In addition, last July, city leaders reduced police department funding by $15 million and issued a hiring freeze. Mayor Muriel Bowser's 2022 fiscal year budget didn't include extra funding for the department, though it had more than $40 million for public safety initiatives.
Washington is grappling with a series of high-publicized shootings in the past week, including Thursday's incident, gunfire outsideThe city reached 103 homicides Friday, up from 106 in the same time frame last year, according to police figures. "People have asked police to reform. That’s been posed to me for now for a year-and-a-half," he said."I’m saying that we have to stretch beyond the police and look at the entire ecosystem to see what other things is everybody doing in the ecosystem to ensure that our communities are safe."D.C. court spokesman Douglas Buchanan refuted Contee on Friday, arguing there was not a backlog forcing the release of violent criminal suspects being turned back onto the street.