WASHINGTON — With violent crime on the rise and coming off of an especially deadly July, Tuesday night D.C. police flooded different pockets of the city not as a show of force, but to let their guard down a little.
With a steel drum sound track provided by a student band, Lincoln Park had the sound of an easy summer Tuesday night.
But for too many in D.C. lately, harmony has been hard to come by.
"The crime is disconcerting and it's clearly increased a lot," said Jaida Jackson. She says it's especially stressful as a mom.
"Certain things you just don't feel inclined to do if you hear gunshots by the rec center or what have you," she said.
Jackson said she had no plans to be at this year's National Night Out until her young son Beau saw the games and the other kids playing - the kind of draw organizers hope for at this annual crime prevention event.
"I'm happy to see this level, this presence," she said of the dozens of officers and multiple departments hosting the annual National Night Out. "There is a lot of room for improvement, I think."
"We are mothers with fathers, with sisters, with brothers," said Metropolitan Police Department Assistant Chief Andre Wright. He said the goal for this event is to show the community the humanity in his department because they can't fight crime without them.
"If you see something that you think is going right, if you see what you think may be criminal activity, please give us a call so that we can intervene immediately. And I think that's a good first step," he said.
"We just we just want to make sure that we encourage people to stay and to stay into the fight. And we're going to we're going to win this, right? We're never gonna lose hope. We're never going to stop fighting," Wright, a D.C. native, said.
"I think none of us knows what the actual solution is, and they're trying to figure it out," said Jackson. "I just hope it's something we we start to see movement on as a community soon."
MPD and several federal police agencies held multiple Night Out events across the city Tuesday, and the department says it has more of its own events planned for this summer across parts of the District dealing with the most crime.