Police / MPD) Sep 9

DC police release body camera video of shooting of Justin Robinson

Northern Virginia Sep 9

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The women, who said they were roommates, told the court they heard screaming outside their apartment along Georgia Avenue NW the morning of Oct. 17, 2023 before finding 64-year-old Reggie Brown bloodied and beaten in an alleyway.

After hearing the screams, they said went out to the balcony of their apartment to investigate and saw a body lying in the alley.

One of the women said she was trained in first aid so, after calling 911, they went down to see if they could help.

“We heard screaming. … looked like they jumped him … We are right by him. He is not responding. … There is blood under his body and around his head,” one of the witnesses said in a second call to 911.

Brown’s siblings have attended the trial being held in D.C.’s juvenile court.

“Unfortunately, he passed and whatever she was able to do, it didn’t work out for him and he’s no longer with us, and it breaks my heart,” Brown’s sister Malda Brown said outside the courthouse. “What I want to say today – I thank God that those two young ladies who came forth who was able to call an ambulance to let them know there was somebody out there.”

Two girls, ages 13 and 14, who were charged with murder in the case were in court Friday. In all, five girls have been charged in connection to the beating. A man involved in the attack has still not been identified.

The attack was caught on surveillance video as well as cellphone video.

Earlier this year, a detective testified that video shows the girls walking away in a “celebratory” mood.

First, the man who would attack Brown “escorted” him across Georgia Avenue, Detective Harry Singleton previously testified. The man was wearing a blue coat.

According to what was caught on numerous cameras in the area, the man was the first person to assault Brown. He threw him against a wall and knocked him to the ground, the detective testified.

A prosecutor played several videos that showed a group of girls walking on Georgia Avenue. One girl asked the man if she could “fight him too.”

Videos show Brown managing to get up and try to get away.

Gun violence Mar 29

Girls, 12 and 13, accused of beating 64-year-old man to death along DC's Georgia Avenue

Washington DC Mar 29

Girl shot on while inside home on Peabody Street NW in DC, police say

The girls kicked and stomped on Brown and then left in a “celebratory” mood, cellphone video from a girl who was not charged showed, the detective said.

When officers arrived at the 6200 block of Georgia Avenue, near Rittenhouse Street, Brown was dead.

There’s no indication that Brown knew the girls, the detective testified.

Singleton described a monthslong investigation, with detectives reviewing videos frame by frame to try to identify the attackers.

Brown was described as being physically handicapped, with missing fingers on each hand and ongoing ailments.

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The report – “Bias at the Core? Enduring Racial Disparities in D.C. Metropolitan Police Department Stop-and-Frisk Practices” – accuses the department of discriminatory practices, saying Black people in the District are overwhelmingly more likely to be searched.

As part of a D.C. law passed in 2016, the Metropolitan Police Department is required to collect data around how often it conducts stop-and-frisk searches. This is the third time the ACLU-DC has analyzed that data, which it says shows D.C. police is moving in the wrong direction on this and the searches do more harm than good for both police and the community.

“There is a power dynamic at play, even if you know you weren’t doing anything at all. The fact that a police officer is approaching you can be very nerve-racking,” said ACLU-DC Policy Advocacy Director Scarlett Aldebot.

According to the report, in 2022, 68,244 people were stopped, resulting in less than 1% of guns being seized.

Last year, there was an increase, with 68,561 people stopped and searched with 1.2% ending with a gun recovery.

“When you really look at the harm of the practice on an individual and on communities and you look at what we’re actually generating from those stops, we find that that doesn’t outweigh the rationale for these stops or the manner in which they’re being conducted,” Aldebot told the I-Team.

The report found that most of the stops occurred in D.C.’s predominantly Black Wards of 7 and 8, although the practice happens throughout the city.

According to the data, Black people were stopped more than anyone. “We are at a place where I think we could call it a pattern. It’s pretty egregious,” said Aldebot.

In 2023, Black people made up 44% of the city’s population, but accounted for 70.6% of stops. White people represented almost 40%, with less than 12% of stops. Hispanic people made up 7.3% of stops, while making up 11.5% of the population.

“If you really want to think of that, just kind of in a in a patterned way, that is one Black person stopped every ten minutes for those two years,” said Aldebot.

“Twenty-three percent of the stops, or close to 16,000 of them, resulted in an arrest,” a D.C. police spokesperson told News4.

It’s unclear how many of those ended with a conviction.

Monday night, a D.C. police spokesperson responded to the ACLU report, telling the I-Team:

“The Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) continues its commitment to transparency by publishing comprehensive stop data twice a year, which supports the work of partners such as the ACLU in studying this data. However, it would be helpful for the public if descriptions about the data were also transparent. For example, whereas the ACLU gives the impression that all of the 68,940 stops in 2023 were “stops and frisks,” this is not at all accurate. Of the almost 69,000 stops, only 4,471 (less than 7%) included a protective pat down, sometimes called a frisk. Only 1% include a consent search. More broadly:

• The stops had a clear purpose. Almost 4 of every 5 stops resulted in enforcement action, either a ticket (58%) or an arrest (23%). The rest ended with investigation or other public safety response, such as mediating a dispute, educating a violator, or referral to services.
• The stops included many people traveling in or through the District. Sixty percent of the stops were traffic stops. Only 30% of the vehicles stopped and issued tickets for traffic violations were registered in the District; 70% were registered in another state.
• Most stops were resolved without any physical contact between the officer and the person stopped or his or her property. Only 10% of stops involved a protective pat down or a pre-arrest search of either a person or property.
• MPD stops play a vital role in supporting Vision Zero and making our streets safe for all users. Fifty-eight percent of all stops result in a ticket. Of these, almost one-third of the tickets were warning tickets. Eleven percent of arrests include a charge for a criminal traffic violation.
• Most stops are for traffic violations and have nothing to do with gun or gun crimes, but some stops help remove a significant number of guns from our neighborhoods. In 2023,MPD officers were able to remove 2,057 guns—64% of all guns recovered—from DC streets as a result of police stops.^[1]
• Most stops are brief. More than three out of four were resolved in about 15 minutes; 86% lasted 30 minutes or less.

The Department is committed to fair, professional, and constitutional policing in all aspects of its work as it strives to safeguard people and property in the District of Columbia. The Department works continuously to strengthen its service to the city. In the past year, the Department has focused on providing updated and comprehensive training for all its officers on the Fourth Amendment, including 10 hours of online and classroom training developed in partnership with the US Attorney for the District of Columbia. The Department is also supporting an independent study on Equity in Traffic Stops conducted by the University of Connecticut Institute for Municipal and Regional Policy. Researchers regularly stress that disparities, in and of themselves, are not sufficient evidence of racial profiling. We expect this study to be available in Fiscal Year 2025.

 ^[1] The stop data only indicates that one or more guns was recovered. It does not indicate how many guns were recovered. This comes from another data system.“

The ACLU-DC argues the practice is ineffective and has a chilling effect that harms police relations with the community.

“Communities are less likely to call the police when there is something harmful going on – even if they themselves are experiencing a harm – because of that lack of trust that bias policing can engender in people,” said Aldebot. “We have to really ask ourselves what practices are making us safer and which practices are not.”

Reported by Tracee Wilkins, produced by Rick Yarborough, shot by BJ Forte and edited by Steve Jones.

This unfolded just before 5:30 a.m. Sunday outside a fast food restaurant on Marion Barry Avenue SE, in the Skyland neighborhood.

When police arrived, the scene was relatively calm, and there was not a lot of damage to the vehicle or the building.

A person who was at McDonald’s provided cellphone video of the scene. That witness told News4 that before police arrived, there were at least two cars with sleeping drivers inside. They were holding up the drive-thru. The witness tried knocking on the window of those cars to wake them, to no avail.

The witness left the parking lot but continued to watch from nearby as more police began converging on the scene.

“The driver of the vehicle was still inside, however, he was unresponsive,” said Metropolitan Police Department Chief Pamela Smith.

Smith said officers saw a gun in the driver’s possession and called for backup. Then, according to police, the driver of the car started moving inside the car. Officers tried to engage with the man by giving verbal commands. He was observed at that time to have a weapon, police said.

There were more commands to drop that weapon, according to police.

“He had his weapon in his hand, he was told to drop the weapon, our officers extended their firearm, and the suspect grabbed his weapon at that time,” Smith said.

That’s when two officers opened fire.

The driver was pronounced dead on the scene, and police say a weapon was recovered.

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“And what I will say is this is just another reminder of the daily dangers that our officers face protecting the residents and visitors across the District of Columbia,” Smith said.

The investigation is ongoing.

Stay with NBC Washington for more details on this developing story.

Police responded to a report of a car that crashed into the McDonald’s on Marion Barry Avenue at 5:30 a.m. There was minimal damage to the McDonald’s.

According to police, the man in the vehicle had a gun in his lap. Chief Pamela Smith said that officers instructed him to drop his weapon.

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The officers extended their firearm and the man in the vehicle grabbed one of the officer’s firearms.

“At that time, two of our officers discharged their service weapon, striking the suspect,” Smith said.

The man was pronounced dead on the scene. His name was not immediately released.

The police officers’ body-worn cameras were activated and police have reviewed the video. The two officers who fired their weapons are now on administrative leave pending the investigation.

Stay with NBC Washington for more details on this developing story.

Former Metropolitan Police Department Sgt. Enis Jevric, 42, pleaded guilty in February to involuntary manslaughter and using unconstitutional, excessive force in the August 2021 shooting death of 27-year-old An’Twan Gilmore.

U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss also sentenced Jevric to five years of supervised release after his prison term, according to Justice Department prosecutors.

More than a dozen officers were on the scene when Jevric arrived at the intersection in Washington, D.C., where Gilmore was sleeping in the stopped car with a handgun in his waistband.

Jevric had a ballistics shield when he approached the driver’s side door. He told another officer to knock on the car’s windows, which jolted Gilmore awoke with a confused look on his face.

Video from police body cameras shows both of Gilmore’s hands on the steering wheel. When the car inched forward, Jevric fired four times into the car and then fired six more shots as it rolled down the closed-off street, prosecutors said. No other officer fired a shot.

The gun was still tucked into Gilmore’s waistband, underneath his buckled seat belt, when police entered the car.

Prosecutors recommended a seven-year prison sentence for Jevric. They said no other officer on the scene saw a basis to shoot Gilmore.

Crime and Courts Feb 23

MPD sergeant pleads guilty in death of An'Twan Gilmore

Washington DC Aug 26, 2021

DC Police Release Body Camera Video of Officer Shooting Man in Car

“Several described being ‘shocked’ that shots were fired,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing.

Jevric had been a police officer in Washington since 2007. His attorney, Christopher Macchiaroli, had requested a sentence of home confinement without prison time.

“Sgt. Jevric has spent the better part of his life helping people, not hurting people, protecting life, not taking life,” the defense lawyer wrote.

Metropolitan Police Department Chief Pamela Smith got emotional Thursday while talking about David’s death, calling what happened a tragedy. Outside the department’s Special Operations Division, a memorial grew around his police cruiser, which was covered in photos and flowers.

At David’s church, National Community Church in Southeast D.C., he was remembered as a man with a big heart and a big smile who loved to give back.

As a member of the congregation, he also provided security for the church.

“Very easy to talk to, very easy to engage and a non-threatening presence, in spite of the badge, in spite of having all the regalia,” Pastor Ernest Clover said.

“Officer David was the epitome of community policing,” a fellow officer wrote on Facebook. “He regularly worked overtime at the Metro stations and would challenge high school students with trivia before they could pass, just to make sure they were keeping up with their studies.”

Metro recently honored David for helping disarm a woman who was threatening officers with a knife at the Fort Totten station.

Since 2007, David worked as a crime scene search officer, recovering illegal guns across the city.

“For him this wasn’t just a job,” Carroll said. “Every day he went out, he engaged the kids that were out there, trying to put them on the right path. Talking to people, making sure they were doing the right things.”

One officer said you could never tell when David had a bad day because he always had a smile on his face.

“Praying his family would know, OK, I know my dad did all this other stuff and I know he was at that church, but I didn’t know he had that type of impact,” Clover said.

It began with a police stop of a suspicious car

It began near DC-295 in the 4500 block of Quarles Street NE at about 5:40 p.m. Wednesday. Police were conducting a routine stop for what they described as a suspicious car when a suspect ran from the car and onto 295. Officers saw the suspect throw a gun into a storm drain, Executive Assistant Chief of Police Jeffrey Carroll said.

David, a 25-year veteran, was retrieving the gun when it went off.

Police are still looking for the suspect who threw the gun into the drain. He fled the scene after jumping on the back of a motorcycle.

The person who drove the motorcycle came forward and was cooperating with investigators, police said Friday. He said he was driving in the area when the suspect jumped on his motorcycle and he thought the person was in trouble and needed help, police said.

On Thursday, Smith urged the suspect to turn himself in. MPD, the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are offering a $50,000 reward in the case.

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Smith told reporters ATF is examining the gun. The serial number was scratched off.

MPD’s Internal Affairs Division is investigating to see if department protocols were followed in the recovery of the weapon.

Smith indicated that David had a body-worn camera.

CORRECTION (10:12 p.m., Aug. 30, 2024): Wayne David was an “investigator.” This article previous referred to him as an “inspector.”

