DC Police Launch 4th Installment Of 'All Hands On Deck'

WASHINGTON, DC (WUSA) -- In response to a spike of fifteen murders in the past two weeks, Mayor Adrian Fenty and Police Chief Cathy Lanier announced a new police offensive. For the fourth time this year, it's going to be "All Hands on Deck" for DC Police.

On Friday and Saturday, all patrol officers in the city will be assigned to street patrol duty in all seven of the city's police districts.

The month of October began on a relatively quiet note. But the last two weeks has turned the month into one of the deadliest of the year.

"Clearly, one homicide is one too many," Chief Lanier told an afternoon press conference at the corner of 21st & I Sts., NE, one of the hard hit communities, "But 17 homicides in one month is clearly unacceptable."

Mayor Fenty added, "If you can go from 15 days in a big part of August and October and have less than 5 homicides, and then have 15 or so in the second half of the month, obviously there's just too much instability in the neighborhood. And that's what we have to address in the long term."

The "All Hands on Deck" announcement was criticized by Ofc. Kristopher Baumann of the Fraternal Order of Police. "If the point of the new administration is to get the resources and the manpower out to the District commanders and let them use those resources and that manpower to the best of their abilities based on the districts they are in," Baumann asks, "why do we have District-wide initiatives that drain resources, that drain manpower and use them on weekends ... in some districts the weekends aren't your heaviest crime times."