As part of our special Year in Review series, we parse out data related to this year’s homicides. The numbers in this story are pulled from Homicide Watch D.C.’s database, unless otherwise noted. For more detailed information, use the sorting features on our victims and suspects databases or explore our map.
There were 92 homicides this year, in 91 separate incidents.
Four deaths were ruled self-defense or justifiable homicide by citizen and won’t be counted in official statistics. The numbers below include those four.
Eighty-four were male, eight were female (including one who was transgender and identified as a woman).
The most common ages for victims were 21 and 23 years old. Almost two-thirds were in their 20s (36 victims) or 30s (23 victims) when they died.
The oldest victim was 69-year-old Nathaniel Beasley Jr.. The youngest was Kuron Rashad Hunt, a baby who died just after being delivered; his mother had been stabbed in the abdomen.
Three infants died this year: Hunt, who did not survive delivery; Keyontae Osbia Moore, killed by his mother’s boyfriend; and an unnamed baby girl, who was abandoned and died of hypothermia.
Excluding infants, no one under 18 was murdered in D.C. this year. Eight victims were 18 or 19 years old.
Seventy-four victims were black, three were white, two were Asian and two were Hispanic (the remaining are unknown).
Seventy-four killings took place at night (between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m.); 18 happened during the day. The most common time for a homicide to happen (14 cases) was between 2 and 3 a.m.
The most commonly listed reason for a homicide—12 cases—was an argument, according to data provided by MPD. Other circumstances include robberies (eight cases) and altercations (seven cases, including domestic).
Shootings remain the most common cause of death, with 60 killings, down from 77 last year. Twenty people died in stabbings, six of blunt force trauma, one of strangulation and one of hypothermia.
Thirty people were found dead at the scene of a murder; 61 died at the hospital.
More than 80 percent of this year’s homicides—77 out of 92—happened east of Capitol Street; 38 were in Northeast, 39 in Southeast. There were 13 homicides in Northwest D.C., and two in Southwest.
Suspects were arrested in 43 homicides from 2012; 44 current-year cases have no arrests. In two cases, a named suspect committed suicide. In all, 46 suspects were named in this year’s homicide cases.
All but three suspects were men.
At least 29 suspects were black; two were white. Race is unknown for 15 suspects.
Nineteen suspects were in their 20s at time of arrest, nine were teenagers, eight were in their 30s.
At 73, Joseph Chandler is the oldest person arrested for murder in D.C. this year. The youngest, Daquan Tinker, is 16.
