Where can I find official dc police or metropolitan police department homicide data and dashboards?

1. Where the city publishes MPD homicide totals — the official front door

The Metropolitan Police Department’s website and its Data and Statistics pages publish up‑to‑date information on homicides, arrests and firearm recoveries and point users to downloadable offense data and map tools such as “DC Crime Cards” ^[1]. The District Crime Data at a Glance page on mpdc.dc.gov also summarizes year‑end figures (noting, for example, year‑end 2024 data accurate as of Jan. 1, 2025) and contextual footnotes about anomalies like the 2013 Navy Yard victims ^[2].

2. Where to get incident‑level, downloadable data: the city open data portal

For granular, GIS‑compatible incident records use the District’s open data portal, which hosts datasets such as “Crime Incidents in 2025.” That portal documents methodological changes (e.g., geography assignment updates in 2020) and supplies locations and attributes drawn from MPD’s ASAP crime reporting system — suitable for mapping, time‑series analysis or independent verification ^{[3] [5]}.

3. Dashboards and mapping tools: official and unofficial options

MPD’s site links to interactive mapping and download tools (Crime Cards) and the open data portal supports external dashboards. Independent sites such as CrimeDataDC present maps, ward/ANC breakdowns and running homicide tallies, but they are derivative products built from MPD/open‑data exports rather than an official MPD dashboard ^{[1] [4] [6]}.

4. How journalists and researchers are already using these sources

National outlets and analysts draw on MPD data and the open feeds: local reporting cites MPD analyses when describing year‑to‑date homicide declines and clearance rates (e.g., an MPD analysis showing a high clearance percentage in 2025 cited by local TV) and national projects aggregate many departments’ monthly reports to compare trends across cities ^{[7] [8]}.

5. Disagreement, quality questions and caveats to watch

Several public reports and commentators flag discrepancies and interpretive issues: watchdogs and commentators have questioned whether internal reporting practices or personnel issues affected MPD counts, and one report notes an MPD commander was placed on leave over possible data‑falsification allegations ^[9]. Analysts also caution that open‑data measures and FBI UCR/other standardized series can differ, and MPD’s open data may overstate or understate short‑term declines depending on classification changes and reporting lags ^{[10] [9]}.

6. How to verify and cross‑check numbers

Cross‑check three places: MPD’s official pages for the agency’s published totals and releases; the District open data portal for incident‑level records; and independent analyses by reputable outlets or research groups (MPD releases cited by local outlets, Washington Post analysis of multiple departments, and briefs from groups like the Council on Criminal Justice) to confirm trends and note methodological differences ^{[1] [3] [8] [11]}.

7. Quick links and practical tips for users

Go first to MPD’s Data & Statistics hub or the District Crime Data at a Glance page for summarized totals and context notes, then pull the open data “Crime Incidents” dataset for row‑level records you can filter by homicide and date; use the Crime Cards mapping app for quick visual checks and consult third‑party dashboards for alternative views while remembering they are built from the same base files ^{[1] [2] [3] [4]}.

Limitations and final note: available sources document MPD’s public dashboards, open data feeds and widely used third‑party trackers, but they do not provide a single universally accepted “official dashboard” beyond MPD’s published web pages and linked tools; users should compare MPD releases, the open data downloads and independent reporting to understand classification differences and timing ^{[1] [3] [4]}.