The report – “Bias at the Core? Enduring Racial Disparities in D.C. Metropolitan Police Department Stop-and-Frisk Practices” – accuses the department of discriminatory practices, saying Black people in the District are overwhelmingly more likely to be searched.

As part of a D.C. law passed in 2016, the Metropolitan Police Department is required to collect data around how often it conducts stop-and-frisk searches. This is the third time the ACLU-DC has analyzed that data, which it says shows D.C. police is moving in the wrong direction on this and the searches do more harm than good for both police and the community.

“There is a power dynamic at play, even if you know you weren’t doing anything at all. The fact that a police officer is approaching you can be very nerve-racking,” said ACLU-DC Policy Advocacy Director Scarlett Aldebot.

According to the report, in 2022, 68,244 people were stopped, resulting in less than 1% of guns being seized.

Last year, there was an increase, with 68,561 people stopped and searched with 1.2% ending with a gun recovery.

“When you really look at the harm of the practice on an individual and on communities and you look at what we’re actually generating from those stops, we find that that doesn’t outweigh the rationale for these stops or the manner in which they’re being conducted,” Aldebot told the I-Team.

The report found that most of the stops occurred in D.C.’s predominantly Black Wards of 7 and 8, although the practice happens throughout the city.

According to the data, Black people were stopped more than anyone. “We are at a place where I think we could call it a pattern. It’s pretty egregious,” said Aldebot.

In 2023, Black people made up 44% of the city’s population, but accounted for 70.6% of stops. White people represented almost 40%, with less than 12% of stops. Hispanic people made up 7.3% of stops, while making up 11.5% of the population.

“If you really want to think of that, just kind of in a in a patterned way, that is one Black person stopped every ten minutes for those two years,” said Aldebot.

“Twenty-three percent of the stops, or close to 16,000 of them, resulted in an arrest,” a D.C. police spokesperson told News4.

It’s unclear how many of those ended with a conviction.

Monday night, a D.C. police spokesperson responded to the ACLU report, telling the I-Team:

“The Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) continues its commitment to transparency by publishing comprehensive stop data twice a year, which supports the work of partners such as the ACLU in studying this data. However, it would be helpful for the public if descriptions about the data were also transparent. For example, whereas the ACLU gives the impression that all of the 68,940 stops in 2023 were “stops and frisks,” this is not at all accurate. Of the almost 69,000 stops, only 4,471 (less than 7%) included a protective pat down, sometimes called a frisk. Only 1% include a consent search. More broadly:

• The stops had a clear purpose. Almost 4 of every 5 stops resulted in enforcement action, either a ticket (58%) or an arrest (23%). The rest ended with investigation or other public safety response, such as mediating a dispute, educating a violator, or referral to services.
• The stops included many people traveling in or through the District. Sixty percent of the stops were traffic stops. Only 30% of the vehicles stopped and issued tickets for traffic violations were registered in the District; 70% were registered in another state.
• Most stops were resolved without any physical contact between the officer and the person stopped or his or her property. Only 10% of stops involved a protective pat down or a pre-arrest search of either a person or property.
• MPD stops play a vital role in supporting Vision Zero and making our streets safe for all users. Fifty-eight percent of all stops result in a ticket. Of these, almost one-third of the tickets were warning tickets. Eleven percent of arrests include a charge for a criminal traffic violation.
• Most stops are for traffic violations and have nothing to do with gun or gun crimes, but some stops help remove a significant number of guns from our neighborhoods. In 2023,MPD officers were able to remove 2,057 guns—64% of all guns recovered—from DC streets as a result of police stops.^[1]
• Most stops are brief. More than three out of four were resolved in about 15 minutes; 86% lasted 30 minutes or less.

The Department is committed to fair, professional, and constitutional policing in all aspects of its work as it strives to safeguard people and property in the District of Columbia. The Department works continuously to strengthen its service to the city. In the past year, the Department has focused on providing updated and comprehensive training for all its officers on the Fourth Amendment, including 10 hours of online and classroom training developed in partnership with the US Attorney for the District of Columbia. The Department is also supporting an independent study on Equity in Traffic Stops conducted by the University of Connecticut Institute for Municipal and Regional Policy. Researchers regularly stress that disparities, in and of themselves, are not sufficient evidence of racial profiling. We expect this study to be available in Fiscal Year 2025.

 ^[1] The stop data only indicates that one or more guns was recovered. It does not indicate how many guns were recovered. This comes from another data system.“

The ACLU-DC argues the practice is ineffective and has a chilling effect that harms police relations with the community.

“Communities are less likely to call the police when there is something harmful going on – even if they themselves are experiencing a harm – because of that lack of trust that bias policing can engender in people,” said Aldebot. “We have to really ask ourselves what practices are making us safer and which practices are not.”

Reported by Tracee Wilkins, produced by Rick Yarborough, shot by BJ Forte and edited by Steve Jones.

Today a D.C. police Internal Affairs agent contacted News 4 reporter Ted Oberg trying to find out how we knew about a family’s unanswered 911 call for help.

Last week News4 reported a D.C. family said they called 911 repeatedly for several minutes. They said 911 didn’t pick up. They were trying to get help for their 5-month-old child who couldn’t be revived after a nap. They eventually got through to 911, but the baby died. We don’t know if the delay would have changed that outcome.

D.C.’s Deputy Mayor for Public Safety released a timeline of the calls 911answered, but that timeline didn’t include the calls that didn’t get through. The News 4 I-Team learned of the family’s unanswered calls from two public safety sources who each had details of an internal police record.

Today an internal affairs agent called Oberg and asked what information we got and who gave it to us. News4 did not provide that information. Protecting our sources is an obligation we take seriously.

The Internal Affairs agent admitted he knew Oberg was unlikely to answer the questions, but said the commander of internal affairs assigned him to investigate it and ask them.

The call comes 13 days after the desperate but unanswered 911 calls for help from those parents. News4 hasn’t heard from the 911 director Heather McGaffin or Lindsey Appiah, the deputy mayor in charge of D.C. public safety on camera about the six 911 outages this year , but now have heard from an internal affairs officer.

News4 asked both D.C. Police and D.C.’s Deputy Mayor for Public Safety why they think a leak investigation is worth conducting. Neither got back to us.

DC police are working to determine whether the system was taken down intentionally or through human error, multiple government sources tell News4.

So far in 2024, there have been at least seven unplanned outages of the computer system that D.C.’s Office of Unified Communications (OUC) uses to dispatch fire engines and ambulances. The tragedy that occurred during the outage in early August has brought the issue and OUC under new scrutiny.

Tragedy in NW

During the outage on Aug. 2, a 5-month-old baby in a Northwest D.C. apartment wouldn’t wake up from a nap.

Two family members said they tried calling 911 for help, but according to an internal D.C. police report, neither of them could get anyone to pick up.

Someone instead went to get help outside apartment building in the 3000 block of Connecticut Ave. NW and found a nearby federal police officer, who assisted with CPR in the moments before DC Fire and EMS arrived, that report said.

Eventually, the family got through to 911, and the call center dispatched the call, according to a timeline shared by the deputy mayor for public safety.

Firefighters arrived and started calling for an ambulance, and the infant was taken to the hospital. That was where the baby was pronounced dead.

What went wrong?

According to radio traffic, firefighters performed CPR on the infant but wanted paramedics and an advanced life support ambulance to rush the baby to a hospital. The dispatch center repeatedly tried to send a paramedic who was unavailable and still handling another call.

Frustration could be heard in the voices of the first responders.

“We have an infant in cardiac arrest,” one said. “I’ve made everyone aware of this multiple times here on this channel … Do we have an ALS unit or a paramedic that is possibly available?”

A few hours later, D.C. police detectives and forensic investigators arrived at the building after being informed that the infant had been pronounced dead at the hospital.

The OUC, which runs the system that went down on Aug. 2, said that 911 calls were still being answered at the time of the outage.

That deputy mayor’s timeline starts when the family was able to get through, and appeared to show a timely response, but does not include the initial missed calls.

Three days after the outage, D.C. officials said a technology contractor incorrectly rolled out a software update.

“The software update was not done in compliance with protocol and resulted in a disruption that limited agencies’ access to the system,” the D.C. Office of the Chief Technology Officer said in a statement.

The contractor is no longer employed by the D.C. government, the office said.

What happens during a 911 computer outage?

When the system goes down, dispatch teams rely on paper and pencil to keep track of hundreds of calls, public safety officials told News4.

Insiders in D.C.’s public safety departments say that means call takers and dispatchers sometimes walk slips of paper from one place to another inside the dispatch center. They use radio communications to make sure fire crews knew where to go.

D.C. often points out its 911 call center is the fourth-busiest in the nation. Last year, it took an average of one emergency call every three seconds.

On Aug. 2, the 911 computer system went down for more than two hours.

News4 I-Team Aug 12

DC 911 center understaffed 88% of all shifts in July as outages mount

Washington DC Aug 2

Baby dies during outage of DC 911 computer system

Washington DC Aug 11

DC officials confirm 6 unplanned 911 outages this year

Unanswered questions about 911 outages

On Monday, the spokesperson for D.C.’s deputy mayor for public safety confirmed D.C.’s 911 system has had seven outages this year.

One was planned for a system upgrade.

An outage in July occurred because of the global CrowdStrike outage, officials said. Then there was the outage on Aug. 2, during the infant’s death, which was also pinned on an upgrade glitch.

On Friday, Aug. 12, the 911 computer system went down again. That was the center’s second outage in as many weeks, and D.C.’s city administrator said that one was due to a “connectivity disruption” during which public safety agencies in the nation’s capital “transitioned to manual dispatch” — those pen-and-paper slips.

A spokesperson told the News4 I-Team connectivity disruptions “were related to the performance of hardware which hosts the Computer Assisted Dispatch software; and the District is working to implement the necessary monitoring and possible system upgrades.”

The statement on Monday did not say if that work is complete or if a fix had been made.

The reasons for the other four outages remain unclear. In a confusing answer Monday, the spokesperson suggested the four other outages are due to those connectivity disruptions — including the outage on Aug. 2, which lasted more than two hours.

D.C. Director of the Office of Unified Communications Heather McGaffin — the person in charge of the 911 system — has not responded to any questions related to the center in months. She has said in previous testimony that improving staffing will help improve performance.

Staffing issues

According to their own record keeping, in July 2023, 33% of all 911 shifts didn’t have enough people working to meet minimum staffing levels. In July 2024, that jumped to 88% of all shifts.

The staffing crisis has gotten so bad that the agency is offering bonuses to staff members simply for showing up for every scheduled shift.

McGaffin made the offer to staff members in an email Tuesday morning.

“Good morning 911 Team- Starting immediately all 911 employees who show up for all of their scheduled shifts will receive an $800 incentive for the month,” the email obtained by News4 says.

“Staffing is crucial to the success of our agency. Unscheduled call outs of all kinds are up and causing a hardship for fellow employees who are continuously getting stuck, coming in early, and being asked to come in on days off,” she continued. “The pilot is simple- show up for each shift you’re assigned and receive $800 additional for the month. We start today for August.”

Leak investigation, but no outage answers

D.C. police Internal Affairs contacted News4’s Ted Oberg on Thursday trying to find out how we knew about a family’s unanswered 911 call for help.

News4 learned of the family’s unanswered calls from two public safety sources who each had details of an internal police record. On Thursday, an internal affairs agent called Oberg to ask what information News4 got and who shared it.

News4 takes protecting sources seriously, and Oberg did not answer. The internal affairs agent admitted an answer was unlikely, but said the commander of internal affairs assigned him to investigate.

MPD and DC’s Deputy Mayor for Public Safety have not answered questions about why they are conducting a leak investigation.

The report – “Bias at the Core? Enduring Racial Disparities in D.C. Metropolitan Police Department Stop-and-Frisk Practices” – accuses the department of discriminatory practices, saying Black people in the District are overwhelmingly more likely to be searched.

As part of a D.C. law passed in 2016, the Metropolitan Police Department is required to collect data around how often it conducts stop-and-frisk searches. This is the third time the ACLU-DC has analyzed that data, which it says shows D.C. police is moving in the wrong direction on this and the searches do more harm than good for both police and the community.

“There is a power dynamic at play, even if you know you weren’t doing anything at all. The fact that a police officer is approaching you can be very nerve-racking,” said ACLU-DC Policy Advocacy Director Scarlett Aldebot.

According to the report, in 2022, 68,244 people were stopped, resulting in less than 1% of guns being seized.

Last year, there was an increase, with 68,561 people stopped and searched with 1.2% ending with a gun recovery.

“When you really look at the harm of the practice on an individual and on communities and you look at what we’re actually generating from those stops, we find that that doesn’t outweigh the rationale for these stops or the manner in which they’re being conducted,” Aldebot told the I-Team.

The report found that most of the stops occurred in D.C.’s predominantly Black Wards of 7 and 8, although the practice happens throughout the city.

According to the data, Black people were stopped more than anyone. “We are at a place where I think we could call it a pattern. It’s pretty egregious,” said Aldebot.

In 2023, Black people made up 44% of the city’s population, but accounted for 70.6% of stops. White people represented almost 40%, with less than 12% of stops. Hispanic people made up 7.3% of stops, while making up 11.5% of the population.

“If you really want to think of that, just kind of in a in a patterned way, that is one Black person stopped every ten minutes for those two years,” said Aldebot.

