Washington, DC · 2019 to 2025
In every DC police district, the Black share of people stopped is larger than the Black share of residents
The gap is widest where the fewest Black residents live, and it grew from 2019 to 2025. Arrests show the same pattern. Comparing with residents can't account for people who work in or visit a district.
Since July 2019, DC's Metropolitan Police Department has published a record of every person its officers stop. From 2023 through 2025, it recorded 213,336 stops of people whose race was known. Black people were 79% of them (167,647), against 43.3% of DC's residents: 1.82 times their share of the population.
A citywide figure mixes very different places, so the analysis compares each police district with the people who live in it. In all seven districts, Black people were a larger share of those stopped than of residents. The gap is widest in the 2nd District, a mostly White, high-income part of Northwest DC where 8% of residents are Black: Black people were 53% of those stopped there, 6.7 times their share of residents. In the 6th and 7th Districts, east of the Anacostia River, where most residents are Black, the two shares were close (1.05 and 1.10 times).
Stops are counted per person stopped. 15,728 stops with unknown race and 3,057 with no mappable district are left out. Source: MPD stops of persons via DC Open Data.
The gap has grown
Citywide, the ratio rose from 1.73 in 2019 to 1.87 in 2025, most of it since 2023. The growth came mainly in the districts with the fewest Black residents: in the 2nd District the ratio went from 5.55 to 6.86, and in the 3rd from 2.94 to 3.60. In the 6th and 7th Districts it barely moved.
2019 covers July 22 onward, when stop collection began. One population estimate (2019 to 2023) is used for every year. Source: MPD stops of persons via DC Open Data.
Arrests show the same pattern
MPD's adult arrest records go back to 2013. From 2013 through 2025, Black people were 89.3% of the 308,197 arrests where race was recorded, 2.06 times their share of residents. In the 2nd District, they were 65% of arrests, 8.1 times their share of residents there. In the 6th and 7th Districts, the shares were close (1.10 and 1.14 times). An arrest records who was arrested and where, not who committed an offense.
What this does not show
- Who is on the street. The comparison is with residents. Districts that draw commuters, shoppers and nightlife have many people in them who don't live there, and the data can't say who they are. That could account for part of the gap where it is largest, downtown and in the 2nd District.
- Why. The records show who was stopped or arrested. The data does not say why, and nothing here measures offending.
- Deployment. Stops depend on where and when officers are sent. The data can't separate those choices from who is out on the street.
- Exact group membership. Race is recorded by officers, while the Census counts residents by their own answers, and the two use different categories.
- People. Records count stops and arrests, not people: someone stopped twice counts twice.
Who gets searched once stopped, and what those searches find, is in the next report.
Part of the series Policing in DC, 5 reports.