Although the number of homicides in the District of Columbia has increased since last year, the city is poised to post the second-lowest homicide rate in more than two decades.

With a week remaining in 2007, D.C. recorded 180 homicides this year. That is 11 more than last year when the city celebrated a precipitous drop in homicides, recording the lowest number of killings since before the crack-cocaine epidemic of the 1980s and ’90s and the second-lowest since 1966.

Last year’s homicide total was helped in part by then-D.C. Police Chief Charles Ramsey calling for a crime emergency that mandated that police officers work six-day weeks. The strategy placed more cops on the streets, but cost the city millions of dollars in overtime and placed a huge strain on the rank-and-file.

First-year D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier began the year vowing to eschew the costly crime emergencies espoused by her mentor, Ramsey.

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Detectives are solving 70 percent of the city’s homicides; that is 5 percent more than last year and the best closure rate in at least 10 years, Lanier said.

smccabe@dcexaminer.com