Gunfire in the shadow of Nationals Park and hordes of teens ransacking area businesses have left some visitors and business owners unconvinced that crime is down in the District’s Navy Yard neighborhood.

Metropolitan Police Department data shows a sizable drop in violence this year in the upscale enclave in Southeast as the District puts the 2023 spike in killings and carjackings in the rearview mirror.

Navy Yard, with luxury apartments that sport rooftop pools overlooking the nearby U.S. Capitol, is sandwiched between neighborhoods that have long struggled with shootings and robberies.

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Those issues leak into the restaurant-lined streets surrounding the ballpark, and the area is often one high-profile crime away from scaring off the people who fueled its transformation into a regional hot spot.

“If something happens in the Metro station or something happens anywhere in the neighborhood, the crime could be down because it can be an isolated incident, but it still takes a minute for us to recruit the business that’s lost,” said Antonio Hurley, a managing partner at The Big Stick bar near Nationals Park.

Mr. Hurley said crime factored into the permanent closure of Buffalo Wild Wings this month. D.C. police reported that a man was critically wounded during a July shootout on the restaurant’s block near the baseball stadium.

Mr. Hurley also pointed to Lululemon’s closure on Christmas, barely a week after an armed robbery at the business.

Some incidents linger in the minds of visitors, including the carjacking last fall of Rep. Henry Cuellar, Texas Democrat. Mr. Hurley said those crimes “chip away at us from a business standpoint.”

Police statistics show that violent crime in Navy Yard has fallen significantly year over year, with decreases in homicides, weapons assaults and robberies.

Brazen crimes, especially those committed by minors, still have peppered Navy Yard throughout the year.

Authorities said four boys ages 12-15 held up a man at gunpoint in June. The man was waiting for an Uber ride near the ballpark.

One of the juveniles pistol-whipped the man, and the others cleaned out his pockets, police said. All the boys were arrested shortly afterward.

In April, scores of teens took over a CVS store on the 1100 block of New Jersey Avenue Southeast.

Bystanders recorded youths riding electric scooters in the aisles and throwing bottles at security guards. D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb called the chaotic scene “disturbing.”

Police said they arrested 11 people ages 14-17 on various assault, burglary and theft charges. Two 15-year-old girls were accused of attacking someone on the National Mall before they went to the CVS store.

A barricade situation shook the neighborhood in February when a man shot a Housing Authority officer in the gut on the 400 block of M Street Southeast.

The officer survived, and police arrested a man holing up in a parking garage. During the early morning standoff, apartment residents were startled awake by barking SWAT officers and a nearby elementary school went on lockdown until the area was cleared.

Those who frequent the neighborhood said people may not be reporting crime because the process is time-consuming and often unhelpful.

Jack Heretik, a parishioner at St. Vincent De Paul, was pulling into the drop-off lane earlier this month while driving a friend home to an apartment on First Street Southeast when the car in front of him started backing up. Mr. Heretik looked out the window and saw why: A man was waving a pistol and yelling at someone. Mr. Heretik flung the car into reverse and called 911. He was put on hold for about two minutes until a dispatcher could answer.

He said the brief yet critical delay from the dispatcher, which is not managed by police but by the D.C. Office of Unified Communications, might discourage other people from reporting crimes they see on the street.

“I’m not calling customer support because my internet is down. I’m calling because there’s a guy with a gun [who’s] pulling it out in the city,” he said. “I don’t know what this guy’s going to do. No one does.”

A D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department crew member who works in Navy Yard told The Washington Times that police are typically slower to act on calls that aren’t actively violent.

He said police will watch idly as people speed past them or deal drugs. Even if a dispatcher answers quickly, the police response may not be hasty.

“They come late,” the crew member said. “I mean, I’d already be dead by the time they come.”

Mr. Hurley, the bar owner near the baseball stadium, acknowledged that crime may be no worse in Navy Yard than in other parts of the city.

Police visibility in the neighborhood has been a welcome change throughout the year, he said.

He said restaurants tell their servers not to leave work in uniform to prevent muggings for cash tips.

He said robbers often prowl around Navy Yard, The Wharf in Southwest and the Shaw neighborhood in Northwest because they attract well-to-do visitors.

Mr. Hurley said crime is significant enough to be used as a bargaining chip when businesses renegotiate a lease, showing how much the neighborhood’s storied revival has been diminished.

“It’s hard for us to justify rent increases and all this other stuff in a neighborhood that I would probably say, 10 years ago, when we first opened, was not what it is now,” he said.