“Twenty-three percent of the stops, or close to 16,000 of them, resulted in an arrest,” a D.C. police spokesperson told News4.

It’s unclear how many of those ended with a conviction.

Monday night, a D.C. police spokesperson responded to the ACLU report, telling the I-Team:

“The Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) continues its commitment to transparency by publishing comprehensive stop data twice a year, which supports the work of partners such as the ACLU in studying this data. However, it would be helpful for the public if descriptions about the data were also transparent. For example, whereas the ACLU gives the impression that all of the 68,940 stops in 2023 were “stops and frisks,” this is not at all accurate. Of the almost 69,000 stops, only 4,471 (less than 7%) included a protective pat down, sometimes called a frisk. Only 1% include a consent search. More broadly:

• The stops had a clear purpose. Almost 4 of every 5 stops resulted in enforcement action, either a ticket (58%) or an arrest (23%). The rest ended with investigation or other public safety response, such as mediating a dispute, educating a violator, or referral to services.
• The stops included many people traveling in or through the District. Sixty percent of the stops were traffic stops. Only 30% of the vehicles stopped and issued tickets for traffic violations were registered in the District; 70% were registered in another state.
• Most stops were resolved without any physical contact between the officer and the person stopped or his or her property. Only 10% of stops involved a protective pat down or a pre-arrest search of either a person or property.
• MPD stops play a vital role in supporting Vision Zero and making our streets safe for all users. Fifty-eight percent of all stops result in a ticket. Of these, almost one-third of the tickets were warning tickets. Eleven percent of arrests include a charge for a criminal traffic violation.
• Most stops are for traffic violations and have nothing to do with gun or gun crimes, but some stops help remove a significant number of guns from our neighborhoods. In 2023,MPD officers were able to remove 2,057 guns—64% of all guns recovered—from DC streets as a result of police stops.^[1]
• Most stops are brief. More than three out of four were resolved in about 15 minutes; 86% lasted 30 minutes or less.

The Department is committed to fair, professional, and constitutional policing in all aspects of its work as it strives to safeguard people and property in the District of Columbia. The Department works continuously to strengthen its service to the city. In the past year, the Department has focused on providing updated and comprehensive training for all its officers on the Fourth Amendment, including 10 hours of online and classroom training developed in partnership with the US Attorney for the District of Columbia. The Department is also supporting an independent study on Equity in Traffic Stops conducted by the University of Connecticut Institute for Municipal and Regional Policy. Researchers regularly stress that disparities, in and of themselves, are not sufficient evidence of racial profiling. We expect this study to be available in Fiscal Year 2025.

 ^[1] The stop data only indicates that one or more guns was recovered. It does not indicate how many guns were recovered. This comes from another data system.“

The ACLU-DC argues the practice is ineffective and has a chilling effect that harms police relations with the community.

“Communities are less likely to call the police when there is something harmful going on – even if they themselves are experiencing a harm – because of that lack of trust that bias policing can engender in people,” said Aldebot. “We have to really ask ourselves what practices are making us safer and which practices are not.”

Reported by Tracee Wilkins, produced by Rick Yarborough, shot by BJ Forte and edited by Steve Jones.

The Metropolitan Police Department will start using drones in limited situations to try to protect residents from violent crime. It comes as Mayor Muriel Bowser adds hundreds of closed-circuit TV cameras and license plate readers.

Taking off from its base near the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge, Falcon 1 is ready for action. MPD unveiled the $6 million chopper at a press event Monday. The pilot called the helicopter a “game changer” because of its mapping technology and infrared cameras, which can help during car chases.

MPD’s air fleet now includes five drones. Chief of Police Pamela Smith said the drones will not be used for patrol operations but will be used in situations including barricades, crowd management, missing persons cases and major crash reconstruction.

“We will not be using artificial intelligence, and nor will we be using facial recognition with the drones yet,” she said.

Bowser said D.C.’s newly approved budget includes funding for 200 new CC TV cameras and nearly 50 more license-plate readers, which will be added over the next year.

In the past year, a D.C. helicopter assisted with 76 arrests, including for carjackings, shootings and homicides, the mayor said.

News4 sends breaking news stories by email. Go here to sign up to get breaking news alerts in your inbox.

The ACLU’s executive director in D.C. raised some red flags about the plan for drones.

“The growing use of surveillance technology by law enforcement agencies without limits, transparency, and accountability is deeply concerning. Drones are a powerful and novel surveillance technology, and the District’s police drone expansion simply does not have sufficient guardrails to ensure our privacy and security,” Monica Hopkins said in a statement, in part.

On March 7, 2023, police responded to a shooting at the 2700 block of Bruce Place in southeast D.C. There were two men injured with gunshot wounds, according to D.C. police.

One of the men, Dana Faulkner, 23, was shot and killed at the scene. The second man was transported to a nearby hospital for non-life-threatening injuries.

Shortly after, police found an injured person at the intersection of Wheeler Road and Mississippi Avenue, according to D.C. police. Abdul Fuller, 15, was found with critical gunshot wounds. He was taken to a local hospital but later died there, according to police.

Fuller was injured in the Bruce Place shooting, according to the investigation.

Members of the Capital Area Regional Fugitive Task Force arrested a 19-year-old man on Dec. 21, 2023, according to police. He was charged with first-degree murder while armed.

According to D.C. police, another suspect was arrested in Florida on June 21. A 17-year-old from D.C. was charged with second-degree murder while armed for killing Faulkner back in 2023.

He was transported to the Metropolitan Police Department’s Juvenile Processing Center after being extradited from Florida.

D.C. police say that the case remains under investigation. They urge anyone who has information should call the police at 202-727-9099 or text 50411.

The police department also offers a $25,000 reward for any information that leads to any arrests.

The report – “Bias at the Core? Enduring Racial Disparities in D.C. Metropolitan Police Department Stop-and-Frisk Practices” – accuses the department of discriminatory practices, saying Black people in the District are overwhelmingly more likely to be searched.

As part of a D.C. law passed in 2016, the Metropolitan Police Department is required to collect data around how often it conducts stop-and-frisk searches. This is the third time the ACLU-DC has analyzed that data, which it says shows D.C. police is moving in the wrong direction on this and the searches do more harm than good for both police and the community.

“There is a power dynamic at play, even if you know you weren’t doing anything at all. The fact that a police officer is approaching you can be very nerve-racking,” said ACLU-DC Policy Advocacy Director Scarlett Aldebot.

According to the report, in 2022, 68,244 people were stopped, resulting in less than 1% of guns being seized.

Last year, there was an increase, with 68,561 people stopped and searched with 1.2% ending with a gun recovery.

“When you really look at the harm of the practice on an individual and on communities and you look at what we’re actually generating from those stops, we find that that doesn’t outweigh the rationale for these stops or the manner in which they’re being conducted,” Aldebot told the I-Team.

The report found that most of the stops occurred in D.C.’s predominantly Black Wards of 7 and 8, although the practice happens throughout the city.

According to the data, Black people were stopped more than anyone. “We are at a place where I think we could call it a pattern. It’s pretty egregious,” said Aldebot.

In 2023, Black people made up 44% of the city’s population, but accounted for 70.6% of stops. White people represented almost 40%, with less than 12% of stops. Hispanic people made up 7.3% of stops, while making up 11.5% of the population.

“If you really want to think of that, just kind of in a in a patterned way, that is one Black person stopped every ten minutes for those two years,” said Aldebot.

“Twenty-three percent of the stops, or close to 16,000 of them, resulted in an arrest,” a D.C. police spokesperson told News4.

It’s unclear how many of those ended with a conviction.

Monday night, a D.C. police spokesperson responded to the ACLU report, telling the I-Team:

“The Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) continues its commitment to transparency by publishing comprehensive stop data twice a year, which supports the work of partners such as the ACLU in studying this data. However, it would be helpful for the public if descriptions about the data were also transparent. For example, whereas the ACLU gives the impression that all of the 68,940 stops in 2023 were “stops and frisks,” this is not at all accurate. Of the almost 69,000 stops, only 4,471 (less than 7%) included a protective pat down, sometimes called a frisk. Only 1% include a consent search. More broadly:

• The stops had a clear purpose. Almost 4 of every 5 stops resulted in enforcement action, either a ticket (58%) or an arrest (23%). The rest ended with investigation or other public safety response, such as mediating a dispute, educating a violator, or referral to services.
• The stops included many people traveling in or through the District. Sixty percent of the stops were traffic stops. Only 30% of the vehicles stopped and issued tickets for traffic violations were registered in the District; 70% were registered in another state.
• Most stops were resolved without any physical contact between the officer and the person stopped or his or her property. Only 10% of stops involved a protective pat down or a pre-arrest search of either a person or property.
• MPD stops play a vital role in supporting Vision Zero and making our streets safe for all users. Fifty-eight percent of all stops result in a ticket. Of these, almost one-third of the tickets were warning tickets. Eleven percent of arrests include a charge for a criminal traffic violation.
• Most stops are for traffic violations and have nothing to do with gun or gun crimes, but some stops help remove a significant number of guns from our neighborhoods. In 2023,MPD officers were able to remove 2,057 guns—64% of all guns recovered—from DC streets as a result of police stops.^[1]
• Most stops are brief. More than three out of four were resolved in about 15 minutes; 86% lasted 30 minutes or less.

The Department is committed to fair, professional, and constitutional policing in all aspects of its work as it strives to safeguard people and property in the District of Columbia. The Department works continuously to strengthen its service to the city. In the past year, the Department has focused on providing updated and comprehensive training for all its officers on the Fourth Amendment, including 10 hours of online and classroom training developed in partnership with the US Attorney for the District of Columbia. The Department is also supporting an independent study on Equity in Traffic Stops conducted by the University of Connecticut Institute for Municipal and Regional Policy. Researchers regularly stress that disparities, in and of themselves, are not sufficient evidence of racial profiling. We expect this study to be available in Fiscal Year 2025.

 ^[1] The stop data only indicates that one or more guns was recovered. It does not indicate how many guns were recovered. This comes from another data system.“

The ACLU-DC argues the practice is ineffective and has a chilling effect that harms police relations with the community.

“Communities are less likely to call the police when there is something harmful going on – even if they themselves are experiencing a harm – because of that lack of trust that bias policing can engender in people,” said Aldebot. “We have to really ask ourselves what practices are making us safer and which practices are not.”

Reported by Tracee Wilkins, produced by Rick Yarborough, shot by BJ Forte and edited by Steve Jones.

“The following is a recorded message from the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office,” the robotic voice on the other end says.

The location of the department or the words in the call may vary — some calls claim to be from D.C., while others begin with something like, “Good afternoon, this is Sgt. Bill Glenn calling with the Loudoun county Sheriff Department’s Civil Services Division,” — but the basics are the same.

If you’ve received a call like this, the real Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office wants you to know it’s not them — it’s a scam.

“Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office has built and worked so hard to maintain the trust of our community,” said Sgt. Gun Lee with the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office. “And for bad actors to use our name, use our brand name to commit this crime, is completely unacceptable.”

Investigators say these fake robocalls started earlier this week, and warn that the criminals are casting a wide net. The D.C. scam, for example, has a fake officer tell the recipient to report to police headquarters or they’ll be arrested.

“It’s a very fast-moving storm,” Lee said.

Within 24 hours of noon on Tuesday, when the robocalls began, the real Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office received hundreds of reports from residents.

And even Lee said the calls sound “very authentic.”

“Our facility has been required by mandate to reach out today regarding an issue that has occurred which demands your immediate attention, call as soon as you are able,” one of the messages says.

While Lee says the calls may sound legitimate, they’re the opposite. The criminals urge potential victims to call a fake number or visit a bogus website in order to pay them with cryptocurrency gift cards or mobile apps.

“Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office will never ask our community to provide payment, especially using cryptocurrency, so that will be clue number one,” Lee said.

D.C. Police told News4 that police will never ask for money, your bank information, or your social security number.

Fredericksburg May 2

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Scams Nov 10, 2023

How to talk to older people in your life about scams

Lee says that the Sheriff’s Office knows of at least one person who lost hundreds of dollars in the scam — but more victims may be out there.

Lee says financial and cyber crime detectives are working around the clock to deactivate the fake phone numbers and websites.

“We’ve seen this type of MO before in the past, on a much smaller scale, but this is a little bit more complex,” Lee said.

Police urge residents to be cautious and speak up. Anyone can become a victim, so if you get a similar call, police ask that you report it as soon as possible.

“If you’re the victim of this scam, we need to hear from you immediately, because one victim is one too many,” Lee said.

Those two men are now facing charges in both Prince George’s County and D.C.

The Fourth District police captain has now been released from the hospital and is recovering at home.

Rasheed Thorne and William Walker, both 21 years old, were arrested by Prince George’s County police after a Honda crashed and rolled over at Kent Town Place and Route 202.

“MPD is advising one in custody and one inside the vehicle,” police could be heard saying over radio.

Police say the pair was wanted for opening fire on an off-duty police captain on Monday, at 7th and Ogelthorpe Streets NW.

The police captain was injured. Police said the wounded captain was able to drive a few blocks to his station, where fellow officers loaded him into a squad car and rushed him to the hospital, police said the day of the incident.

Police say they were able to find the fleeing Honda after the off-duty captain was able to get a partial license plate number and alert other officers.

