With two killed Friday night, Washington DC reaches total of all homicides committed in 2014

Brett T. | 11:19 PM on August 29, 2015

As Twitchy recently reported, on August 19, Baltimore reached a sobering milestone — the 211th homicide reported this year in the city equaled the total of all homicides reported in the whole of 2014.

Washington, D.C., is “celebrating” a similar achievement this weekend, as the Washington Post reports that two homicides Friday night bring the total number of homicides recorded so far this year, 105, into line with 2014’s total.

With two killed in D.C. Friday night, homicide tally matches all of 2014’s. @JohnWoodrowCox on a sobering milestone. http://t.co/eNpgpB3u6I

— Lynda Robinson (@WPLyndaRobinson) August 30, 2015

The killings come just a day after Mayor Muriel Bowser held a meeting to announce her new #SaferStrongerDC agenda to fight violent crime. Bowser was repeatedly shouted down by #BlackLivesMatter protesters, particularly when she advocated putting more police on the streets in violent neighborhoods.

The Washington Post’s John Woodrow Cox reports that the police union also opposes the mayor’s plan, citing the “Ferguson effect.”

Union leader Delroy Burton said he thinks that a number of factors have precipitated the rise in homicides. Burton, who estimated that about 3,000 officers would work this weekend, said he believes that the nationwide scrutiny of police shootings has made officers less assertive — the “Ferguson effect,” as it is known.

“The bad guys are emboldened,” he said, “because the officers are hesitant.”

A man from the Stop Police Terror Project interviewed at the mayor’s meeting told the Post he believes that “poverty, deprivation, the concentration of socially deprived neighborhoods” is the key factor in the rise in violence.” Another activist said that “the city is becoming a city of haves and have-nots, and some people are feeling left out.”