About Homicide Watch D.C.
Homicide Watch D.C. launched in late September 2010 as a WordPress blog and was recognized in August 2011 as a notable entry in the 2011 Knight-Batten Awards for Innovation in Journalism. We use primary source documents, social networking and original reporting to build one of the nation’s most comprehensive public resources on violent crime.
The site relaunched in August 2011, adding a custom database to track homicide cases from crime to conviction, building the area’s most complete public resource for the people who need it most: victim’s families, suspects’ families, and all others affected by violent crime in D.C.
As DC residents, we believe that how people live and die here, and how those deaths are recognized, matters to every one of us. If it matters how someone is killed in Cleveland Park, then it matters how someone is killed in Truxton Circle, Ivy City, Washington Highlands or Georgetown. If we are to understand violent crime in our community, the losses of every family, in every neighborhood must be recognized. And the outcome of every trial — be it a conviction or an acquittal — must be recorded.
Who We Are
Laura Amico is founder and editor of Homicide Watch D.C. She started her journalism career as a student in South Africa and was a daily beat reporter before launching Homicide Watch. She is a 2011 MJ Bear Fellow with the Online News Association, a fellow at the 6th Annual Harry Frank Guggenheim Symposium on Crime in America, a Knight News Entrepreneur Boot Camp alum, and a New York Times Chairman’s award winner.
Chris Amico is a journalist and web developer based in Washington, D.C. He runs the technology side of Homicide Watch and helps out with editing and data-driven storytelling. And yes, he’s married to Laura.
Email us at HomicideWatchDC@gmail.com and follow @HomicideWatch on Twitter.
A brief visual tour of some of the features we debuted in Aug. 2011 is below.
