Here's a list of cities with per capita homicide rates: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_homicide_r...

I agree that it would be misleading to judge D.C. based on being at a 30 year low. Of the cities with the highest homicide rates, only Philadelphia has a higher population and rate. It's fair to say that there are other cities close in population. But it's clear that D.C. has a abnormally high homicide rate when compared to all of the other U.S. cities of its size or larger. Even if you only compared it to all other U.S. cities within, say, 100k of population, it's still at a very high percentile.

You are right it's misleading to say DC is at a 30 year low- the data I posted shows that it is actually at a 60 year low.

It's not clear at all that it has an abnormally high homicide rate at all. DC is not even listed on the link you provided- the one I provided has cities of equivalent size.

You can find it in the list under the heading 'Other statistics".

Just to be consistent with my sibling comment: it is improper to conclude that St. Louis is the most murdery place in America. The city of St. Louis metro population is 3 million people, who travel to the city proper to murder each other even though only 280k people live in those political boundaries.