If you're a resident of Washington, D.C., you should probably buy a weapon for personal defense. If you're a D.C. retail business owner, you should probably factor in at least a 5% loss of earnings due to rampant crime.
2022 was a high crime year for the District. But crime is up 23% this year, with property crime up 31%.
DC COUNCIL BILL WOULD INVITE MASSIVE HIKE IN VIOLENT CRIME
This is the shambles that D.C.'s ruling council has wrought for the nation's capital. The police are overwhelmed, 911 dispatchers often get call locations wrong or dispatch police to the wrong location, and criminals are having a field day. But D.C. Council members aren't satisfied with this mess. They want to make it worse. A newly-passed criminal code would dramatically reduce penalties for serious crimes such as burglary and robbery. D.C.'s Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser vetoed the law but was overridden by the council. Only Congress now stands between the council and the new code being enacted.
Fortunately, D.C. Council members have an ingenious strategy for dealing with the understandable public outcry. Stage one of their strategy is to blame "misinformation" for any and all public concerns. Stage two is to hide from angry residents and business owners.
Take the man behind the law, councilman Charles Allen. Asked about the criticism, Allen said there was "a lot of misinformation and confusion" about the law. Perhaps working off the same talking points (something one of the Washington Examiner's contributors is looking into), councilwoman Brianne Nadeau observed, "There has been a lot of misinformation and fearmongering about this bill." Nadeau has similarly declared, "Do not believe the hype. The council is not tying the hands of our law enforcement officials or making crime worse."
This "misinformation" excuse is a rather pathetic lie proven by the very words of the criminal code itself. The real misinformation is the suggestion by these council members that they support effective policing.
During the 2020 D.C. protests, for example, which saw some break with peaceful protesters to engage in violent criminality, Nadeau resisted police overtime funding. The councilwoman then said she sought to "express my disapproval to the idea that [D.C. police's] reckless overspending and over-policing of our communities should be prioritized above health and human services programs."
Note those words: "over-policing of our communities." Now Nadeau says the council is "not tying the hands of our law enforcement officials or making crime worse."
She must believe D.C. residents are fools.
Still, stage two is now fully underway. Popville reported on Wednesday how the veteran owner of a D.C. business, Aurora Market, has received total silence from Nadeau as he faces a crime wave in her ward. That owner, Sergeant Major Pablo Ortiz Jr., is a retired member of the Army's Special Operations Command. A photo of his medals and patches suggests he may have worked with or even been part of Delta Force. He's probably a great patriot. His co-owner, Rahel Worku Kassa, appears to be a linchpin of the D.C. Ethiopian American community. That Nadeau can't be bothered even to respond to these honorable constituents, let alone help them, says it all. Like Charles Allen, Nadeau is a far-left ideologue far more than she is a public servant.
Nadeau's website offers a litany of expensive programs that she says will reduce crime but very little on support for police funding or crime sanctions. Indeed, Nadeau declares, "The violent crime we are grappling with now is a result of generations of hurtful policies that perpetuated racism and inequality."
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
"Hurtful policies" are driving D.C.'s carjacking and homicide spree? This is ludicrous stuff. Indeed, it is casually racist. The overwhelming majority of murder victims in D.C. are young black men, after all. Those victims and their families deserve better than Nadeau's blame of "hurtful policies" for their murders.
Actually, all D.C. residents deserve better.