“Get Falcon up on 4D’s air, we have a shooting of an official, we are trying to get a lookout,” police could be heard saying over radio. Falcon is the D.C. Police helicopter.

The pursuit ended at Landover Road and Kent Town Place, with a crash.

Later, a news camera captured an officer removing a handgun found at the scene.

Pursuing officers noticed something was tossed from the Honda during the chase.

Northwest DC May 20

DC officer shot near police station in Northwest, rushes inside for help

Metropolitan Police Department (DC Police / MPD) May 20

DC officer hurt in Northwest shooting; suspect vehicle flips in Landover

“MPD is advising that [unintelligible] threw something out of the car between the last light and Dodge Park right by the Checker’s,” police could be heard saying over radio.

News4 searched court records for Rasheed Thorne and William Walker and found nothing.

However, three D.C. Police reports show Thorne has been arrested twice before on gun charges: Once in November 2021, and again in November 2023.

On November 7, 2021, police reported Thorne had been shot twice during an assault. While being treated at the hospital, they found a stolen 9mm pistol, according to the report.

Then, on Nov. 23, 2022, police arrested Thorne again and seized drugs, cash and a 9mm Glock 17, according to the report.

It’s unclear what happened after each of these arrests. A spokesman for D.C. Superior Court tells News4 the record in the 2022 case is “no longer available.”

The report – “Bias at the Core? Enduring Racial Disparities in D.C. Metropolitan Police Department Stop-and-Frisk Practices” – accuses the department of discriminatory practices, saying Black people in the District are overwhelmingly more likely to be searched.

As part of a D.C. law passed in 2016, the Metropolitan Police Department is required to collect data around how often it conducts stop-and-frisk searches. This is the third time the ACLU-DC has analyzed that data, which it says shows D.C. police is moving in the wrong direction on this and the searches do more harm than good for both police and the community.

“There is a power dynamic at play, even if you know you weren’t doing anything at all. The fact that a police officer is approaching you can be very nerve-racking,” said ACLU-DC Policy Advocacy Director Scarlett Aldebot.

According to the report, in 2022, 68,244 people were stopped, resulting in less than 1% of guns being seized.

Last year, there was an increase, with 68,561 people stopped and searched with 1.2% ending with a gun recovery.

“When you really look at the harm of the practice on an individual and on communities and you look at what we’re actually generating from those stops, we find that that doesn’t outweigh the rationale for these stops or the manner in which they’re being conducted,” Aldebot told the I-Team.

The report found that most of the stops occurred in D.C.’s predominantly Black Wards of 7 and 8, although the practice happens throughout the city.

According to the data, Black people were stopped more than anyone. “We are at a place where I think we could call it a pattern. It’s pretty egregious,” said Aldebot.

In 2023, Black people made up 44% of the city’s population, but accounted for 70.6% of stops. White people represented almost 40%, with less than 12% of stops. Hispanic people made up 7.3% of stops, while making up 11.5% of the population.

“If you really want to think of that, just kind of in a in a patterned way, that is one Black person stopped every ten minutes for those two years,” said Aldebot.

“Twenty-three percent of the stops, or close to 16,000 of them, resulted in an arrest,” a D.C. police spokesperson told News4.

It’s unclear how many of those ended with a conviction.

Monday night, a D.C. police spokesperson responded to the ACLU report, telling the I-Team:

“The Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) continues its commitment to transparency by publishing comprehensive stop data twice a year, which supports the work of partners such as the ACLU in studying this data. However, it would be helpful for the public if descriptions about the data were also transparent. For example, whereas the ACLU gives the impression that all of the 68,940 stops in 2023 were “stops and frisks,” this is not at all accurate. Of the almost 69,000 stops, only 4,471 (less than 7%) included a protective pat down, sometimes called a frisk. Only 1% include a consent search. More broadly:

• The stops had a clear purpose. Almost 4 of every 5 stops resulted in enforcement action, either a ticket (58%) or an arrest (23%). The rest ended with investigation or other public safety response, such as mediating a dispute, educating a violator, or referral to services.
• The stops included many people traveling in or through the District. Sixty percent of the stops were traffic stops. Only 30% of the vehicles stopped and issued tickets for traffic violations were registered in the District; 70% were registered in another state.
• Most stops were resolved without any physical contact between the officer and the person stopped or his or her property. Only 10% of stops involved a protective pat down or a pre-arrest search of either a person or property.
• MPD stops play a vital role in supporting Vision Zero and making our streets safe for all users. Fifty-eight percent of all stops result in a ticket. Of these, almost one-third of the tickets were warning tickets. Eleven percent of arrests include a charge for a criminal traffic violation.
• Most stops are for traffic violations and have nothing to do with gun or gun crimes, but some stops help remove a significant number of guns from our neighborhoods. In 2023,MPD officers were able to remove 2,057 guns—64% of all guns recovered—from DC streets as a result of police stops.^[1]
• Most stops are brief. More than three out of four were resolved in about 15 minutes; 86% lasted 30 minutes or less.

The Department is committed to fair, professional, and constitutional policing in all aspects of its work as it strives to safeguard people and property in the District of Columbia. The Department works continuously to strengthen its service to the city. In the past year, the Department has focused on providing updated and comprehensive training for all its officers on the Fourth Amendment, including 10 hours of online and classroom training developed in partnership with the US Attorney for the District of Columbia. The Department is also supporting an independent study on Equity in Traffic Stops conducted by the University of Connecticut Institute for Municipal and Regional Policy. Researchers regularly stress that disparities, in and of themselves, are not sufficient evidence of racial profiling. We expect this study to be available in Fiscal Year 2025.

 ^[1] The stop data only indicates that one or more guns was recovered. It does not indicate how many guns were recovered. This comes from another data system.“

The ACLU-DC argues the practice is ineffective and has a chilling effect that harms police relations with the community.

“Communities are less likely to call the police when there is something harmful going on – even if they themselves are experiencing a harm – because of that lack of trust that bias policing can engender in people,” said Aldebot. “We have to really ask ourselves what practices are making us safer and which practices are not.”

Reported by Tracee Wilkins, produced by Rick Yarborough, shot by BJ Forte and edited by Steve Jones.

The man was transported to a hospital for injuries not considered life-threatening, while the police officer was stabbed in the neck and treated at the scene, the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) said.

Police said that at 10 a.m. they received a call regarding someone having a “mental health episode.” From there, MPD arrived at an apartment complex in the 2400 block of Virginia Ave NW.

Police said the Department of Behavioral Health also responded to the scene and they were able to get in contact with the man in crisis. While officers were in the process of taking him into police custody for an evaluation, he pulled out a knife and stabbed an officer in the neck, police said.

Another officer used a Taser to try to subdue the man to no avail, police said.

An officer then pulled out a service weapon and shot the man, police said.

The injured officer received treatment at the scene.

George Washington University limited access to buildings after the shooting.

Four police officers are on administrative leave while the case is being investigated. The person accused of stabbing the officer was charged with assault on a police officer.

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The officer was responding to a report of a stabbing on 11th Street in Columbia Heights April 25, police said. After noticing a broken window, the officer went to the back alley.

At the time, Jeaneva Thompson’s 16-year-old daughter, Namora, had just taken their dogs — Luna and Wednesday — outside. In police body camera video, they are seen escaping the yard with a third dog.

“Sometimes they slip under the gate, and especially Wednesday,” Thompson said. “She always slipped under the gate.”

The video then shows the officer pull out his gun and open fire.

“They got out, and all you heard was shots,” Thompson said. “They didn’t even have a chance to breathe, I guess. They just, once they got out the gate, they were dead. It was unfortunate, because I thought, when I heard the shots, I thought it was my daughter.”

The officer fired three rounds, police said.

“They need to learn that all dogs are not aggressive, at all,” Thompson said. “All dogs are not aggressive. Luna and our puppies weren’t aggressive at all. The neighbors loved our dogs.”

Wednesday died at the scene. Luna died a short time later in the backyard. The third dog was injured.

“My mind was going sideways, everywhere,” Namora said. “It was spinning around. I was crying. I was hitting walls. I was going crazy.”

The Thompsons said Luna was pregnant.

“It’s horrible,” Namora said. “It’s traumatizing, because my mom lost her sleeping buddy, and I lost my emotional support.”

D.C. police have not said why the officer opened fire. Its internal affairs bureau is investigating the incident and says the details of the case will be reviewed to determine whether the use of force with within policy.

News4 sends breaking news stories by email. Go here to sign up to get breaking news alerts in your inbox.

The report – “Bias at the Core? Enduring Racial Disparities in D.C. Metropolitan Police Department Stop-and-Frisk Practices” – accuses the department of discriminatory practices, saying Black people in the District are overwhelmingly more likely to be searched.

As part of a D.C. law passed in 2016, the Metropolitan Police Department is required to collect data around how often it conducts stop-and-frisk searches. This is the third time the ACLU-DC has analyzed that data, which it says shows D.C. police is moving in the wrong direction on this and the searches do more harm than good for both police and the community.

“There is a power dynamic at play, even if you know you weren’t doing anything at all. The fact that a police officer is approaching you can be very nerve-racking,” said ACLU-DC Policy Advocacy Director Scarlett Aldebot.

According to the report, in 2022, 68,244 people were stopped, resulting in less than 1% of guns being seized.

Last year, there was an increase, with 68,561 people stopped and searched with 1.2% ending with a gun recovery.

“When you really look at the harm of the practice on an individual and on communities and you look at what we’re actually generating from those stops, we find that that doesn’t outweigh the rationale for these stops or the manner in which they’re being conducted,” Aldebot told the I-Team.

The report found that most of the stops occurred in D.C.’s predominantly Black Wards of 7 and 8, although the practice happens throughout the city.

According to the data, Black people were stopped more than anyone. “We are at a place where I think we could call it a pattern. It’s pretty egregious,” said Aldebot.

In 2023, Black people made up 44% of the city’s population, but accounted for 70.6% of stops. White people represented almost 40%, with less than 12% of stops. Hispanic people made up 7.3% of stops, while making up 11.5% of the population.

“If you really want to think of that, just kind of in a in a patterned way, that is one Black person stopped every ten minutes for those two years,” said Aldebot.

“Twenty-three percent of the stops, or close to 16,000 of them, resulted in an arrest,” a D.C. police spokesperson told News4.

It’s unclear how many of those ended with a conviction.

Monday night, a D.C. police spokesperson responded to the ACLU report, telling the I-Team:

“The Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) continues its commitment to transparency by publishing comprehensive stop data twice a year, which supports the work of partners such as the ACLU in studying this data. However, it would be helpful for the public if descriptions about the data were also transparent. For example, whereas the ACLU gives the impression that all of the 68,940 stops in 2023 were “stops and frisks,” this is not at all accurate. Of the almost 69,000 stops, only 4,471 (less than 7%) included a protective pat down, sometimes called a frisk. Only 1% include a consent search. More broadly:

• The stops had a clear purpose. Almost 4 of every 5 stops resulted in enforcement action, either a ticket (58%) or an arrest (23%). The rest ended with investigation or other public safety response, such as mediating a dispute, educating a violator, or referral to services.
• The stops included many people traveling in or through the District. Sixty percent of the stops were traffic stops. Only 30% of the vehicles stopped and issued tickets for traffic violations were registered in the District; 70% were registered in another state.
• Most stops were resolved without any physical contact between the officer and the person stopped or his or her property. Only 10% of stops involved a protective pat down or a pre-arrest search of either a person or property.
• MPD stops play a vital role in supporting Vision Zero and making our streets safe for all users. Fifty-eight percent of all stops result in a ticket. Of these, almost one-third of the tickets were warning tickets. Eleven percent of arrests include a charge for a criminal traffic violation.
• Most stops are for traffic violations and have nothing to do with gun or gun crimes, but some stops help remove a significant number of guns from our neighborhoods. In 2023,MPD officers were able to remove 2,057 guns—64% of all guns recovered—from DC streets as a result of police stops.^[1]
• Most stops are brief. More than three out of four were resolved in about 15 minutes; 86% lasted 30 minutes or less.

The Department is committed to fair, professional, and constitutional policing in all aspects of its work as it strives to safeguard people and property in the District of Columbia. The Department works continuously to strengthen its service to the city. In the past year, the Department has focused on providing updated and comprehensive training for all its officers on the Fourth Amendment, including 10 hours of online and classroom training developed in partnership with the US Attorney for the District of Columbia. The Department is also supporting an independent study on Equity in Traffic Stops conducted by the University of Connecticut Institute for Municipal and Regional Policy. Researchers regularly stress that disparities, in and of themselves, are not sufficient evidence of racial profiling. We expect this study to be available in Fiscal Year 2025.

 ^[1] The stop data only indicates that one or more guns was recovered. It does not indicate how many guns were recovered. This comes from another data system.“

The ACLU-DC argues the practice is ineffective and has a chilling effect that harms police relations with the community.

“Communities are less likely to call the police when there is something harmful going on – even if they themselves are experiencing a harm – because of that lack of trust that bias policing can engender in people,” said Aldebot. “We have to really ask ourselves what practices are making us safer and which practices are not.”

Reported by Tracee Wilkins, produced by Rick Yarborough, shot by BJ Forte and edited by Steve Jones.

“Having this unit helps not to revictimize victims again, deaf victims,” Jordan said.

