Where can I download month-by-month homicide counts for Washington, D.C. in 2025 from MPD or DC Open Data?

1. Where the official numbers live: MPD’s Data & Statistics and “DC Crime Cards”

The MPD’s Data and Statistics landing page explicitly directs users to “download offense data using our online data mapping application, DC Crime Cards,” making Crime Cards the primary downloadable source for offense-level and summary crime data maintained by the department ^[1]. The MPD’s District Crime Data pages publish year‑to‑date and year‑end homicide tallies and clarify that those figures come from MPD’s records management system and follow DC Code offense definitions — a critical caveat because those counts do not necessarily match FBI NIBRS/Part I totals ^{[3] [4]}.

2. How DC Open Data / federal catalogs point back to MPD data

Government data catalogs mirror MPD’s dataset structure: the federal data catalog entry for “Crime Incidents in 2025” describes a subset of incidents from MPD’s ASAP database and directs users to crimecards.dc.gov for more information, which means a user can retrieve incident‑level exports either from the Crime Cards application or via linked open-data endpoints referenced in catalog entries ^[2]. That makes the federal catalog useful as an index or backup pointer when the MPD mapping app is the operational source ^[2].

3. What to download and how to get month-by-month counts

MPD’s instruction to “download offense data using our online data mapping application, DC Crime Cards” implies downloadable offense/incident files that can be filtered by date and offense type; users seeking month-by-month homicide counts should download the 2025 incident/offense export from Crime Cards and aggregate by incident date into calendar months locally ^[1]. The District Crime Data pages provide ready-made year-to-date and year-end tallies (useful verification), but the pages themselves focus on summaries and may not offer a pre-aggregated month-by-month CSV visible on the summary page ^{[3] [4]}.

4. Practical caveats and reconciliation issues to expect

MPD’s published totals reflect entries in its records management system as of specific cut‑off times and follow DC Code definitions; MPD warns these are not identical to FBI NIBRS Part I totals, so month-by-month counts derived from MPD exports may differ slightly from other federal or media summaries ^{[3] [4]}. Independent reporting and DOJ statements provide useful context and totals — for example, media reporting cited a 2025 total of 127 homicides citywide — but those outlets are summarizing MPD/official releases rather than providing separate downloadable month-by-month files ^[5].

5. Recommended step-by-step approach

First, open MPD’s Data and Statistics page and follow the link to DC Crime Cards to reach the mapping/download tool ^[1]. Second, within Crime Cards (crimecards.dc.gov) filter offense type to “homicide” and date range to January–December 2025, then export the incident CSV or GeoJSON; if Crime Cards does not provide a single month-aggregated table, import the incident file into a spreadsheet or analytics tool and group by incident date to produce month-by-month counts ^{[1] [2]}. Third, cross-check aggregated totals against MPD’s District Crime Data summary pages and published year-end numbers to validate the sum and note any recording‑time cutoffs documented on those pages ^{[3] [4]}.

6. Alternative sources and verification

If the Crime Cards export is unavailable, the federal data catalog entry for “Crime Incidents in 2025” can serve as a pointer to MPD’s ASAP-derived dataset and may include downloadable snapshots; users should treat such catalog copies as secondary and reconcile them to MPD’s official pages for the definitive count ^[2]. Media outlets and DOJ releases provide useful corroboration and context for totals and trends but do not substitute for the raw incident exports required to produce month-by-month breakdowns ^{[5] [6]}.