If Washingtonians were nervous about the Poor People's Campaign, they were more apprehensive over a major crime wave in the capital. Even before the upheaval that followed the slaying of Martin Luther King, the city occupied a high standing in all the indexes of violence. Among U.S. cities of 500,000 to 1,000,000 population, Washington ranks first in robberies per 1,000 people, second in murders, aggravated assaults and housebreaking, third in total offenses, fifth in larceny and auto theft, ninth in rape. Since two-thirds of Washington's 849,000 people are black, and often live amid squalor, it is hardly surprising that most of...
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