♪ >> on "america tonight": capital crime. washington, d.c. thought it had crime under control. this summer, though, proved that wrong. >> pow pow pow pow pow. you could see you know, guy running through the door, and he's bleeding. >> "america tonight"'s lynch ona

fletcher on what's behind the violence. and why black violence is gaining ground in brazil. thanks for joining joining m joie chen. here is how bad it's gotten. in our nation's capital, open mic night kept officials in the hot seat in the 3:00 in the morning, demanding something be done about violence. it is disturbing case of deja vu. the murder monday kerr it's been tagged with, in the 1990s. as lisa fletcher found, raising fear once again. >> reporter: the sounds of sirens blaring. the sound of a city in crisis.

officers racing to the scene of yet another violent crime. the most powerful city in america seems powerless to stop the killing that's terrorizing the community and destroying families. august 30th, 36-year-old mother of seven came face to face with the violence. >> hear gunshot. i'm thinking like about six, six gun shots. pow pow pow pow pow. you could see you know the guy running through door. and he's bleeding. and you know, like wow, kids outside, running towards this door. >> her 13-year-old daughter was sitting on her neighbor's front steps with two other kids when gun fire erupted from a passing car. >> when the man got like right in front of us, the car started shooting like it started shooting. >> reporter: i understand that you laid down over the little girl to protect her.

>> yes. >> reporter: whats waswhat was g through your head? >> it just naturally came to me. >> reporter: she might have saved the life of her eight-year-old friend. but she paid the price, gun shots in her legs. >> i said jesus, jeefs jesus, iw three wounds. she's shot. >> your daughter. >> she's shot. >> reporter: which leg is it still in? do you feel it? >> sometimes it swell up, and sometimes it's not swollen and i can feel it. >> reporter: this brazen daylight shooting happened in a public housing project called green leaf family gardens. it's a stone's throw away, from police headquarters, residents

say gun fire here is supply way of life and tijai is one of a long list of violent crime victims in the city so far. 124 homicides, a 46% jump over last year's 85 murders. the first direct where tijai lives includes some of the city's most dangerous neighborhoods and its most secure. the u.s. capital, the national mall, the white house. but this year's proximity to power offers little protection. it's here where former congressional intern kevin southerlin was brutally stabbed, he was just 24 years old. three weeks later, 23-year-old matt another congressional intern was shot to death near the station. the pain cuts across race and economic status. the frustration shared by citizens and the police.

>> do you think it's possible to boil all of this down to a sim reason thasingle reason we're he spike? >> no, i don't think so. >> more than a decade on the streets of washington. one problem he says: today's force is only 3500 members strong. tasked with policing a complex city of more than 650,000 residents. >> now, the chief will tell you 38, 3900. that includes the command staff. but in terms of the officers that are actually going to be responding to crime in the street, we're talking about the detectives, the officers and the sergeant. i don't think there's any problem given the officers i've spoken to who have been willing to talk to the police, we know there's not as many police out there, we know there's no vice out there. a lot of people are taking advantage and those who aren't taking advantage know the police can't protect them and they're

protecting themselves. we're seeing a proliferation of guns and gun violence, there aren't police out there and they are not deployed in a way that's effective. south wards 7 and 8, south district where we've seen 100% increase in homicides in that direct. >> 100%? >> yes. we've doubled the amount of patrols in that district. >> just a week before tijai was shots, the residents voted that they had no confidence in the police leadership. >> regardless of the chief of police, she is a very divisive leader. sometimes the right thing to do is replace them so we can find someone that everyone can get behind and we can move the ball

forward and start orepair this department and get a handle on crime. >> the chief has been grasping at solutions, lie capacity gun magazines and synthetic marijuana. we requested an interview, both declined our request to talk as well as our request for written statements specific to our story. while the dramatic rise in the murder rate looks and is a terrible reflection on the city, experts who take olong view warn againsa long viewwarn against rh into a single year. 474 homicides attributed to the introduction of crack cocaine in the 1980s. a drug that destroyed neighborhoods for decades. decided while politician he and

police were trying to figure out why crime was lapping he'd help communities mobilize against it >> there is a new restaurant opening up there called small fry. there is a little cafe over there. >> reporter: washington started a community task force engaging locals in decision-making and community service to address blight and crime. as though businesses build up i would imagine a sense of pride in the community builds up as well? >> there's pride, activity on the street. one of the big things about deterring crime, having active streets, more eyes on the street. people look to even if they don't go there they feel good they say people are snrefg our n our neighborhood they feel good about it and i think it does deter crime. >> washington's investing in the unexpected, high quality affordable housing, an organic

yoga and dance studio. >> it takes people in the neighborhood to all do sort of small parts and you know the police can't put a cop on every corner and have them 24 hours a day. there's not enough resources. we've got to get involved and not just say, it's your job, make it safe, but do things that we can do to help make us safe. >> but work in the 90s can help again, community empowerment engagement. a thought not lost on 13-year-old tijai. just two days after she was shot she found her voice. insisting her mom take her to a community meeting at the first district police station. >> i wanted to go to the community meeting. i felt i belonged there, it is a community. i was in the community, something happened upon the community so i figured i circulate go to the community meeting because, i don't want to tap into nobody else.

