Reported crime in the greater Foggy Bottom neighborhood fell by nine percent in 2024 after an uptick in incidents the previous year.
Violent crime in Ward 2, which includes the National Mall and neighborhoods like Foggy Bottom, West End and Dupont Circle, dropped from 525 reported incidents in 2023 to 276 in 2024, and reports of crime in the bounds of the Foggy Bottom and West End Advisory Neighborhood Commission fell by 9 percent, from 478 reports in 2023 to 434 reports in 2024, according to Metropolitan Police Department crime data updated earlier this month. Police say new crime reduction initiatives contributed to the dip, which comes after the department reported heightened crime in 2023, while experts said it could be attributable to inconsistent data collection methods.

MPD Second District Commander Tatjana Savoy said between 2023 and 2024 the department implemented new crime reduction measures like Operation Action Teams Leaving Areas Safer, Operation THRIVE and the Real-Time Crime Center under the command of Chief of MPD Pamela Smith, which she attributed to the lower incident reports.
“Those initiatives that she started actually has played a significant role in the decrease in our crime,” Savoy said.
ATLAS, which MPD launched in December 2023, deploys patrol teams around D.C. at night based on crime trends in an effort to “enhance quality of life” through a more visible police presence, according to an MPD Fiscal Year 2023 Performance Oversight Hearing.
Savoy said THRIVE, which MPD launched in January 2024, focuses on mitigating crime in Rosedale, Washington Highlands and Anacostia. A D.C. Police Department post on X, formerly known as Twitter, stated crime in 2024 dropped by 22 percent in Rosedale, 37 percent in Washington Highlands and 41 percent in Anacostia.
Savoy said MPD launched the Real-Time Crime Center in April 2024, which serves as a space for local, regional and federal law enforcement to respond to criminal activities promptly. The center is staffed 24/7 to monitor and respond to criminal activity and data from CCTV cameras, emergency calls and other technology, according to a December 2023 press release.
“We are very focused on sending a clear message that if you engage in criminal activity in our city — if you harm people, threaten people, or make our communities less safe — you will be held accountable,” D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said in the press release.
In ANC2A, which represents greater Foggy Bottom and West End, homicides and burglary plateaued at zero and six cases, respectively, in both 2023 and 2024. Motor vehicle theft, assault with a dangerous weapon, theft from auto and robbery in ANC2A also dropped from 2023 to 2024. Motor vehicle theft declined by 47 percent this year, and reports of assault with a dangerous weapon dropped from five reported instances in 2023 to two in 2024.
Theft from auto in ANC2A declined by 27 percent, with 73 reported instances in 2023 and 53 reported instances in 2024, and reported robbery declined by 74 percent, from 27 instances in 2023 and seven instances in 2024. Other forms of theft, not involving a vehicle, robbery or burglary, increased by about eight percent from 314 reported instances in 2023 to 338 in 2024.

Ward 2, which is comprised of 78,878 residents, had 4,726 total reported incidents of crime in 2024, the second-highest reported incidents in the District. Ward 5 garnered the highest number of reported incidents, with 4,930.
In Ward 2, reported incidents of homicide, assault with a dangerous weapon, motor vehicle theft, theft from a vehicle, burglary, sex abuse and robbery decreased from 2023 to 2024. Incidents of vehicle theft and robbery had the steepest decline between 2023 and 2024, dropping by 38 percent and 54 percent, respectively. Reported incidents of arson in Ward 2 remained at one in 2023 and 2024, and reported incidents of theft (other) rose less than 3 percent from 3,062 to 3,136 instances.
The total reported crime incidents across categories in the District also dropped from 2023 to 2024, according to Crime Data DC.
The end of the year report from MPD states homicides in the District decreased by about 32 percent, from 273 incidents in 2023 to 187 in 2024.
Patrice Sulton, a GW Law professor and the director of the DC Justice Lab, a local criminal justice advocacy group, warned against attributing the decline in overall reported cases of crimes to a specific change. She said violent crime became widespread during the COVID-19 pandemic as a result of economic hardship, a trend that is reflective District-wide and nationally.
The District’s reported homicide totals had been steadily decreasing for a 25-year period until 2015, and reported cases began to uptick in 2020, DCist reported. Crime also surged in much of the U.S. in 2020 and the subsequent years, with a report by the Brennan Center for Justice outlining an uptick in violent crime.
“Some of what you’re seeing in the data is a return to normalcy after the spike during the pandemic,” Sulton said.
Sulton said poverty is an indicator of crime, which contributes to the distribution of crime reported across wards.
“There’s a relationship between wealth disparity and crime, and to be in a city where we have white households holding 81 times the wealth of Black households on average is an important thing to note,” Sulton said.
Megan Allburn, a criminal defense attorney who defends in homicide and rape cases, said she noticed the courts have been focusing on charging group offenders as one compared to individuals, which causes a drop in the number of reported crimes. MPD reported in a February 2024 release that officers arrested 17 defendants for drug trafficking and firearm violations in Ward 8 in 2021, and Allburn said the District charged them as a group as opposed to individuals.
Across the District, MPD recovered 2,895 firearms in 2024, compared to 3,135 in 2023 and 3,152 in 2022. MPD recovered 2,310 firearms in 2021 and 2,371 in 2020.
Attorney Michael Bruckheim, a partner and crime defense attorney for Bruckheim & Patel and adjunct professor at American University Washington College of Law, said he cannot be sure about what trends can be concluded from the data since MPD puts a “spin” on it before releasing the information.
“MPD will always send out data which will try to make MPD look good,” Bruckheim said.