OPINION:
The District of Columbia Council passed an emergency crime bill this week that gives judges more power to punish criminals. Imagine that. One of the nation’s biggest liberal swamplands has become so overrun with crime its leaders are actually acknowledging: Umm, police ain’t such a bad thing after all.
Chair Phil Mendelson said, in the leadup to the vote, “You can get away with murder in this city.”
No duh. Liberals always state the obvious as if they’re announcing something unknown.
The city has been a leader of murder statistics for years. From Macrotrends, citing FBI data: In 2015, D.C.’s homicide rate was 24.17 per 100,000 of the population — which was an increase of nearly 52% from 2014.
In 2016 and 2017, the city saw double-digit decreases in the murder rates from previous years — but they still stood at 19.87 and 16.67, respectively, per 100,000 of the population.
And in 2018, murders picked up once again, so much that D.C. led the nation with its 22.78 per 100,000 of population stat, a nearly 37% increase from 2017. By comparison, in 2018, the second highest homicide jurisdiction was Louisiana — the whole state of Louisiana, more than six times the population of D.C. — with a murder rate of 11.37 per 100,000.
The District’s own police department reports in its year-end data for 2022, accurate as of this past January, the city saw 226 homicides in 2021 and 203 in 2022. And so far, 2023 is showing as a banner year for homicides, with 129 recorded — unofficially; a 17% uptick from the previous year.
In other words: It’s been known for some time that, like Mendelson said, “You can get away with murder in this city.”
Nevertheless, in March, even Mendelson had denied the city’s horrific crime rate, saying that the “perception” was being blown out of proportion, Fox News wrote.
His exact words a few months ago: “I know this belies the common belief, and when it comes to crime, how people feel is important — but there is not a crime crisis in Washington, D.C.,” he said.
Fast-forward to the flight of police from their jobs, and what’s taking place now is called Reality, Meet Check.
“Police chief Robert Contee latest to quit,” The Washington Post wrote in April.
That was after WUSA Channel 9 reported in May of 2021, “DC Police Union warns of ‘catastrophe’ as more officers turn in their badges.” Why the exodus?
The city’s leadership was leaving police out to dry.
A soft-on-crime reform bill, combined with relentless political pandering to the social justice element about mostly unfounded, unjustified brutality accusations, had their effect. Hundreds of officers quit.
“What we’re seeing a lot of is people who are actually just turning in their badge and gun and just walking away from either the Metropolitan Police Department or from law enforcement in general,” union Chairman Greggory Pemberton said to WUSA. “And what we hear from those folks when we talk to them is that they just don’t feel like they have the support from their elected leadership.”
Predictably, crime picked up; unsurprisingly, criminals got the word that fewer police meant less chance of getting caught and, simultaneously, that the politics of punishment had changed to favor-slash-coddle the guilty.
So now D.C.’s Council is saying there’s a crime emergency in the city. Now D.C.’s Council is taking steps to address crime.
The new emergency bill ramps up penalties for gun offenses, carjacking and other crimes, and allows judges the ability to keep violent crime suspects awaiting trials behind bars, instead of requiring them to go free.
“[We’re] in a state of emergency,” Councilwoman Brooke Pinto said, Fox reported.
Yes.
True.
But the stats haven’t changed that much.
The city has been facing a crime emergency for a very long time — same as other Democrat-run jurisdictions.
The bigger emergency to confront is one of leadership. The larger problem is the Democratic Party itself.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter and podcast by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “Lockdown: The Socialist Plan To Take Away Your Freedom,” is available by clicking HERE or clicking HERE or CLICKING HERE.
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