After 34 years on the force, she knows retirement is near and she wants to ensure the unit is staffed with younger officers who can carry on her work for years to come.

Gallaudet University graduate Officer Jay Pomare has been on the force for a year. He is the son of two deaf parents, so American Sign Language is his first language.

“When I came out the womb, my parents are signing to me, and I’m being receptive to everything that they’re signing,” he said. “I had to go to school and go to speech therapy, and then that’s how I learned how to talk.”

“I’ve always been a mediator, and really, that’s what a liaison is, a mediator,” Pomare said. “Having two deaf parents, I’ve always mediated from the hearing world to the deaf world.”

Jordan sees the future of the unit when she looks at Pomare.

“I see his deaf heart, meaning, yes, he knows the language, he knows the culture, but he also have a deaf heart,” she said. “He loves the community, and that’s what’s important.”

Pomare has seen the difference it can make when the victim of a crime is able to communicate with police in their first language.

“It feels like a sense of relief,” he said. “They see it and they feel like, ‘Oh, perfect, I don’t have to really struggle while I’m already experiencing a traumatizing or bad experience.’”

A spokesperson for the National Association of the Deaf said often people who are deaf or hard of hearing are arrested for failure to comply with verbal orders.

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A man who was just kicked out of a Dupont Circle nightclub, pulled out a gun and fired injuring five people and a security guard late Friday, Metropolitan police said.

Six people were injured, a MPD commander told News4. All suffered non-life-threatening injuries. One person was treated at the scene for a minor graze wound, D.C. police said.

Bullets pierced at least one window along the busy nightlife corridor. It’s not clear if the victims were inside or outside when they were shot.

Police caught up with the alleged shooter, identified as 29-year-old Rennwel Mantock, of Hyattsville, and arrested him shortly after it happened. He was charged with assault with intent to kill, possession of unregistered ammunition and possession of a unregistered firearm.

A firearm was recovered, police said.

After hitting record highs in 2023, crime has been trending down in the District so far this year. Data from the Metropolitan Police Department show violent crime is down 25%. Assaults with a deadly weapon, the type of crime that this shooting will be classified, is down 31% year-over-year — 293 versus 427.

In all, total reported crime is down 14%.

The drop in crime comes as the District works to fill officer shortages among the police department ranks. The department has 3,323 officers now, and Chief Pamela Smith said having 4,000 officers would be ideal. A newly launched in-person recruiting team is at work in D.C. and across the U.S.

They were all senior police officers who had retired and then were rehired.

D.C. police officials have refused to provide many details about what type of misconduct these officers were found to have committed, but they did say the misconduct happened before the officers initially retired. They would not say why those officers were rehired given the previous misconduct.

The firings come in part because of a law passed by the D.C. Council more than a year ago, the Comprehensive Policing and Justice Reform Amendment Act of 2022, which changed the requirements for hiring.

In a statement, an MPD spokesperson cited that legislation as the reason most of the officers are being let go.

“This year, the department … had to apply a provision of the Comprehensive Policing and Justice Reform Amendment Act of 2022 that prohibits MPD from appointing police officers who have any serious misconduct in their background. This week, MPD notified 12 members that their contract would not be renewed due to this law. In addition, the contracts of nine other members were not renewed for a variety of reasons, for a total of 21 members whose employment will end April 30.”

The legislation was controversial at the time it was passed. It was one of the D.C. crime bills that congressional Republicans unsuccessfully tried to block.

As for the nine who were terminated for other reasons, MPD won’t give any details on why they were let go.

Of the 21 total officers, three were senior sergeants, while the rest were senior officers. The 21 were assigned to various positions, including as patrol officers and school resource officers.

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser told News4 on Thursday that she had been unaware of the terminations until News4 began asking about them.

“This is the consequence of a change in the law, and we will look at it more closely to see if we can work — if we think we need to work with the Council to change it,” Bowser said.

The terminations come as the District continues to struggle with police staffing amid concerns over violent crime.

The police union put out a statement blasting the legislation that led to these firings and said some of the disciplinary matters occurred more than 20 years ago.

“These officers represent a collective experience of over 300 years in law enforcement, and their contributions have been critical to the safety and security of our city,” D.C. Police Union Chairman Gregg Pemberton said in the union’s statement. “Many of these officers have received commendations for their bravery and service, making this decision even more frustrating.”

The union’s statement went on to say that union officials hope the D.C. Council will “reevaluate the anti-police positions they took in 2020 and prioritize a balanced approach that allows police officers to do their job and seeks to restore the staffing levels on the MPD.”

“My brother got shot right here,” the Maryland man said, pointing to the sidewalk in front of a small apartment building.

Robert “Bobby” Plummer was among a group of people hanging outside the evening of Oct. 5, 2020, when police say someone opened fire at them, killing Bobby and wounding three others.

His family believes Bobby – a favorite uncle whom they described as loving and joyful — wasn’t the intended target. Years later, no one has been arrested in the crime. Plummer, his brother-in-law Kenneth McGee and Bobby’s daughter, Alexis, are convinced someone knows something but isn’t talking.

“I’m angry, but I’m not surprised,” McGee, also of Maryland, said. “We have been programmed that doing the right thing is actually doing the wrong thing.”

The Plummer family isn’t alone in its pain. Bobby’s case is one of nearly 120 unsolved homicides from 2020, according to the Metropolitan Police Department’s website. D.C. police are also working to solve 172 homicides from last year – more than 60% of last year’s homicide total.

“The reason they’re not getting solved is because no one will stand up and speak on them,” a frustrated Plummer said.

Bobby’s family knows why some witnesses may stay on the sidelines: fear of police, fear of incrimination, fear of being called to testify or fear of being called a snitch.

There’s one tool, though, they hope someone will use to solve their brother’s case: an anonymous tip line luring callers with the potential for cash.

But the News4 I-Team found not only do these tip reward programs vary widely in how they’re run, there also are concerns over whether having cops run their own program hurts the cases they’re trying to solve.

“Negative perceptions of policing is a major reason for a lack of witness participation,” said Tom Scott, a social scientist with RTI International who studies policing and crime.

He said that while there’s little formal research into what makes a successful cash reward for crime tips program, it’s unusual to have police run them. Most, he noted, are operated by small nonprofit or volunteer groups such as Crime Stoppers or Crime Solvers, which typically fundraise to pay small rewards and aren’t subject to much scrutiny.

D.C. police use public dollars to pay out rewards as high as $25,000 but are also reliant on tips from a community that Scott said may be skeptical of them.

“You’re trying to incentivize witnesses and victims to share information with law enforcement … even when they might have negative personal experiences with law enforcement,” he said.

Frustrated by unsolved homicides, former D.C. Police Chief Charles Ramsey created the department’s rewards program more than 20 years ago. The program has since expanded to include payouts for tips about shootings, robberies, gun seizures and illegal ATV operators.  

Through an open records request, the I-Team found D.C. police have paid out a combined $1.93 million for homicide-related tips to 191 people since fiscal year 2018. The rewards, associated with convictions related in 73 cases, represent 6% of all homicide cases since that year.

A police spokesman noted there could be additional people who were eligible for reward funds who didn’t follow through with collecting them. 

Scott said even a single closed case makes the program worth it but wonders if there would be even more pay outs if tip calls weren’t fielded by cops. For example, on homicide flyers like Bobby’s, the police department advertises a tip line that sends callers to its 24-hour Command Information Center.

“I think as much as law enforcement can separate themselves from their Crime Stoppers program, those negative perceptions of the police and law enforcement would be less likely to hamper participation in those programs,” Scott said.

D.C. does have a separate Crime Solvers group, which MPD’s rewards page indicates pays out tips on lower level offenses. But the head of the D.C. Crime Solvers program told the I-Team it receives its tips from D.C. police. What’s more, the I-Team found the phone number for the local organization directs callers to other surrounding Crime Solvers organizations, instead of the D.C. program.

In Prince George’s County, local Crime Solvers Chairman William Steen explained his group oversees payouts for tips it receives directly, as well as some that are submitted to Prince George’s County police. In those instances, Steen said, the police tell Crime Solvers about tips that helped close critical cases — usually homicides — and the Crime Solvers board decides how much to award the tipster.

Steen said his group works with police but not for police, a key difference, he said, not just in perception but in reality for the anonymity they provide tipsters.

“If you were to call the police department and you were to give your address or your name or proximity to the case, then they’re obligated to take that information and add it to the file,” Steen said. “With Crime Solvers, we make sure that even if you start down that process, that we stop you because we don’t want any of that being a part of the official record.”

D.C. police, however, pushed back on that notion, telling the I-Team in a statement that it “guarantees anonymity to all tipsters.”

A spokesman also told the I-Team they aren’t concerned about a potential lack of tips, noting Chief Pamela Smith recently credited the public’s help for tips that lead to the arrest of a teenager in a recent Brookland Metro station shooting.

But the I-Team found it could be years for those tipsters to be eligible for a reward in D.C., where most tips have to lead to conviction. That’s a higher bar than in many other places in the D.C. area.

In Prince George’s, Montgomery and Fairfax counties — where Crime Solvers programs aren’t run by police – the I-Team found they typically pay rewards for tips leading to an arrest or indictment.

“If you’re only providing rewards after conviction, I don’t think your Crime Stoppers program will be very effective,” Scott suggested.

In a phone interview, the executive director of Crime Stoppers USA told the I-Team her organization doesn’t measure success by how many tips its member groups receive, but by how well they maintain a reputation for providing anonymity to its callers.

She also said her group recommends paying tipsters when they help solve a case – not for conviction.

In the end, the Plummer family doesn’t care what motivates someone to come forward with information about Bobby’s killer. They just want the phone to ring and justice to be served.

“He was a jewel that was picked from the crown of this family,” McGee said.

Plummer said the grief over unanswered questions hangs over his family.

“Someone needs to pay for their mistake,” he said. “I know it won’t bring my brother back, but it’ll bring closure to this family.”

Anyone with information about the killing of Robert “Bobby” Plummer is asked to call D.C. police at 202-727-9099.

This story was reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Katie Leslie, and shot and edited by Jeff Piper. NBC Boston contributed to this report.

Sgt. Tony Mason Jr. died after he was shot in west Baltimore in 2017. He was 40 and had served on the Metropolitan Police Department for 17 years.

Baltimore officials announced Wednesday that Dion Thompson, now 24, was charged in Mason’s murder after a cold case investigation in collaboration with federal officials. Thompson was 18 at the time of the crime.

According to new information provided by a tipster, Thompson, an alleged drug dealer, was in the area when he saw a parked car with two people inside, the tipster told police.

He “became paranoid” and believed the people in the car were there to “either rob him or retaliate against him for all the robberies he was committing,” court documents say. He picked up two friends and opened fire on the car.

Mason was shot and killed. A woman he had dated for about a month was shot and wounded.

An exhaustive investigation found that neither Mason nor the woman were involved in any criminal activity or gang activity, court documents say, and there’s no indication that Thompson knew Mason was an officer.

Police found 16 shell casings on the scene, shot from two 9 mm pistols.

At a news conference Wednesday, D.C. Chief of Police Pamela Smith thanked investigators for their determination.

“For far too long, the details surrounding Sergeant Mason’s tragic death have remained a painful mystery. However, the Baltimore Police Department, the FBI, the ATF, and the Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s office never stopped following up on tips and tracking down leads,” she said.

Thompson already was in federal prison on drug charges. A lawyer representing him in that case told the Associated Press he is not representing him in the murder case, which wasn’t listed yet in online records.

A car pulls up and someone opens fire

Court documents give accounts of what happened the day Mason was killed.

The woman who survived the shooting told investigators that she and Mason had been sitting in a black Nissan Versa in the 2800 block of Elgin Avenue after midnight on Nov. 4, 2017. They were talking, drinking and listening to music, court documents say.

A dark-colored car pulled up next to them and a passenger called out “Yo” or “Hey, y’all,” the woman recalled.

Then at least one person inside that car began shooting and sped off.

Mason and the woman were both shot. Mason was hit in the left side and left arm, and was pronounced dead less than two hours later, court documents say. The woman was shot in the leg and survived.

‘I got one tonight, dummy’

The tipster who contacted police say Thompson described what happened. He said he was with two friends at the house of one friend’s grandmother.

When Thompson left the house, he said he became paranoid when he saw two people in a parked car. He thought they were a threat to him. He contacted his friends, told them to get guns, went back to pick them up and committed the crime, the tipster said.

Thompson said he dropped off his two friends and went home to ask his brother for more bullets. His brother said he was tired of wasting bullets on him because Thompson hadn’t killed anyone yet.

“I got one tonight, dummy. Watch the news,” Thompson said that he replied.

Thompson learned later, from watching the news, that he had killed an off-duty officer and injured a woman, the tipster said.

Metropolitan Police Department (DC Police / MPD) Apr 12

DC police train community safety ambassadors to lighten load on officers

Metropolitan Police Department (DC Police / MPD) Apr 13

5 card skimmers found in DC within 3 weeks, police say

He went to Philadelphia to get rid of the car used in the crime, he said.

One of the friends who Thompson was with has since died; the other has not been charged.

Four months later, Thompson was arrested in a drug raid in which fentanyl, cocaine, marijuana, a gun and more than $10,000 cash were found, court documents say.

Investigators seized electronic devices and found that Thompson directed people to the area of the killing. Text and call logs appeared to have been deleted from several devices.

