By Allison Klein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 31, 2006; A13

Cincinnati had a 30-year high in homicides last year. Philadelphia recorded the city's most killings in 10 years. And Orlando logged its most slayings ever.

Violent crime is rising in many communities across the country, including the Washington area, and police chiefs and mayors from about 50 cities and counties gathered in the District yesterday to discuss, and vent about, the trend.

"We are here to say, America, we have a problem," Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton told the group. "We need to refocus on this gathering storm of crime."

Crime is at a "tipping point" in America, said Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, which organized the National Violent Crime Summit.

"We are turning the country over to our young people, and they are killing each other," said Dean Esserman, police chief of Providence, R.I., where robberies have increased. "Violence has become gratuitous. Where is the moral outrage?"

One after another, participants recited grim statistics.

In Washington, Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey declared a crime emergency last month after the city had 11 homicides in 13 days, on top of a 15 percent increase in robberies.

Suburban Washington has been struggling with some of the same trends. Robbery hit an all-time high in Montgomery County last year and is up 10 percent this year. Crime has dipped this year in Prince George's County, but last year the county logged a record number of homicides.

In Alexandria, robberies are up 24 percent, and in Fairfax County they jumped by 25 percent.

Across the country, crime has slowed significantly since the crack cocaine wars of the 1990s, which brought an explosion of slayings and violence. But in the past 18 months, officials say, they have seen gunplay, robberies and other violence returning to the streets.

Last year, about 16,000 people were slain across the nation.

The killings are fueled by everything from methamphetamines in Las Vegas to gangs in Sacramento, Calif., officials said.

Houston officials attribute their recent spike in homicides in part to a handful of destructive people who moved there after Hurricane Katrina, saying they were involved in 60 slayings.

Anthony Braga, criminologist at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, said criminals' "rules of engagement" changed in the 1990s, when teenagers were increasingly shooting each other over petty disputes and perceived slights.

"The youth are clearly driving this," he said. "The age of these kids is going down as the years pass."

The police chiefs talked about a culture that threatens, and sometimes kills, people who cooperate with police. Robert Dunford, a superintendent in Boston, said police are solving fewer crimes and continuing to lose the confidence of the community. Boston solved about 70 percent of its homicides in years past but solved about 29 percent last year, he said.

The chiefs also complained about shrinking police forces and said dwindling federal funds have contributed to the problem.

Some chiefs said law enforcement is suffering as federal funds are diverted to homeland security and the war in Iraq.

Edward A. Flynn, police chief of Springfield, Mass., and former Arlington County chief, said the country has created a "zero sum game, where we have a choice between funding homeland security and criminal justice."

Detroit Mayor Kwame M. Kilpatrick said the scope of the cities represented at the summit was telling.

"When you start seeing cities like Fort Wayne in this room, the problem is bigger than the rhetoric," Kilpatrick said. "Everything is exploding again. We need effective, efficient emergency federal response."

Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty assured the chiefs that he wanted to work with them.

"I see competing demands on resources," McNulty said. "It is expensive to fund our soldiers overseas, and we have to be successful here at home also."

The program also included a session on tactics to combat crime. Neither Ramsey nor D.C. Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) attended the forum. Nola Joyce, chief administrative officer for the D.C. police, talked about the crime emergency, the city's 10 p.m. curfew for juveniles, police overtime and surveillance cameras in neighborhoods.

Since the crime emergency went into effect July 11, crime has dipped, she said.