The District of Columbia's homicide rate, the highest in the nation in 1989, is on the same track again this year, officials say.
There were 218 reported slayings in the district as of June 29 - a pace that would virtually equal the 434 homicides that were recorded in the city in 1989. Four of those slayings were at the hands of police officers.The homicide rate had been 8.5 percent below last year's pace on May 1, with 152 reported deaths, as opposed to 165 at the same time last year. But a spurt of slayings in May and June brought the rate nearly even with the 1989 pace.
The district has recorded 65 killings in the past 45 days.
Drugs were cited as a major factor in the city's record homicide rate in 1989, the highest per capita for any U.S. city. Police spokesman Lt. Reginald Smith said the department's crackdown on drug activity was a prime reason that the situation hadn't gotten worse this year.
"We have more investigators available to follow up on homicide cases and are getting good cooperation from the U.S. attorney's office as prosecutors are making solid cases against drug arrestees," Smith said.
Police patrols also have been increased in known open-air drug markets and civilian community patrols are making inroads in crime-ridden neighborhoods, Smith said.
D.C. Superior Court officials said the percentage of adult suspects testing positive for cocaine use increased in May, after generally declining in the previous six months.
Fifty-four percent of the 857 suspects screened for possible drug use in May tested positive for cocaine use, said Rhonda Winston of the city Pretrial Services Agency, up from 51 percent in April - the lowest percentage of cocaine use in three years.
"It would be hard to say if any trend of that nature was developing," Winston said. "Our figures show that the number of arrestees who tested positive for cocaine were down for the last four months of 1989, but went up slightly in January, and declined in February, March and April."
She said cocaine appeared to be "the drug of choice" of most criminal arrestees who test positive for substance abuse.