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The GW Hatchet

AN INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER SERVING THE GW COMMUNITY SINCE 1904

The GW Hatchet

Serving the GW Community since 1904

The GW Hatchet

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Officials name senior vice president, chief of staff
By Fiona Riley, Assistant News Editor • March 26, 2024

D.C.-area homicides drop in 2017 for second consecutive year

The total number of homicides in the District fell in 2017 for the second year in a row, The Washington Post reported Sunday.

Last year, there were 259 murders in the D.C. region – which includes parts of suburban Virginia and Maryland – down from 300 in 2016. The decline comes after homicides in the area spiked to 305 in 2015, an increase of nearly 47 percent from 2014.

Of the 259 homicides in the D.C. region, 116 of them occurred in the District itself. Most of the murders occurred in Southeast D.C., and only 17 were recorded in Northwest. No homicides occurred in Foggy Bottom.

Two-thirds of the murders in the D.C. area in 2017 were shootings, and the victims were mostly male, according to The Post.

But 2017 was also marked by a an unusually large number of murders with victims less than 20 years old, clocking in at 44. The year before, 38 homicide victims were between the ages of zero and 19, the same number as 2015 and 10 more than 2014.

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