Federal prison records say Thompson is set to be released in January 2026.

Mason had been on non-contact status with the Metropolitan Police Department because of an “internal investigation,” a police spokesman said.

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Investigators offered a reward of $60,000 for tips on Mason’s murder. The tipster has never asked to receive the reward, court documents say.

Baltimore prosecutors said the case will be handled through a new cold case unit, demonstrating a commitment to finding justice no matter how long ago crimes occurred.

Stay with NBC Washington for more details on this developing story.

John Perry-Miller came across a skimmer at self-checkout in the Safeway on Wisconsin Avenue NW in Georgetown.

“I notice at the little thing I’m at, the keypad was sparkling, like brand new,” he said.

“So, I yanked on it, and it was loose,” he said. “And so, I called over the attendant and he was like, ‘No it’s not a skimmer,’ and I said, ‘It’s a skimmer!’ And so, we yanked it off together all the way, and he was like, ‘Oh my God.’”

On Friday, police said four other skimmers have been discovered.

The first was found March 25 by an employee at a Harris Teeter on First Street NE in NoMa.

A week later, on April 1, police got a call from an employee at another Harris Teeter on M Street SE in Navy Yard.

Less than an hour after police received the report of the skimmer found in Georgetown Wednesday, another was reported found in the 4500 block of 40^th Street NW.

Then Friday morning, another was discovered at Safeway on Corcoran Street NW near Dupont Circle.

How to identify card skimmers

While police try to track down the thieves here’s what to do to protect against being skimmed:

• Make sure the device doesn’t move.
• Compare the machine to the one next to it.
• Check the alignment of the card reader.
• Look inside of the card reader before using it.

Anyone who finds a skimmer or suspected one should call 911.

Anyone who may be a victim should notify their bank or credit card company immediately.

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This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser.

The D.C. police department is launching a new team of crime fighters they’re calling community safety ambassadors. They won’t have guns or badges, but they might be the first to show up when you call 911, depending on how serious the problem is.

The hope is that the program will free up dozens of sworn officers for more serious issues.

“I’m a stakeholder in my community. I want to better my community,” explained Davina Carson, one of 16 of those new community safety ambassadors currently in training at the D.C. Police Academy. “I want to be a part of that change that makes it better, and I also want to be that gap, that bridges the police to the community.”

Lindsay Appiah, D.C.’s deputy mayor for public safety, says once the ambassadors hit the streets in a few weeks, they’ll help with police duties like traffic and crowd control at big events, or responding to low level 911 calls like minor car crashes where a police report is needed — but not an actual sworn officer.

“Things that we really believe that we can train civilians, right, these community safety ambassadors, to respond to so that we can really free up sworn officers for the type of policing work that our community expects and needs from them,” said Appiah.

Carson has been a civilian employee for D.C. police for two years, but applied to be a safety ambassador as soon as she heard about the program.

For her, it wasn’t just to be a bridge between police and her community.

“I also have a 14-year-old son. I want him to feel safe,” Carson said. “When he calls the police, I want them to be able to show.”

Roderick Milstead oversees the ambassador program and tells News4, once fully staffed, it will free up 46 sworn officers to be on the streets full time.

“When we get full capacity, we should have 40 CSIs, four supervisors, and 20 of these pretty patrol, or not patrol cars, 20 CSA cars patrolling the city,” Milstead said.

Carson hopes the community will embrace the safety ambassadors once they hit the streets..

“I want them to know that we’re here to help. We’re here to make the community better and to also bridge the gap between the community and MPD, you know? And to free them up so they can be arrived on the scene in a timely manner,” Carson said.

The current group of community safety ambassadors range in ages from 24 to 65, and they are still hiring.

The gunfire quickly scattered the crowd. Children who had been playing on the sidewalk and neighbors ran for their lives into nearby apartments, News4’s Jackie Bensen reported.

D.C. Chief of Police Pamela Smith said at about 6:15 p.m. the suspects drove up and shot into a crowd in the 1100 block of 21st Street NE and then took off in a light blue Toyota sedan with no front tags, dark tints and black rims.

The Toyota was “possibly occupied with two shooters inside,” authorities said.

This occurred at the Fairway Park Apartments in the Carver-Langston neighborhood off Maryland Avenue.

“Shortly after this shooting occurred, a 12-year-old boy arrived at the hospital with a gunshot wound,” Smith said.

Ambulance crews on the scene kept locating victims.

“Five patients total,” a dispatcher said.

A man was declared dead at the scene. Police identified him as Aubrey McLeod, 29, of Largo, Maryland.

Two boys, ages 9 and 12, one woman and two men were shot and taken to hospitals. They are expected to survive their injuries.

“This is another example, and I’ve been through it before in this space of violence, that we cannot, we just cannot accept in our communities,” Smith said. “My condolences go out to the families and friends who were impacted by this senseless gun violence.”

Anyone who has any information is asked to call police at 202-727-9099 or text 50411. Police offer a reward of up to $25,000 for any tips that lead to an arrest.

More information on the motive for the shooting or descriptions of suspects was not provided. Police said the new real-time D.C. crime center was used to capture photos of the wanted vehicle. 

According to information gathered by the News4 I-Team, this is the fourth mass shooting in the District this year. A mass shooting is defined as four or more people shot or killed, not including the gunman. 

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This is a developing story. Refresh for updates.

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The Metropolitan Police Department — like other departments across the country — has been having trouble keeping up with staffing. For the past 10 years, MPD has been unable to hire enough new officers to keep up with the number who have been leaving. At the same time, crime was going up in the District.

This fiscal year, the department expects to swear in 18 more officers than have left, D.C. Deputy Mayor for Public Safety and Justice Lindsey Appiah told News4.

“We’re seeing really good recruiting numbers … and in this budget, we’ll see an actual net gain of officers instead of either staying flat or continuing to drop,” she said.

While 18 more officers in a department that is short almost 700 officers might not seem like much, for eight out of the past 10 years, MPD has lost more officers than it was able to hire. As recently as fiscal year 2021, D.C. police lost 219 more officers than it hired.

Now for the first time in seven years, the number will be on the positive side, which Appiah credits to incentives like signing bonuses and a new union contract.

“And certainly some of the money is,” she said. “Housing, the housing allowance, because we really want people to live in the city. That was a big one. There was some take home cars, which is a big deal for officers. A new CBA really helped with the retention of our, sort of, midcareer officers. So, it really is all of those things that we found that are helpful.”

“I think that we’re in a good place to see positive trends moving forward,” Appiah said.

MPD offers a $25,000 bonus for new hires. The annual starting salary for a D.C. police officer is  just more than $66,000. After five years on the job, officers can make just more than $88,000 per year.

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The center is a hub for technology like shot spotters, license-plate readers, traffic cameras and security cameras funneled through a command center at police headquarters.

By registering security cameras with police, residents and businesses are not giving police access but letting them know the location of the camera, so if a crime happens nearby, police can ask for the camera to be checked.

“I want to make it clear, by simply registering your camera, in no way are you giving MPD live access to your camera footage,” D.C. Police Chief Pamela Smith said.

Businessman Mark Ein, whose company Kastle Systems provides security technology for businesses across the city, took that a step further. He has been organizing a network of private companies who have stepped up to share their surveillance cameras with police in real time.

“So, today we’re announcing not just the integration of this entire network into the new real-time crime center, the push for more, but a commitment to another thousand cameras that we’ll give to any business, any building who wants it installed so that they can be part of this network, and we will do that for you,” Ein said.

He wants every business big and small to consider linking their cameras with the crime center.

“We really encourage people to do it,” he said. “It really is a force multiplier, and if you can imagine when an event happens, most likely there is a private camera there. It’s one thing after the fact to go see what happens, but sometimes in real time, that information and that feed and seeing what happened can be immensely helpful, and so that’s what we’re trying to facilitate.”

D.C. residents and businesses also can get a rebate of up to $500 for installing outdoor security cameras.

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Police said someone called to report a man with a gun at around 2:30 p.m. in the 3900 block of Davis Place NW in Glover Park. Authorities did not say what led up to that call.

D.C. police confirmed negotiators have made contact with the man barricaded inside the apartment, and they believe he is the only one inside.

No injuries have been reported.

A large police response, including one officer who was carrying a riot shield, could be seen outside the apartment. 

The scene is near the Russian Embassy, in a residential area with apartment and condo buildings.

Several neighbors said they were stuck outside because police blocked off the whole street.

“My dog has diabetes, so we need to get him his insulin here pretty soon too, but really we just want to know what’s going on in our neighborhood,” one woman said. “I feel like I have started to see crime a little bit more, but nothing on this scale. And it does make you pause a little bit.”

This is a developing story. Refresh for updates.

The 12-year-old and two 13-year-olds appeared in court after they were charged last week in the death of 64-year-old Reggie Brown. The judge also ruled the girls must undergo competency exams.

Brown died after he was brutally assaulted on Georgia Avenue NW early the morning of Oct. 17. D.C. police say the girls were caught on multiple recordings of the attack that a detective called “horrific.”

The girls, whose names were not released, have been held in a secure juvenile facility since last weekend. In two separate hearings, judges found probable cause for charges of second-degree murder, assault and conspiracy.

In court last week, a detective testified that Brown was disabled, had missing fingers on each hand and had ongoing ailments.

Gun violence Mar 29

Girls, 12 and 13, accused of beating 64-year-old man to death along DC's Georgia Avenue

Metropolitan Police Department (DC Police / MPD) Apr 1

Girls left in ‘celebratory' mood after deadly DC beating, detective testifies

The girls kicked and stomped on Brown and then left in a “celebratory” mood, cellphone video from a girl who was not charged showed, the detective said.

Along with a group of girls, a man also was caught on camera beating Brown, police said. Police have been unable to identify the man and have not released video of him to the public. A police spokesman told News4 the video did not capture any identifiable features.

Stay with NBC Washington for more details on this developing story.

This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser.

The report – “Bias at the Core? Enduring Racial Disparities in D.C. Metropolitan Police Department Stop-and-Frisk Practices” – accuses the department of discriminatory practices, saying Black people in the District are overwhelmingly more likely to be searched.

As part of a D.C. law passed in 2016, the Metropolitan Police Department is required to collect data around how often it conducts stop-and-frisk searches. This is the third time the ACLU-DC has analyzed that data, which it says shows D.C. police is moving in the wrong direction on this and the searches do more harm than good for both police and the community.

“There is a power dynamic at play, even if you know you weren’t doing anything at all. The fact that a police officer is approaching you can be very nerve-racking,” said ACLU-DC Policy Advocacy Director Scarlett Aldebot.

According to the report, in 2022, 68,244 people were stopped, resulting in less than 1% of guns being seized.

Last year, there was an increase, with 68,561 people stopped and searched with 1.2% ending with a gun recovery.

“When you really look at the harm of the practice on an individual and on communities and you look at what we’re actually generating from those stops, we find that that doesn’t outweigh the rationale for these stops or the manner in which they’re being conducted,” Aldebot told the I-Team.

The report found that most of the stops occurred in D.C.’s predominantly Black Wards of 7 and 8, although the practice happens throughout the city.

According to the data, Black people were stopped more than anyone. “We are at a place where I think we could call it a pattern. It’s pretty egregious,” said Aldebot.

In 2023, Black people made up 44% of the city’s population, but accounted for 70.6% of stops. White people represented almost 40%, with less than 12% of stops. Hispanic people made up 7.3% of stops, while making up 11.5% of the population.

“If you really want to think of that, just kind of in a in a patterned way, that is one Black person stopped every ten minutes for those two years,” said Aldebot.

“Twenty-three percent of the stops, or close to 16,000 of them, resulted in an arrest,” a D.C. police spokesperson told News4.

It’s unclear how many of those ended with a conviction.

Monday night, a D.C. police spokesperson responded to the ACLU report, telling the I-Team:

“The Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) continues its commitment to transparency by publishing comprehensive stop data twice a year, which supports the work of partners such as the ACLU in studying this data. However, it would be helpful for the public if descriptions about the data were also transparent. For example, whereas the ACLU gives the impression that all of the 68,940 stops in 2023 were “stops and frisks,” this is not at all accurate. Of the almost 69,000 stops, only 4,471 (less than 7%) included a protective pat down, sometimes called a frisk. Only 1% include a consent search. More broadly:

• The stops had a clear purpose. Almost 4 of every 5 stops resulted in enforcement action, either a ticket (58%) or an arrest (23%). The rest ended with investigation or other public safety response, such as mediating a dispute, educating a violator, or referral to services.
• The stops included many people traveling in or through the District. Sixty percent of the stops were traffic stops. Only 30% of the vehicles stopped and issued tickets for traffic violations were registered in the District; 70% were registered in another state.
• Most stops were resolved without any physical contact between the officer and the person stopped or his or her property. Only 10% of stops involved a protective pat down or a pre-arrest search of either a person or property.
• MPD stops play a vital role in supporting Vision Zero and making our streets safe for all users. Fifty-eight percent of all stops result in a ticket. Of these, almost one-third of the tickets were warning tickets. Eleven percent of arrests include a charge for a criminal traffic violation.
• Most stops are for traffic violations and have nothing to do with gun or gun crimes, but some stops help remove a significant number of guns from our neighborhoods. In 2023,MPD officers were able to remove 2,057 guns—64% of all guns recovered—from DC streets as a result of police stops.^[1]
• Most stops are brief. More than three out of four were resolved in about 15 minutes; 86% lasted 30 minutes or less.

