WASHINGTON, D.C. — Left-wing journalists and their Democrat friends have been shrieking since Monday about how gloriously safe Washington, D.C., is, and how, as one particularly low-IQ White House correspondent stated, there is a “nonexistent crime crisis” in the nation’s capital.
Homelessness? “Not a problem,” they say. Homicide? “What homicide?” they’ll interject, despite the city having clocked its 100th homicide this year on Monday.
The cowardice and shame in their voices are palpable. First, because they know, from their own life experience, that they are lying, and, second, because, even if they have not experienced D.C.’s crime in a while, it just means they have reached a level of pseudo-immunity unavailable to the countless normal people who have to deal with D.C.’s lawlessness on a daily basis.
And yet, just one day after President Donald Trump took control of the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department with an express purpose of handling homeless vagrants and crime rampant in the city, The Federalist’s own office door was blockaded by a belligerent, drunk homeless man screaming profanities.
It was not just the vagrant leaning against our door. He was joined by two others crowding the sidewalk directly outside.
The Federalist is not located at some office on U Street or another unsavory part of the city. The Federalist’s office is in the middle of D.C., within walking distance of every major government building, monument, and museum. The area sees tens of thousands of tourists and professionals each day.
As the three of them were drinking beer in public and grumbling gibberish at one another, they would frequently (and aggressively) scream profanities at passers-by or into the ether.
All the while, two of The Federalist’s summer interns remained trapped, and the D.C. Metropolitan Police would prove to be absolutely zero help.
Abigail Nichols was trapped inside the office, unable to leave without having to confront the old, drunk homeless man who would have assuredly fallen inside the office, and onto her, upon opening the door. Ironically, she was writing a story about just how bad this homeless problem is.
The screams of the vagrants pierced through her noise-canceling headphones around 12:30 p.m.
Jacqueline Annis-Levings was on her way back from lunch when she turned the corner, only to find this vagrant blockade. When she determined the situation was too dangerous to wade through, she returned to a nearby outdoor seating area hoping they would leave and warned Abigail of the problem.
Around 1:46 p.m., Jacqueline told Abigail, “There’s a crazy guy sitting right in front of the office door. I’m not able to get in until he leaves.” Abigail saw his silhouette through the frosted-glass front door.
While waiting, Jacqueline was encircled by even more homeless people, less than a block from the office door, where one yelled directly at her, shouting things like “You’re going to jail, little girl! We the FBI and we done with this sh-t!” Yelling more, he pretended to shoot everyone on the street with finger guns.
After more than two hours of shared screams of “f-ck” and other aggressive language from the first group, the first 911 call was made at 2:32 p.m.
The dispatcher was extremely short and curt, despite being told that both interns were trapped in a potentially dangerous situation with clearly aggressive vagrants. Despite that, the dispatcher informed The Federalist that “someone will be dispatched shortly.”
It wasn’t to be, however.
For more than one and a half hours, not a single police officer showed up to help.
At around 3:47 p.m., The Federalist’s Breccan Thies told the vagrant he needed to leave. He refused, and, angrily gesturing, he knocked over his tall boy of Budweiser, apparently his fifth or sixth outside The Federalist’s door that day, spilling it on the ground.
After being told he needed to leave or The Federalist would (again) contact the police, he scoffed and issued a challenge to call them, still refusing to move.
The other two homeless men left after the threat to call the police, but not the one blocking the door. It was seemingly point of pride for him, and he also knew that the police would not likely do anything to him. After all, had D.C. police cared about dealing with the belligerent homeless in recent years?
At 3:52 p.m., a second 911 call was made to the D.C. Metropolitan Police. The dispatcher was, once again, dismissive. The Federalist made very clear that the department’s ineptitude was putting people in danger, how long it had been since the last 911 call, and that still nothing had been done.
The police were told that if they did not send someone immediately they would receive a call every 10 minutes until a police officer showed up.
About 10 to 15 minutes later, two officers showed up — but the vagrant left in the time between the call and the police coming (only because he knew they had been called).
The responding officer was a perfect representative of The Federalist’s experience with the D.C. Metropolitan Police throughout the day: dismissive, careless, and at one point attempting to defend the vagrant.
First, his excuse for why it took all afternoon for an officer to be dispatched was that there was a “shift change” and that the officers on duty were unaware of the call. If that were true (which would by itself be insane), it would mean the city’s police department apparently cannot keep continuity in its emergency response apparatus when some officers clock out for the day and others clock in.
Second, he told The Federalist that because the sidewalk was a public space, there would not have been much they could do. Except, as The Federalist reminded the officer, the office door was not public space, and there was plenty in his legal arsenal he could have done to alleviate the situation.
He conceded that point, essentially saying, “No, yeah, that’s true.”
After telling the officer we saw the vagrant walking back toward the office, the officer said he would make contact with him. It is unclear whether that was done, however, because minutes later, the staff of The Federalist saw the vagrant pacing up and down the street.
The homeless problem in D.C. is something that all of us who work in the city must deal with on a daily basis — on our way to work, or on the way to lunch or to off-campus meetings, or on the way home or to the all-too-common after-work events that happen here (where there danger factors compound because, for example, more hours of the day have expired in which the homeless can have guzzled even more alcohol, or ingested various drugs, and become even more belligerent).
The squalor that those in the city (whether they live there or work there) are forced to endure is unbecoming of the nation’s capital — and if any of the propaganda journalists or indifferent police officers had any respect for the city whatsoever, they’d be looking forward to federal takeover, too.