>> reporter: still this 13-year-old is sharp enough to know there's no easy answer. >> it takes a lot of people, it takes parents. it takes family members. it takes people that lost ones to guns. it takes a lot. >> and tijai still has a long way to go. chased by nightmares of the violence that shattered an innocent summer day on the porch. that those who can provide answers, do it, and do it quickly. lisa fletcher, al jazeera america, washington, d.c. next, lori jane gliha. hot on "america tonight's" website now, the sound of hate.

an insider on the white power music he helped to create. at aljazeera.com/americatonight.

♪ ♪ >> the border crisis that dominated tens of thousands of undocumented children, the crisis that many child migrants face, they try the get into the united states is constant. "america tonight's" lori jane gliha found that if it seems like the flood of kids coming into the country has slowed it may be the steps.

>> right now we're on the river between mexico and. and guatema. that doesn't deter migrants on the river to pass. everything that's happening here on the river is illegal. >> the majority of the people when they see us they say hey can you give me some money i haven't ate nothing. what i do, get them food or drinks and i start talking to them and they say the first thing, they say like they're hiding, you know or they're running for the people, they get killed. >> an incredible story, "america tonight's" lori jane gliha did this follow-up report, you traveled to the region and you followed the path of the migrants. did you see the kind of flood of migrants children that we saw

next year? >> we followed the path of the migrant in reverse. we followed it from mexico to honduras. in the video you saw that's where the migrants normally cross, the day we were there there weren't very many. many attribute it to the fact that mexico is doing this crack down, more authorities that are patrolling, many migrants have changed their routes. we didn't see many. there was a big hustle and bustle at that river, things transporting goods, toilet paper aand the like. we spoke to a migrant about his journey as well. >> you continued on this path all the way to honduras. >> a lot of people start in honduras or el salvador. violence was one of the little girls that we profiled in our piece.

she comes from one of the most dangerous countries in the world. i definitely felt, the mini landed there, got in the car, one of the journalists that was guiding us, they say you know what hatches to journalists, they often get robbed. this is a neighborhood that is controlled by three different gangs, nobody goes in there. we saw that firsthand, we were there at the hotel, there had been three murders in the day and we got a call that there had been a fourth one. we went out to the cme scene, all before 8:00 p.m. it's fascinating the migration journey in reverse. >> "america tonight's" lori jane gliha, her special report will be tomorrow night. we appreciate that. next a community fearing police not ferguson not new york, what black lives matter means in brazil.

>> outrage in communities against the police and what sounds like excessive use of force. we've covered these stories often on "america tonight" in communities across our nation. what's shocking even more so is the number of killings by police in brazil, month ahead of the opening of the olympics, one critic described as a ferguson, every day.

>> people in the united states have heard of police brutality against plaque people. but here i -- black people. because here it's at another level. the police have killed as many people as the american police have killed if 30 years. so that gives you a dimension of how massive the racism is and how police brutality works in brazil. this is a race issue that do not understand the dimension of how race implicates in the deaths. because there is a huge problem of crime in brazil. the light skinned middle class

and upper classes believe that the police is combating crime. and they're doing this in the name of public safety. but what those encounters are showing is that the police are often time criminal and they are terrorizing this community. and this is not only a matter of social class and economics, it's a matter of race. ♪ ♪ >> only 2% of the deaths by police in brazil are investigated. and then after that, only 1% of the cases become actually a case in the judicial system here in brazil. so you can see how there is a lot of impunity.

>> other social movements are not in such great risk. but this movement is particularly vulnerable because we're facing the police force. the military force. we have identified police officers who are infiltrated in civilian clothing taking pictures of people and filming people, and they're police officers with their guns on their hands. >> it's a very tense moment.

>> i'm extremely tense that something might go wrong. there could be an incident, and they executed a policemen to be violent.

>> that's our look at the world on "america tonight." tell us away you think on aljazeera.com/americatonight. you can talk to us on twitter or facebook, and come back, we'll have more of "america tonight," tomorrow.

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