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Poll: DC Residents Losing Faith In Mayor To Handle Rising Crime Rate

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A new poll released by The Washington Post shows a sharp decline in Washington, D.C., residents’ faith in Mayor Muriel Bowser to handle the recent spike in violent crime.

According to the poll released Wednesday, just 33 percent of city residents believe Bowser is doing a good job in reducing the crime rate. The same poll, taken in Jan. 2014, showed a 55 percent approval rating for Bowser’s predecessor Vincent Gray.

While Bowser had a slightly favorable rating overall, 58 percent of residents say they approve of her actions as mayor, Police Chief Cathy Lanier saw a large drop in her favorability rating.

Lanier, who still garners high support from city residents, saw her approval rating drop from 71 percent a year ago to 61 percent in the current poll.

In August, members of the D.C. Police Union overwhelmingly voted “no confidence” in Lanier, saying the “gimmicky tactics” she employs don’t work and she favors political correctness over results.

Lanier brushed off the union vote, though, saying at the time she was “not interested in responding” to the police officers’ criticism.

The city’s police force saw a similar drop in ratings. In Jan. 2014, 71 percent of residents rated the police as good or excellent, while just 63 percent had a favorable rating in this poll.

The falling trust in police and the mayor comes from the city leaders’ seeming inability to handle a rise in violent crime happening in the city.

The murder rate has skyrocketed over the past year, and as of Wednesday 146 people have been killed in the city during 2015. Those murders account for a nearly 60 percent rise from the 91 murders at the same time in 2014.(RELATED:Marauding Teenagers Attack Woman And Baby In DC’s Poshest Neighborhood)

Earlier this year, Bowser introduced some measures to help fight the rise in violence, but those proposals met with opposition from both the D.C. Council and residents, and will likely die without being voted on by the council. At a press conference in August, Black Lives Matter protesters interrupted Bowser’s speech with chants of “no justice, no peace.”

Despite the disapproval of the Black Lives Matter types, more than half of D.C. residents believe the police response to the rising murder rate hasn’t been tough enough. Just 5 percent of residents think the police response was too tough, while 51 percent say they think the police should do more.

More than a quarter of D.C. residents say they do not feel safe in their own neighborhoods and more than a third said crime is the biggest problem facing Washington, D.C., today. (RELATED: Americans Live In Fear Just Blocks From US Capitol)

The poll was conducted by phone between Nov. 12 and 15, 2015, among a random sample of 1,005 adult residents of D.C.

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