The details of the February killing in Glover Park were shocking: Stephon Marquis Jeter shot and killed Rayven Amuan Edwards, his former partner, outside her apartment building, in the process wounding her 10-year-old daughter. He then fled with the three-year-old son he shared with Edwards, later taking his own life after a brief police chase.
There have been similar domestic-related killings since, including one just last week where two people in a home in Southeast were shot but survived; the apparent shooter then took his own life.
While homicides in D.C. are down 46% from this same time last year, advocates and city officials now warn that domestic-related killings are on the increase — and this year account for a quarter of the 26 homicides that have been recorded in the city. According to data from the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council, last year there were 28 domestic-related homicides — representing 22% of all killings in D.C., then a 12-year high.
Police officials also say that domestic-related incidents have driven a 35% increase in assaults with a dangerous weapon this year.
Advocates for survivors say they aren’t exactly surprised by the steady and troubling increases in killings and domestic violence more broadly, and that D.C. isn’t alone. According to an FBI report published in February, from 2020 to 2024 “the percentage of violent crimes involving domestic relationships slightly increased every year” across the country. (And that’s just reported crimes; the advocates say domestic violence often goes unreported.)
“Every year after COVID I came to the D.C. Council and said I’m concerned,” says Natalia Otero, the executive director of D.C. SAFE, which runs services for domestic violence survivors – including D.C.’s only 24/7 shelter for survivors and their families.
Otero says domestic violence started increasing during the pandemic, when COVID “created these high risk situations: isolation, access to weapons, children in homes, and financial instability.” (She says D.C. SAFE saw its number of clients grow from 8,000 to more than 13,000 during that time.) With the significant cuts to the federal workforce in the D.C. region and the resulting impact on the economy, financial instability has once again spiked, adds Dawn Dalton, the executive director of the D.C. Coalition Against Domestic Violence.
“We know economic instability impacts already abusive relationships, it could increase that violence,” she says. “I’m not all that surprised the numbers went up in 2025 because there was something unique that happened to the workforce.”
D.C. and federal officials have taken notice. Last week, Mayor Muriel Bowser and U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro announced new efforts to fight domestic violence. (Pirro has been criticized in other areas, specifically her push to prosecute more teenagers as adults and her insistence that D.C. crack down on the so-called teen takeovers.) She said her office has created a new unit to more quickly respond to high-risk cases, and Bowser proposed a new bill that would increase penalties for people who violate protection orders. It would also require pretrial detention for certain domestic violence charges, mandate longer sentences for domestic-related crimes against pregnant victims, and create a new offense for people who commit certain crimes in the presence of children.
“We know that all crime is unacceptable, but there is something particularly devastating about violence between people and inflicted by people closest to them,” said Bowser. “This legislation is about making sure survivors are protected and their safety and privacy are respected. It’s also about making sure that when someone needs help they can trust that help will be there and when someone breaks the law there are clear and consistent consequences.”
In 2020 Bowser also introduced legislation to make strangulation a felony offense; the council passed it into law in 2024. Pirro said that so far this year her office has prosecuted 90 felony strangulation cases, and expects to take on 360 over the course of the whole year.
“At some point we have to take a stand as a society and say we’re not going to accept this anymore,” she said about domestic violence. “The fact that a man can get away with it repeatedly, that a man can assault a pregnant woman and there’s no enhancement, is a commentary that emboldens these men to think that no one is going to stop them.”
Otero says that advocates had been pushing “for protections like this for over a decade,” and that governments often move too slowly to respond to increases in domestic violence. “We have to see a lot of tragedy for reactions,” she told The 51st. She also says that survivors have to be at the center of the discussion as Bowser’s bill moves forward, and it shouldn’t mean only looking to police as possible solutions.
“In cases of high-risk domestic violence, they are the best,” she says of the police. “But there are a myriad of situations where we should start thinking of alternative interventions."
Micaela Deming, the policy director at the D.C. Coalition Against Domestic Violence says that more steps are needed — one of which would respond to the increase in cooperation between MPD and federal immigration authorities, which increased significantly last August when President Trump surged federal forces into the city as part of a response to what he said was a crime crisis.
“One of the things we've been talking with council about now is addressing the risk that immigrant survivors face in calling police because there is no protection with their information being shared with immigration enforcement,” she says. (Last year we reported that Latino immigrants and communities in D.C. said they were more fearful of calling the police.)
Deming also says there’s a more immediate fight on the horizon: potential funding cuts proposed by Bowser in her 2027 budget, including to the Office of Victim Services and Justice Grants, which doles out funds to organizations that work with survivors of domestic violence. It could lose 10% of its current funding. (Ward 2 Councilmember Brooke Pinto, who chairs the council’s judiciary committee, has said she is pushing to restore this money.)
On top of that, Deming and Dalton say they are hoping the council can reverse some proposed cuts to social services, since they say those can be critical for survivors of domestic violence.
“We know survivors rely on TANF and SNAP and the childcare subsidy to make everything work when they are focused on their safety and healing,” says Deming. “And with all of the cuts we’re looking at really dramatic impacts for survivors being able to make decisions about their safety.”
The DC Victim Hotline is available at 844-4-HELP-DC (844-443-5732) and is a 24 hours a day 7 days a week chat- and text-based resource and crisis line.
Martin is a longtime reporter and editor in D.C. He formerly worked for WAMU 88.5 and DCist.com, and has contributed to the Washington City Paper and other publications. He's been in D.C. for 25 years, and tries to ride his bike everywhere he can.
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