So, really, Trump correctly stated (not just “claimed”) that the homicide rate in D.C. rose by 50 percent from 2014 to 2015. “In fact,” it did rise by that much. But some of that decline turns out to have gotten reversed in 2016, so that the homicide rate in D.C. rose by only 28 percent from 2014 to 2016.

There’s a lot to be said for not focusing too much on year-to-year changes in homicide statistics, which can be volatile. Even a rise over two years doesn’t tell us that much, though it’s troubling. And we should indeed remember that homicides and other crimes have generally declined sharply from their 1991 peak (though of course we want to be watchful for any reversal of the trend). If the argument is simply in favor of caution about reading too much into yearly statistics, I’m all for that.

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But the New York Times “fact-check,” it seems to me, goes far beyond that: It suggests that Trump got his facts wrong (he “claimed” one thing but “in fact” it was something else), and I think it misleads readers into missing the fact that, even counting the 2016 decline, the homicide still rose sharply from the reference year Trump was using — 2014 — to the present.

UPDATE: The New York Times article has been changed to read,

Another end-of-year reality check, while we’re at it: Mr. Trump claimed during the campaign that the homicide rate in his new home in Washington rose by 50 percent, apparently citing the previous year’s crime statistics. At the time, though, the rate in the city was already falling, and by year’s end, it was down by 17 percent.