The Department is committed to fair, professional, and constitutional policing in all aspects of its work as it strives to safeguard people and property in the District of Columbia. The Department works continuously to strengthen its service to the city. In the past year, the Department has focused on providing updated and comprehensive training for all its officers on the Fourth Amendment, including 10 hours of online and classroom training developed in partnership with the US Attorney for the District of Columbia. The Department is also supporting an independent study on Equity in Traffic Stops conducted by the University of Connecticut Institute for Municipal and Regional Policy. Researchers regularly stress that disparities, in and of themselves, are not sufficient evidence of racial profiling. We expect this study to be available in Fiscal Year 2025.

 ^[1] The stop data only indicates that one or more guns was recovered. It does not indicate how many guns were recovered. This comes from another data system.“

The ACLU-DC argues the practice is ineffective and has a chilling effect that harms police relations with the community.

“Communities are less likely to call the police when there is something harmful going on – even if they themselves are experiencing a harm – because of that lack of trust that bias policing can engender in people,” said Aldebot. “We have to really ask ourselves what practices are making us safer and which practices are not.”

Reported by Tracee Wilkins, produced by Rick Yarborough, shot by BJ Forte and edited by Steve Jones.

That much was reported at the time, but now the News4 I-Team has the federal documents proving a concerning number of guns the Metropolitan Police Department helped bring into the District ended up at crime scenes. So many guns recovered at crime scenes, in such a brief period, that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives placed D.C. police into a program designed to give extra scrutiny to dealers with higher levels of so-called crime guns.

MPD’s gun dealing was different than what many gun owners may be used to. Theirs was not a typical gun store with display cases and racks of guns to peruse. When a D.C. resident wants a legal handgun, they usually go to a gun store in Virginia or Maryland or to an online site. They pick the gun out, pay for it and have it shipped to a licensed dealer in D.C. – at the time, D.C. police headquarters. That D.C. dealer plays an important role in the sale process as the only place a federal background check is conducted, looking for past crimes or other disqualifications.

In recent weeks, the group Brady United Against Gun Violence released hundreds of letters sent by the ATF to gun dealers across the country that sold 25 or more guns recovered at crime scenes in a single year. The I-Team found one sent to MPD in May 2022. ATF calls it the Demand 2 Program.

“We are not anti-gun dealers at Brady,” Josh Scharff, the group’s general counsel, told the I-Team. “We are anti-irresponsible-gun dealing.”

According to Brady, just 2% of gun dealers across the country are in the ATF program any given year. The I-Team found 14 dealers in D.C., Northern Virginia, and the Maryland suburbs. That includes both currently licensed dealers in D.C. along with MPD from the time when it was an active gun dealer.

That means at least 25 of the guns MPD helped sell to D.C. residents in 2020 and 2021 were recovered at crime scenes in 2021 alone.

“It was a little bit surprising to see that the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department receive a demand letter,” Scharff said.

Federal firearms licensees (FFLs) play an important part in crime investigations.After a gun is found at a crime scene, the ATF traces it all the way back to the original sale with dealers and then follows the trail to see who else may have bought the gun before it was used in a crime. Detectives use the traces to develop suspects.

Short ‘time-to-crime’ with DC police dealt guns

According to the ATF, a gun found at a crime scene is on average 10 years along from its first sale – a calculation the ATF calls “time-to-crime.” The ATF explained to the I-Team, “Shorter time-to-crime periods could be indicators of illegal trafficking and provide crucial intelligence to investigators.”

The agency says if that happens within three years of the first sale, it deserves extra scrutiny into the gun dealer. For the dozens of guns recovered at crime scenes that D.C. police helped sell, the time-to-crime was at most 20 months – less than two years.

MPD is ‘ultimately responsible’

D.C. police has since stopped operating as an FFL, but Scharff told the I-Team the department should want to know why that time-to-crime was shorter and be able to tell D.C. families if their loved one was shot with a gun they helped bring into the District.

“MPD is ultimately responsible for the public safety of the residents of the of Washington, D.C.,” Scharff said. “Everything that they do should have an eye towards protecting the public safety. If Washington Metropolitan Police Department is engaged in selling firearms to the public, they have an obligation to the residents of D.C., to make sure that they are doing so safely and responsibly.”

Gun dealer had concerns about MPD’s practices

Shawn Poulin opened DC Security Associates in 2021. He is one of two FFLs in D.C. currently working with the public. He said he sees himself as the last check on responsible sales.

“We have a conscience just like everyone else. And we believe in responsible ownership,” he said.

Poulin opened his business months after MPD started operating as an FFL. At that time, MPD was the only licensed operating gun dealer in the District. D.C. police were then – and, according to everyone the I-Team talked to, is still – the only police department in America to help sell or have sold guns to the public. Federal records show D.C. police held a Type 1 federal firearms license, which the ATF defines as a “dealer in firearms other than destructive devices.”

Even before Poulin opened, he said D.C. police told him they wanted out of the gun business.

“They asked us to open early by four weeks?” Poulin told the I-Team at his D.C. location. “They were getting sick and tired of managing all those firearms they had down there. They had thousands of firearms waiting to be processed.”

D.C. police would not talk to the I-Team about Poulin’s claim.

When asked if he agreed with D.C. police getting into the gun business, “Heck, no,” Poulin told the I-Team, explaining, “My biggest point there for a while was if your firearms branch screws up, you’re going to inspect and enforce your own firearms branch?”

Looking back, Poulin said he was not surprised to see D.C. police on the list of dealers with guns that ended up at crime scenes.

“Does not surprise me one bit,” he said. “I walked in there, and it was, it was archaic. The processes, the systems they were using, to manage that process. It was archaic. I offered advice and offered little suggestions.”

D.C. police did not respond to that concern, either.

The I-Team also found Poulin’s business and the other D.C. FFL also received an ATF Demand 2 Program letter. Poulin told the I-Team his managers submit quarterly reports as required by the program and responded, “We don’t play games with (requests from the ATF).”

Few answers from DC police

After weeks of trying to obtain even basic answers from both D.C. police and the mayor’s office, the I-Team received few answers about the department’s time as an FFL. Brady’s Scharff told the I-Team D.C. residents deserve to know more about how their police department legally moved more than 8,000 handguns into the hands of District residents.

The trail started in 2012. At the time, D.C. had recently and repeatedly been in court over its stringent gun regulations and the 2008 Supreme Court decision in District of Columbia v. Heller had upended many of them.

The D.C. Council passed a law in 2012 allowing the city to seek a license to sell guns to D.C. residents if no other private business would do so.

Eight years later as COVID-19 took hold in the District (and, as federal statistics show, gun purchases rose rapidly), D.C.’s longtime lone licensed dealer closed his business. A D.C. police spokesperson told the I-Team, “MPD was required to operate as an FFL from April 3, 2020, until January 4, 2021, to uphold a constitutional right in the District.”

The department would not say how many guns were eventually tracked to crime scenes, or if they told families D.C. police helped sell a gun used to injure their loved one. D.C. police would not tell us how many people were assigned to the gun dealing unit. Nor would they say if they ever refused a sale – as is a dealer’s right.

While D.C. police didn’t answer most specific questions the I-Team sent, even basic answers the department offered were confusing. D.C. police said it started dealing guns more than two weeks before Mayor Muriel Bowser’s order allowing them to do so. D.C. police has not offered any explanation.

The law that allowed D.C. police to get into the gun business also allowed them to charge $125 per firearm transfer. D.C. police confirmed it charged that much, meaning they brought in more than a million dollars. A spokesperson said the funds collected from the transfers went to the city’s general fund.

In a statement to the I-Team, a D.C. police spokesperson wrote, “MPD has never sold guns. MPD was required to operate as an FFL from April 3, 2020, until January 4, 2021, to uphold a constitutional right in the District. During that period, the department facilitated the legal transfer of 8,038 firearms.”

That spokesperson also said once MPD ceased operations as a gun dealer, the department complied with requirements to submit transaction records to the ATF.

DC mayor told Virginia to better oversee gun dealers months before DC became one

Before Bowser told D.C. police to get into the gun business, she criticized Virginia lawmakers for not overseeing dealers in the commonwealth strictly enough.

Virginia Mar 7

In Democrat-led session, gun safety advocates ask why Virginia Dems won't get more on gun safety

Gun violence Jan 29

Report looks at the drivers of gun violence in DC

In a letter she sent Virginia legislative leaders on Jan. 8, 2020, Bowser urged Virginia legislative leaders to do more to keep guns legally sold in Virginia from being used in DC crimes. “Illegal guns originating in Virginia are a key driver of gun crime in D.C.,” Bowser wrote. She continued, “According to the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, ATF data show that criminal or negligent gun dealers are responsible for ‘nearly half’ of the total number of trafficked firearms uncovered in ATF investigations.”

Four months later, she signed that mayor’s order authorizing D.C.’s police department to become a dealer themselves, and those ATF records show clearly, D.C. helped bring guns into the District eventually used in crime, too.

The I-Team asked about the letter and D.C. police’s role as a gun dealer two weeks ago. The mayor’s office acknowledged the questions but never answered them.

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Rick Yarborough, and shot and edited by Steve Jones.

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Officers from D.C.’s Violent Crime Suppression Division were patrolling in the 2100 block of Bladensburg Road NE at about 9 p.m. when they saw a group of men in what police described as an altercation, police said.

After getting out of their patrol cars to try to break up the fight, officers saw that one of the men had a gun, police said.

According to police, that man ran from the scene and officers toward Bladensburg Road and V Street NE. During the chase, the officer fired his weapon and shot the man multiple times.

The man was taken to a hospital and was in stable condition.

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Officers recovered a gun at the scene, police said.

The officer’s use of force and whether the man pulled out a gun or fired at officers is under investigation.

This is a developing story. Stay with News4 for updates.

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Reggie Brown died after he was brutally assaulted on Georgia Avenue NW early the morning of Oct. 17, 2023. A Metropolitan Police Department detective described him as being physically handicapped, with missing fingers on each hand and ongoing ailments.

A 12-year-old girl and two 13-year-old girls were arrested late last week and charged with murder. The man involved in the attack has still not been identified.

A four-and-a-half-hour court hearing on Friday revealed new details in the case.

The two 13-year-olds appeared in D.C. Superior Court, where Detective Harry Singleton called video of the deadly beating “horrific.” The attack was caught on surveillance video as well as cellphone video.

First, the man who would attack Brown “escorted” him across Georgia Avenue, Singleton testified. The man was wearing a blue coat.

According to what was caught on numerous cameras in the area, the man was the first person to assault Brown. He threw him against a wall and knocked him to the ground, the detective testified.

A prosecutor played several videos that showed a group of girls walking on Georgia Avenue. One girl asked the man if she could “fight him too.”

Videos show Brown managing to get up and try to get away.

The girls kicked and stomped on Brown and then left in a “celebratory” mood, cellphone video from a girl who was not charged showed, the detective said.

When officers arrived at the 6200 block of Georgia Avenue, near Rittenhouse Street, Brown was dead.

Gun violence Mar 29

Girls, 12 and 13, accused of beating 64-year-old man to death along DC's Georgia Avenue

Washington DC Mar 29

Girl shot on while inside home on Peabody Street NW in DC, police say

“My uncle really didn’t deserve this,” a niece of Brown’s said in a statement to News4 on Friday. “He was known in this community for years so for this to happen where he lived for 64 [years] is insane. They have to be held accountable!”

A friend of Brown’s said he was stunned to hear that children were responsible for the attack.

“That’s rough. That’s rough. They need to pay the penalty if they did it,” he said.

There’s no indication that Brown knew the girls, the detective testified.

Singleton described a monthslong investigation, with detectives reviewing videos frame by frame to try to identify the attackers.

The parents of the 13-year-old girls, whose names were not released, were in court for the testimony on Friday. Testimony revealed that the girls missed weeks of school.

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The judge found probable cause for charges of second-degree murder, assault and conspiracy and ordered the girls held in a secure juvenile facility.

Stay with NBC Washington for more details on this developing story.

This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser.

The report – “Bias at the Core? Enduring Racial Disparities in D.C. Metropolitan Police Department Stop-and-Frisk Practices” – accuses the department of discriminatory practices, saying Black people in the District are overwhelmingly more likely to be searched.

As part of a D.C. law passed in 2016, the Metropolitan Police Department is required to collect data around how often it conducts stop-and-frisk searches. This is the third time the ACLU-DC has analyzed that data, which it says shows D.C. police is moving in the wrong direction on this and the searches do more harm than good for both police and the community.

“There is a power dynamic at play, even if you know you weren’t doing anything at all. The fact that a police officer is approaching you can be very nerve-racking,” said ACLU-DC Policy Advocacy Director Scarlett Aldebot.

According to the report, in 2022, 68,244 people were stopped, resulting in less than 1% of guns being seized.

Last year, there was an increase, with 68,561 people stopped and searched with 1.2% ending with a gun recovery.

“When you really look at the harm of the practice on an individual and on communities and you look at what we’re actually generating from those stops, we find that that doesn’t outweigh the rationale for these stops or the manner in which they’re being conducted,” Aldebot told the I-Team.

