
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, December 20, 1993                   TAG: 9312200022
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: C-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

CAPITAL'S MURDER RATE TOPS '92

The murder rate in the nation's capital swept past the 1992 mark as four people were killed during the weekend, police said.

Last year's murder rate of 451 was surpassed Friday when three people died in two separate shootings.

Then, early Sunday, a man in his mid-40s was found dead of multiple gunshot wounds, police said.

That brought the total number of homicides to 455 this year, according to police.

"I'm not running the flagpole up and saying all is lost," Police Chief Fred Thomas said Saturday. "I am still encouraged [that] we will not surpass our deadliest year or second-deadliest year."

The District of Columbia's murder rate hit an all-time high in 1991 with 490 deaths. In 1990, 483 people were murdered.

In October, Mayor Sharon Pratt Kelly requested permission to call in the National Guard to assist local police, but President Clinton refused.

In the nearby suburbs, the homicide rate is climbing also. A triple murder Saturday at a party in Rockville, Md., about 10 miles outside Washington, sent that county's homicide rate to 29 for the year. The previous record of 28 murders had been set in Montgomery County in 1991.

In Washington, the bulk of the murders have occurred along the eastern edge of the district. Police said most of the murders are drug-related or gang-related.

In one police district along the southeastern edge of the city, there have been 134 murders this year, police said. In the wealthy northwestern area that includes Georgetown there have been only two.

Several high-profile cases have made headlines this year, including the drive-by shooting death of a 4-year-old girl and a shooting at a city pool this summer that wounded six children.

For two months this summer police sought a gunman believed to be randomly driving around the Mount Pleasant and Columbia Heights neighborhoods and shooting at lone pedestrians. A suspect was finally caught, after four people were killed and five others wounded in the 14 apparently related attacks.

by CNB