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DC Police Chief Blames Media For Covering Murders Of White People More Than Blacks [VIDEO]

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With murders in the city reaching levels not seen in nearly a decade, Washington, D.C.’s police chief blasted local media for not giving equal coverage to the murders of black people.

Police Chief Cathy Lanier was speaking with Michael Martinez on local radio station WAMU Friday when the role of race in the city’s rising murder numbers came up.

WATCH (50:37):

Tom Sherwood, a local reporter and analyst for the radio show, mentioned that he thought murders in the city weren’t getting a lot of attention before “the white guy got killed at seventh street and the white guy got stabbed on the Metro.”

One of the murders Sherwood referred to involved a former congressional intern who was shot to death outside a Metro station when he accidentally got caught in the crossfire of a drive-by shootout.

The other white guy Sherwood mentioned was brutally stabbed nearly 40 times on a crowded train after a black teenager tried to steal his cellphone.

“You’re a white person, I’m a white person,” Sherwood told Lanier. “Is there a racial aspect of this that we ought to be more aware of?”

Lanier responded that she thought the perceived lack of media coverage was causing issues in the community.

“You’re probably not going to like my answer, but I have complained repeatedly, like the members of the community have complained, that not all homicides get equal coverage by the press,” Lanier said. “And when they don’t get equal coverage by the press it gives the impression that people don’t care as much. We tried very, very hard to get Charnice Milton lots and lots of coverage and that homicide did not get as much coverage as some of the others.”

The murder of Charnice Milton that Lanier refers to received major coverage, not just from local outlets, but from major national news organizations.

Milton’s murder even received renewed interest in the past few days following the Wednesday double murder of two Virginia reporters that was broadcast on live TV.

Milton was a local reporter who covered mostly neighborhood issues. She was heading home from an assignment on the night of May 27 when she stopped at a bus stop to change buses.

While waiting, a gunman on an illegal dirt bike shot and killed Milton after another man, the intended target of the attack, grabbed her and used her as a human shield.

Lanier’s comments on the radio show came a day after a racially charged exchange between D.C.’s mayor and Black Lives Matter protesters as they upstaged the announcement of the mayor’s new plan to fight violent crime.

Thursday morning, Mayor Muriel Bowser announced the new crime fighting plan that will put more officers on the streets in D.C.’s “hardest hit areas,” which the protesters didn’t like.

A shouting match ensued between the mayor, who is black, and the Black Lives Matter protesters.

“We are not here to talk about arresting black men, but how we can save their lives,” Bowser told the protesters, frustrated about their interruption.

So far this year 103 people have been killed in D.C., a 43 percent increase over the same time last year, and just two shy of the total number of murders in 2014.

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