The report found that most of the stops occurred in D.C.’s predominantly Black Wards of 7 and 8, although the practice happens throughout the city.

According to the data, Black people were stopped more than anyone. “We are at a place where I think we could call it a pattern. It’s pretty egregious,” said Aldebot.

In 2023, Black people made up 44% of the city’s population, but accounted for 70.6% of stops. White people represented almost 40%, with less than 12% of stops. Hispanic people made up 7.3% of stops, while making up 11.5% of the population.

“If you really want to think of that, just kind of in a in a patterned way, that is one Black person stopped every ten minutes for those two years,” said Aldebot.

“Twenty-three percent of the stops, or close to 16,000 of them, resulted in an arrest,” a D.C. police spokesperson told News4.

It’s unclear how many of those ended with a conviction.

Monday night, a D.C. police spokesperson responded to the ACLU report, telling the I-Team:

“The Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) continues its commitment to transparency by publishing comprehensive stop data twice a year, which supports the work of partners such as the ACLU in studying this data. However, it would be helpful for the public if descriptions about the data were also transparent. For example, whereas the ACLU gives the impression that all of the 68,940 stops in 2023 were “stops and frisks,” this is not at all accurate. Of the almost 69,000 stops, only 4,471 (less than 7%) included a protective pat down, sometimes called a frisk. Only 1% include a consent search. More broadly:

• The stops had a clear purpose. Almost 4 of every 5 stops resulted in enforcement action, either a ticket (58%) or an arrest (23%). The rest ended with investigation or other public safety response, such as mediating a dispute, educating a violator, or referral to services.
• The stops included many people traveling in or through the District. Sixty percent of the stops were traffic stops. Only 30% of the vehicles stopped and issued tickets for traffic violations were registered in the District; 70% were registered in another state.
• Most stops were resolved without any physical contact between the officer and the person stopped or his or her property. Only 10% of stops involved a protective pat down or a pre-arrest search of either a person or property.
• MPD stops play a vital role in supporting Vision Zero and making our streets safe for all users. Fifty-eight percent of all stops result in a ticket. Of these, almost one-third of the tickets were warning tickets. Eleven percent of arrests include a charge for a criminal traffic violation.
• Most stops are for traffic violations and have nothing to do with gun or gun crimes, but some stops help remove a significant number of guns from our neighborhoods. In 2023,MPD officers were able to remove 2,057 guns—64% of all guns recovered—from DC streets as a result of police stops.^[1]
• Most stops are brief. More than three out of four were resolved in about 15 minutes; 86% lasted 30 minutes or less.

The Department is committed to fair, professional, and constitutional policing in all aspects of its work as it strives to safeguard people and property in the District of Columbia. The Department works continuously to strengthen its service to the city. In the past year, the Department has focused on providing updated and comprehensive training for all its officers on the Fourth Amendment, including 10 hours of online and classroom training developed in partnership with the US Attorney for the District of Columbia. The Department is also supporting an independent study on Equity in Traffic Stops conducted by the University of Connecticut Institute for Municipal and Regional Policy. Researchers regularly stress that disparities, in and of themselves, are not sufficient evidence of racial profiling. We expect this study to be available in Fiscal Year 2025.

 ^[1] The stop data only indicates that one or more guns was recovered. It does not indicate how many guns were recovered. This comes from another data system.“

The ACLU-DC argues the practice is ineffective and has a chilling effect that harms police relations with the community.

“Communities are less likely to call the police when there is something harmful going on – even if they themselves are experiencing a harm – because of that lack of trust that bias policing can engender in people,” said Aldebot. “We have to really ask ourselves what practices are making us safer and which practices are not.”

Reported by Tracee Wilkins, produced by Rick Yarborough, shot by BJ Forte and edited by Steve Jones.

A driver parked on 14th Street just south of U Street at about 3 a.m. Sunday to pick up a McDonald’s food delivery order, a police report says. When he headed back to the car, it and Recardito were gone.

The driver’s car was recovered early Monday, but the 4-year-old bulldog wasn’t found until Monday evening.

Police continue to search for the suspect, who was caught on nearby cameras, police say.

Anyone with potentially relevant information is asked to call police. A reward of up to $1,000 is available.

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After a spike in carjackings in 2023, carjackings are down so far this year, Metropolitan Police Department statistics say. In comparison to the same time last year, carjackings are down 17% and motor vehicle thefts are down 31%.

Stay with NBC Washington for more details on this developing story.

Cameras captured the crime inside the store on I Street NW about 5:30 p.m. Dec. 17. Thieves wearing hooded sweatshirts, gloves and masks grabbed handfuls of merchandise before getting away.

One of the suspects set off a fire extinguisher multiple times, hitting a special police officer with its contents while others took merchandise, police said. 

The suspect with the fire extinguisher then removed his gloves, mask and hood and entered the bathroom for a minute or two before coming out and blending in as a customer as he left, according to court documents.

His face was caught on camera, and he was later identified as 18-year-old Romello Marquez of Northeast D.C., police said. Police arrested him Wednesday.

As the suspects were leaving, an armed security officer hired by the store fired once, but no one was hit. 

The thieves took 12 purses worth more than $100,000, according to court documents.

Marquez is charged with attempt to commit robbery while armed.

The same Chanel was robbed in February 2023. A flash mob in that incident also set off a fire extinguisher to create a distraction.

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The report – “Bias at the Core? Enduring Racial Disparities in D.C. Metropolitan Police Department Stop-and-Frisk Practices” – accuses the department of discriminatory practices, saying Black people in the District are overwhelmingly more likely to be searched.

As part of a D.C. law passed in 2016, the Metropolitan Police Department is required to collect data around how often it conducts stop-and-frisk searches. This is the third time the ACLU-DC has analyzed that data, which it says shows D.C. police is moving in the wrong direction on this and the searches do more harm than good for both police and the community.

“There is a power dynamic at play, even if you know you weren’t doing anything at all. The fact that a police officer is approaching you can be very nerve-racking,” said ACLU-DC Policy Advocacy Director Scarlett Aldebot.

According to the report, in 2022, 68,244 people were stopped, resulting in less than 1% of guns being seized.

Last year, there was an increase, with 68,561 people stopped and searched with 1.2% ending with a gun recovery.

“When you really look at the harm of the practice on an individual and on communities and you look at what we’re actually generating from those stops, we find that that doesn’t outweigh the rationale for these stops or the manner in which they’re being conducted,” Aldebot told the I-Team.

The report found that most of the stops occurred in D.C.’s predominantly Black Wards of 7 and 8, although the practice happens throughout the city.

According to the data, Black people were stopped more than anyone. “We are at a place where I think we could call it a pattern. It’s pretty egregious,” said Aldebot.

In 2023, Black people made up 44% of the city’s population, but accounted for 70.6% of stops. White people represented almost 40%, with less than 12% of stops. Hispanic people made up 7.3% of stops, while making up 11.5% of the population.

“If you really want to think of that, just kind of in a in a patterned way, that is one Black person stopped every ten minutes for those two years,” said Aldebot.

“Twenty-three percent of the stops, or close to 16,000 of them, resulted in an arrest,” a D.C. police spokesperson told News4.

It’s unclear how many of those ended with a conviction.

Monday night, a D.C. police spokesperson responded to the ACLU report, telling the I-Team:

“The Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) continues its commitment to transparency by publishing comprehensive stop data twice a year, which supports the work of partners such as the ACLU in studying this data. However, it would be helpful for the public if descriptions about the data were also transparent. For example, whereas the ACLU gives the impression that all of the 68,940 stops in 2023 were “stops and frisks,” this is not at all accurate. Of the almost 69,000 stops, only 4,471 (less than 7%) included a protective pat down, sometimes called a frisk. Only 1% include a consent search. More broadly:

• The stops had a clear purpose. Almost 4 of every 5 stops resulted in enforcement action, either a ticket (58%) or an arrest (23%). The rest ended with investigation or other public safety response, such as mediating a dispute, educating a violator, or referral to services.
• The stops included many people traveling in or through the District. Sixty percent of the stops were traffic stops. Only 30% of the vehicles stopped and issued tickets for traffic violations were registered in the District; 70% were registered in another state.
• Most stops were resolved without any physical contact between the officer and the person stopped or his or her property. Only 10% of stops involved a protective pat down or a pre-arrest search of either a person or property.
• MPD stops play a vital role in supporting Vision Zero and making our streets safe for all users. Fifty-eight percent of all stops result in a ticket. Of these, almost one-third of the tickets were warning tickets. Eleven percent of arrests include a charge for a criminal traffic violation.
• Most stops are for traffic violations and have nothing to do with gun or gun crimes, but some stops help remove a significant number of guns from our neighborhoods. In 2023,MPD officers were able to remove 2,057 guns—64% of all guns recovered—from DC streets as a result of police stops.^[1]
• Most stops are brief. More than three out of four were resolved in about 15 minutes; 86% lasted 30 minutes or less.

The Department is committed to fair, professional, and constitutional policing in all aspects of its work as it strives to safeguard people and property in the District of Columbia. The Department works continuously to strengthen its service to the city. In the past year, the Department has focused on providing updated and comprehensive training for all its officers on the Fourth Amendment, including 10 hours of online and classroom training developed in partnership with the US Attorney for the District of Columbia. The Department is also supporting an independent study on Equity in Traffic Stops conducted by the University of Connecticut Institute for Municipal and Regional Policy. Researchers regularly stress that disparities, in and of themselves, are not sufficient evidence of racial profiling. We expect this study to be available in Fiscal Year 2025.

 ^[1] The stop data only indicates that one or more guns was recovered. It does not indicate how many guns were recovered. This comes from another data system.“

The ACLU-DC argues the practice is ineffective and has a chilling effect that harms police relations with the community.

“Communities are less likely to call the police when there is something harmful going on – even if they themselves are experiencing a harm – because of that lack of trust that bias policing can engender in people,” said Aldebot. “We have to really ask ourselves what practices are making us safer and which practices are not.”

Reported by Tracee Wilkins, produced by Rick Yarborough, shot by BJ Forte and edited by Steve Jones.

The suspects charged with armed carjacking are two 15-year-old boys and a 14-year-old boy.

The crime happened on Thursday at around 6:07 p.m. in the 700 block of Lamont Street NW, police said. 

“The victim told officers that he was sitting in his car when a suspect approached him. The suspect pointed a gun at him while demanding the victim get out of the car,” D.C. police said in a news release. 

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A second suspect then approached and told the victim to get his child, of unspecified age, out of the vehicle, authorities said. The victim complied and the teens allegedly took off.

A police helicopter was able to track down the car “less than 15 minutes later,” according to MPD. 

Dramatic bystander video shows how at least three officers ran behind the stolen car, at one point trying to open a door.

Police said the suspects abandoned the car at 11th and R streets NW and fled on foot.

The helicopter was able to locate the teenagers and they were arrested, authorities said. Police also said they found a firearm. 

This is a developing story. Refresh for updates.

Charles Edward Owens, 24, was charged Wednesday with first-degree murder while armed. Owens was already in custody at the D.C. jail, police said.

‘Ari, don’t die’: 10-year-old shot in car after family left celebration

On the evening of May 14, 2023, Arianna’s family was driving in the 3700 block of Hayes Street NE, west of DC-295, when they saw multiple people get out of a car directly behind them.

The people from that car began shooting, police said.

Witnesses said they heard more than 50 shots. Arianna’s family believes their car was struck by other people returning fire, police said.

A witness in the victims’ car told investigators they weren’t aware Arianna was hurt until a younger child in the car said, “Ari, don’t die.”

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The family then rushed to a firehouse, and Arianna was taken to a hospital.

She died three days later.

At her funeral, her grandfather, Everette Douglas, said he misses her every day.

“I just wish more, this violence would stop,” he said. “Because it could have been anybody else’s child.”

Owens is the third man to be charged in Arianna’s murder.

“Since the shooting, the community has provided numerous tips and video evidence,” police said in a release Wednesday. “Through community cooperation and the tireless work of MPD’s Homicide Branch, detectives were able to identify the suspects.”

Karon Gregory, 19, of Southeast D.C., was arrested last September. Then, 19-year-old Dallas McKinney, also of Southeast D.C., was arrested in January. Both are also charged with first-degree murder while armed. 

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Scammers are impersonating members of D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department, calling residents and claiming there’s a warrant out for their arrest for not appearing at jury duty. The scammer says that with a payment, the warrant can be removed.

“The Metropolitan Police Department will never solicit anyone for monetary funds, bank information, or Social Security numbers,” the department said Monday.

MPD shared these tips:

• “Don’t feel pressured to act. Scammers may have some public information about you (like your name and address), but that does not mean they are legitimate. Verify by contacting the appropriate agency directly using customer service info on their public websites.
• MPD will never demand payment by phone. Do not share your credit card number, personal information, or other financial information. Do not wire transfer money or transfer funds to anyone you do not know.
• Share what you know with others. By telling your friends and family members about the scam, you can help protect your community.”

The D.C. courts’ active warrant list can be found here. Go here for info on a jury summons – and who to contact if you have already fallen victim to the scam.

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Fairfax County court officials have warned of a similar scam.

“We regularly receive calls about jurors getting contacted by a person claiming to be a Deputy Sheriff and requesting money transactions and threatening an existing bench warrant and/or jail if they do not transfer money. This is a scam! Do not give any personal information or send money,” Circuit Court officials said.