D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier has recently touted the city's success at closing homicide cases, but a newspaper report says the way the success is calculated can be misleading.
The Washington Post reports Sunday on the 94 percent homicide case-closure rate in Washington. The paper says police records show the city had 108 homicides last year, and 62 were solved as of year's end. That's a 57 percent closure rate.
But D.C. police also counted 40 cases from other years that were closed in 2011, giving it the 94 percent closure rate.
Lanier says the department followed FBI guidelines in calculating its case-closure rate.
A local website, homicidewatch.org, reported in December on the way the numbers are calculated.
Copyright AP - Associated Press
