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Donald Trump was never a fan of Washington, D.C., but the sentiment was shared by most residents, who spontaneously began celebrating in the streets when Trump lost the White House. .
But the former president’s hostility has only increased since he left the city, with violent crime continuing to rise in the nation’s capital while falling in other cities from pandemic-era highs. was launched in a campaign to “federally take over this filthy and criminal area.” “It’s a shame for our country.”
In his final year in office, during the height of the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, President Trump repeatedly promised to take over the nation’s capital with virtually all federal troops, telling a conservative audience last year: . “Law and order has been restored,” he said, “and I’m not even going to call the mayor.”
Even though violent crime has declined in almost every other American city, Washington has legitimately become a national outlier in violent crime, with the city having the highest death toll in 2023 in more than 20 years. Nearby Baltimore, for example, notorious for the crime and plague depicted in “The Wire,” saw the largest drop in homicides on record last year.
But shootings, murders and carjackings all spiked in Washington, spilling over into areas that don’t normally see such violence, such as downtown office workers, and making many longtime residents feel unsafe for the first time.
Headlines pile up about residents walking home from work after being shot at Dupont Circle, the subway station, and the outskirts of Nationals Park. On Monday, a former Trump administration official was waiting to pick up his wife on K Street, famous for being home to many of the city’s white-shoe law firms and lobbying firms, when gunfire appeared to appear indiscriminate. received.
Mr. Trump, Republicans in Congress, and their allies in the conservative media are using Washington, where Democrats typically win about 90% of the presidential vote, to campaign against the Democratic Party as a whole ahead of the November election. It portrays the government as lenient and argues that more federal regulation is needed. Oversight.
Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, who has represented the district for many years, said that given the well-documented lack of coordination between the city’s federal and local agencies, He stated that it is necessary to increase autonomy, rather than lower it, in order to confront the situation. But she worries that even the Home Rule Act, the law that first allowed Washington residents to choose their own government in 1974, could be in jeopardy.
“I think he’s going to do everything he can not only to maintain statehood, but also to roll back autonomy,” she said. “There is no question in my mind that if he were to take over the presidency again, we could lose most of the control that we currently have over our cities.”
What lies behind the crimes in the capital?
The causes are myriad, and the D.C. Council, the mayor, police, prosecutors, courts, and mismanaged crime labs are all blamed.
Brett Tolman, a former U.S. attorney appointed by President George W. Bush and now executive director of the conservative criminal justice reform group Right on Crime, said Washington refused to prosecute most cases. He mainly blamed the chief prosecutor.
“We don’t need to change the law. We don’t need the president to come in and use the National Guard to take over the city,” he said. “All we need is people on the ground, whether they’re Republicans or Democrats, telling people they’re going to enforce the law.”
The D.C. Council made national headlines last year for passing criminal law reforms that were widely criticized as being too lenient. Congress used its power over the nation’s capital to override the law, and President Joe Biden notably decided not to veto the bill, saying it was time to get tougher on crime. It sent a clear message to the Democratic Party.
Months later, as violent crime continues to rise, the D.C. Council takes a different turn, passing the first of several emergency legislations to address crime, including making it easier for police to operate, among other things. It was voted 12-1 in favor. detaining suspects before trial;
But Republicans focused on the first measure, which drew national attention to the city during two legislative hearings last year.
President Trump argued that not only would most of the jurors be drawn from a hostile population, but “what I’m asking for is that it’s impossible to get a fair trial in the city of Washington.” , has repeatedly tried to have his criminal trial moved out of Washington. For the federal government to take over this filthy, crime-filled national shame. ”
He told Truth Social in December that Washington has become a “dirty, crime-ridden death trap, and the federal government must take over and run it properly,” calling the plan central to his platform. He added that this is a very important part.
While campaigning in Las Vegas last week, President Trump vowed to “take over a terribly mismanaged capital” and fix it so it is “no longer a nightmare of murder and crime.”
“We’re going to federalize. We’re going to have the toughest law enforcement in this country. There’s going to be no more crime and it’s going to look beautiful,” Trump added.
Law and Order: DC
In some ways, President Trump’s attack on Washington is similar to what Republicans have waged on major American cities for decades.
But despite decades of activism in support of D.C. statehood, Washington is essentially a guardian of the federal government, with power to govern derived entirely from Congress, and in theory Congress may revoke authority.
Congress can and does override legislation passed by the D.C. Council, and most of the city’s parks and much of its infrastructure are run by the federal government.
Meanwhile, the “order” portion of D.C.’s “law and order” is run by the federal government. The President appoints the judges and chief prosecutors of the District of Columbia. Unlike other cities in the country, U.S. attorneys in the District of Columbia handle both federal crimes and routine local crimes.
Although most juvenile prosecutions are handled by local attorneys general, federal agencies are responsible for supervising juveniles in the system.
“Completely solvable”
Charles “Callie” Stimson of the conservative Heritage Foundation, a former prosecutor in the district’s U.S. attorney’s office, testified before the House last year at the invitation of Republicans.
He said many of Washington’s problems can be solved in ways that don’t violate the city’s democratic values.
“This is a human-caused problem and it’s completely solvable,” Stimson said. “If you parachute into the California criminal code and basically bring in other prosecutors and make them U.S. prosecutors, the crime rate will immediately go down.”
U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves, appointed by President Joe Biden, has declined to prosecute two-thirds of people arrested in 2022 and 56% in 2023, but critics say the prosecutor’s case is too early. They criticize it for being too much. beg The case that was prosecuted. Mr. Stimson also criticized Mr. Graves for taking gun cases to district courts, where convictions are difficult for a variety of reasons, rather than in neighboring federal court, where neither is available.
In its defense, the U.S. Attorney’s Office pointed to an increase in prosecution rates in recent months, welcomed the arrival of new prosecutors and resources from the Justice Department, and cited a number of cases in recent years as the troubled Washington Crime Lab lost a case. He said the case had to be dismissed. That certification was restored in December.
On the other hand, the number of people arrested by the Metropolitan Police Department is decreasing.Number of people arrested created for each officer During the pandemic, that level plummeted to nearly half its pre-pandemic level and has not recovered, despite rising under new Secretary Pamela Smith, who took office in July.
Former Deputy Chief Morgan Kane, who retired last month, said at a November town hall that there was a “huge push” from the chief and other leaders to get officers “back in the field” after 2020. “What we’re really doing at this point is regaining their trust,” she says.
“What D.C. needs is not less control,” said Eduardo Ferrer, director of policy for the Juvenile Justice Initiative at Georgetown University School of Law, who has worked to improve the city’s juvenile justice system. We need to strengthen management.”
Meanwhile, the city has zero gun stores but is flooded with illegal guns from neighboring states, and a federal court said it has overturned strict gun laws put in place by Washington.
“If federal authorities want to do something about gun violence in Washington, D.C., they should do more to stop illegal guns from entering the city,” he said. “We shouldn’t be punishing the people of Washington, D.C., for a problem that was essentially thrust upon us.”
correction (February 4, 2024, 9:21 a.m. ET): An earlier version of this article misspelled the expert’s name and also misspelled the name of the think tank for which he works. . He’s not Charles Stimpson of the Heritage Institute, he’s Charles “Curry” Stimpson of the Heritage Foundation.
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