Mark every death. Remember every victim. Follow every case.
March 13, 2012 7:19 AM   Subscribe

"Homicide Watch is a community-driven reporting project covering every murder in the District of Columbia. Using original reporting, court documents, social media, and the help of victims’ and suspects’ friends, family, neighbors and others, we cover every homicide from crime to conviction."

Homicide Watch D.C. launched in late September 2010 as a WordPress blog and was recognized in August 2011 as a notable entry in the 2011 Knight-Batten Awards for Innovation in Journalism.

In addition to names and photos of the victims, the site maintains a court calendar and database of primary source documents.
posted by BobbyVan (8 comments total) 9 users marked this as a favorite
 
Here's a profile of Laura Norton Amico and Homicide Watch from the Washington Post.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 7:24 AM on March 13, 2012 [2 favorites]


should work until its used to track down witnesses.
posted by Ironmouth at 8:03 AM on March 13, 2012 [4 favorites]


.
posted by Uther Bentrazor at 8:24 AM on March 13, 2012


I happy about anything that pushes cops to do their real job instead of harassing protestors, harassing brown people, etc., but I'm wondering if this handles homicides committed by police officers too.
posted by jeffburdges at 8:43 AM on March 13, 2012




I assume this was inspired by the similar LA Times project.
posted by yoink at 9:26 AM on March 13, 2012


What a great project. Time will tell if it's effective (increased conviction rates, diminished murder rates), but this is a great idea that humanizes victims. Every death should be examined as the tragedy that it is.
posted by falameufilho at 1:04 PM on March 13, 2012 [1 favorite]


Hi. I'm the lead developer on the site. Happy to answer any questions people have here.

To respond to yoink above, we did look at the LA Times' Homicide Report before we launched, plus a lot of similar sites. The Oakland Tribune's Not Just a Number project was another good example (though it looks like it's disappeared, sadly).

One thing we've been able to do that other sites haven't is track cases through the court system, so it's possible to see which cases have arrests, and which end in convictions.
posted by chrisamico at 5:30 PM on March 13, 2012 [2 favorites]


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