Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares said Wednesday that he has “seismic” concerns about the District of Columbia’s yearlong spike in shootings, robberies and carjackings that has soured some residents of the state on visiting the nation’s capital.
Violent car thefts are of particular concern, said Mr. Miyares, a Republican. He said Virginians commuting to the District have been targeted at red lights, gas stations and along the city’s side streets.
He also lamented the gruesome slaying of a Virginia resident this year in a D.C. hotel.
Christy Bautista was stabbed more than 30 times in March inside her Northeast hotel room. D.C. police arrested a blood-soaked George Sydnor Jr. — reportedly a stranger to Bautista — at the scene and charged him with murder.
Sydnor had an active arrest warrant at the time of Bautista’s death for skipping a sentencing hearing for an armed robbery conviction.
Mr. Miyares said the steady drumbeat of carjackings and the horror of what happened to Bautista have contributed to a “spirit of lawlessness” in the District.
The result is that a growing number of Virginia suburbanites keep their trips to the city short — if they go at all.
“I know so many people who now I say, ‘I used to love working in downtown D.C. I would stay, maybe go see a play at the Kennedy Center or go and stay for dinner. Now I cross the Potomac, try to get out before it gets dark and I don’t come back in the District until I have to for work,’” Mr. Miyares said.
D.C. Metropolitan Police data shows a 40% jump in violent crime this year, with large increases in homicides (up 32%), robberies (up 70%) and carjackings (up 107%) serving as major culprits in the relentless crime wave.
The 253 homicides the District has recorded through Wednesday are the most in 20 years. The 925 carjackings are on pace to double 2022’s record-setting number of 484 before year’s end.
Despite the District’s disorder, Northern Virginia police departments say they aren’t seeing the crime come their way.
An official with Fairfax County police told The Washington Times that D.C.-based crime hasn’t spread to the county.
Mr. Miyares said the District’s crime is a concern to the front-line officers in bordering Alexandria and Arlington as well.
He said the Sinaloa Cartel’s growing fentanyl trade in Virginia spells trouble for the District and its suburbs when it inevitably expands north.
The Mexican gang has gained a foothold in Richmond, according to the attorney general, and could come to blows with international gang La Mara Salvatrucha, commonly known as MS-13, when the Sinaloa Cartel tries to set up shop in the Washington area.
“There’s always a fight over the drug distribution network, and it gets really bloody and really violent, really fast,” he said.
Mr. Miyares, 47, was elected in 2021 with fellow Republicans Gov. Glenn Youngkin and Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears on a wave of voter dissent over the state’s handling of COVID-19, critical race theory curriculum in classrooms and public school policies on transgender students.
Mr. Miyares was in the District on Wednesday to tout the Protecting Americans Action Fund, a new political committee aiming to unseat left-wing prosecutors throughout the country who he said are “criminal first, victim last.” Many of the prosecutors targeted are backed by billionaire George Soros.
Mr. Miyares has a track record of calling out the District’s crime woes.
After Bautista’s death in the spring, Virginia’s top prosecutor called out the District for failing to keep Sydnor and other repeat violent offenders locked up.
D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb shot back days later, saying the commonwealth is a major source of illegal guns that flow into the District and are used in crimes.
Mr. Schwalb cited data from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives that said 667 of the 1,580 illegal guns recovered in the District in 2020 came from Virginia. In 2021, 619 of the 1,574 illegal guns recovered in the nation’s capital came from Virginia, per the ATF data.
Mr. Miyares said Wednesday that comparison was akin to blaming Indiana gun laws for Chicago’s violence problem.
The attorney general said he knows many of the pretrial detention decisions for adults are hashed out by the federal U.S. attorney’s office in the District. So while it isn’t Mr. Schwalb’s office that is involved in releasing violent adult suspects back onto the streets, Mr. Miyares found it odd to point the finger at Old Dominion.
“I find it a little bit ironic that, instead of calling out the U.S. attorney in D.C. that’s not prosecuting these categories of crime, somehow he’s blaming Virginia,” Mr. Miyares said. “Talk about misplaced priorities.”
U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves was criticized earlier Wednesday after D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and Metropolitan Police Chief Pamela Smith met with the House Oversight and Accountability Committee.
Rep. James Comer, Kentucky Republican and committee chair, said in a statement that Mr. Graves and the D.C. Council have “failed their basic responsibility to keep Americans safe and criminals off the streets.”
The District’s main prosecutor was often criticized for declining to prosecute 67% of criminal cases in fiscal 2022. By the end of fiscal 2023, the U.S. attorney’s office had declined to prosecute 56% of cases — an 11% improvement in one year.
Also on Wednesday, Ms. Bowser announced the formation of a Real-Time Crime Center.
The initiative calls for MPD partnerships with federal agencies such as the U.S. Park Police, the Secret Service and the U.S. Capitol Police to “monitor and respond to criminal activities in real time.”
Details of the initiative will be outlined at a Thursday press conference, the mayor said.
• Matt Delaney can be reached at mdelaney@washingtontimes.com.
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