This morning, with rising crime a concern across the country,
city lawmakers in Washington DC are set to vote on what's being called an emergency
public safety bill to address soaring crime rates.
>> In a shocking development, just four months after they actually voted to
weaken some of the public safety laws in Washington DC,
the same DC Council members are now pushing an emergency public safety
bill to address a sharp increase in violent crime.
Now, the emergency legislation came after a violent long weekend in the District,
with four fatal shootings on the July 4 holiday alone.
Nine people were wounded by gunfire at a single July 4 celebration in northeast DC.
The youngest victim was just ten years old.
Police say all are expected to survive the shooting.
Now, the council member who is really pushing this emergency legislation,
her name is Brooke Pinto.
She chairs the council's Judiciary and Public Safety committee, and
she told reporters this, quote, we are in a state of emergency right now.
And like in any emergency, we have to act like it, and
we have to act urgently as a government to address the problem that we're seeing.
Now, how bad is the crime in Washington DC?
Well, let's take a look at the next video and then I'll give you more details.
>> Violent crimes in DC are up 33% in the last year, murders are up 17%.
>> When we have members of our community being shot and
killed at rates that we haven't seen for 20 years, that's an emergency, period.
>> The emergency bill would make it harder to release suspects accused of a violent
crime before trial, whether they're an adult or juvenile, and
whether or not they are armed.
Supporters point to this statistic saying right now, a typical murder
suspect in DC has already been arrested 11 times for previous crimes.
>> I think that we're gonna be safer because people who are committing violent
crime won't be on the street to commit more violent crime.
>> The bill would also create a new criminal offense called endangerment with
a firearm, making it a felony to fire a gun in public, and
it would increase the penalties for illegal gun possession.
>> Now, if you look at the specific statistics and the specific crimes,
there is in fact,
evidence indicating that there is a sharp increase in some of these violent crimes.
So let's take a look at the data that was put out comparing 2022 to 2023.
And remember, we're not even halfway done with the year yet, right?
So you can see that homicides did, in fact, increase 17%.
Sex abuse increased 35% compared to 2022.
Robbery increased 52% compared to last year.
And overall violent crime has increased or jumped 33% compared to 2022.
And then there are what's described as nonviolent crimes that has
also experienced a sharp incline or increase, I should say, compared to 2022.
And so council member Pinto told reporters that within the first three months of
2023, the city had over 100 cases where people were charged with a crime
of violence, released pretrial and recommitted another violent offense.
I should note that they did bail reform in DC in 1990, so
it's not that they had actually succeeded in weakening public safety laws in DC.
Because four months ago, when they tried to pass legislation that some described
as weakening public safety laws, congress got involved and scrapped it.
And so they haven't really done anything that could be pinned on
loosening laws or being laxed about criminal justice.
But in this case, they're seeing a sharp increase, and
they think that they need to respond to it.
Now, I wanna give you one quote, Jank, and then I'll go to you.
So four months ago, as I mentioned,
they wanted to do criminal justice reform in DC, Congress squashed it.
So at the time, there was this particular council member who was furious about that.
But here's what he's saying today,
council Chairman Phil Mendelssohn reversed an earlier assessment he gave Congress
during testimony at a March hearing about DC's public safety.
Criminals, he said on Monday, can get away with murder in this city.
>> Wow, well, that is an abrupt change of mind.
And that happens, by the way, you know why that happens sometimes?
Facts, when you see crime running out of control and it's not anecdotal.
And you see it in the numbers, and car thefts are up 117%, and
robberies are up 52%, and homicides are way up, etc, well, you go,
okay, then I guess I've gotta change my opinion based on the facts.
By the way, that's the way it's supposed to be,
you're not supposed to change the facts based on your opinions,
you're supposed to change your opinions based on the facts.
So credit to Phil Mendelssohn for doing that then.
So now, what changed?
Well, that's a bit of a mystery, there's one answer as to what changed, and
that's the number of cops, we'll come back to that in a second.
But the laws didn't change much, as Anna pointed out, one changed in 1990,
the other laws are from 1901, right?
So just be careful about like no,
there wasn't some sort of like the right-wing will say,
you see criminal justice reform, but they didn't do criminal justice reform here.
Now, on the other hand,
they have decided we gotta keep more people in pretrial detention.
And so some on the left will be very upset, not will be, they are very upset
about that, and a lot of the activists in Washington are upset about that.
But one of the reasons they're doing that is they're adjusting the facts, and
that fact that we showed you, there is a critical one,
that people are coming back and doing 11 extra crimes when they are released.
Why, because this is a giant thing that was underestimated, honestly,
by our side, including me, okay?
Which is that generally speaking, the number one issue in crime
is repeat offenders, and they do an enormous percentage of the crime.
And so when you don't have pretrial detention,
there's good reasons to get rid of pretrial detention for lower-level crimes.
But there's a second problem that that creates, which I'll tell you in a second,
but when you get rid of pretrial detention for too many crimes,
a lot of serious crimes are committed.
They go right back on the street, and they don't think, well, I'm gonna come and
have to serve me justice six months from now when the trial happens.
So they think, I got out of jail for doing this crime, it's totally okay.
You think, people don't really think that way, no, maybe you don't think that way,
but these repeat offenders definitely think that way, and they show it, right?
And then finally, in terms of the issues, misdemeanors,
a lot of the misdemeanors shouldn't be misdemeanors.
>> They're violent crimes.
>> Because they're violent crimes.
>> Like strangulation.
>> Exactly.
>> Strangulation is a violent act.
You're putting your hands on someone,
you're putting your hands around someone's neck.
Look, that's what they did in California, right?
So when there was a ballot initiative in order to make some or push for
reforms in regard to nonviolent crimes, I voted in favor of that.
But then they decided to reclassify all sorts of violent crimes, including human
trafficking, including strangulation, and domestic violence, as nonviolent crimes.
>> Yeah, it makes no sense.
>> Insane.
So look, by the way, that's not the left's fault in its entirety, some activists,
unfortunately, do think that that's rational, but the majority-
>> Well, let one strangle you, and
let's see how you feel about it.
I would venture to say you would think that's a violent act, and
you would feel threatened by the violent act, and you would want to keep
that person away from you and the general public so they don't harm others.
>> But the great majority of Democrats on the left do not share that opinion.
And when they see how this has been carried out in some places, and
they see crime rising, they go, no, wait, no,
strangulation should not be a misdemeanor, right?
Some of these super serious crimes, and each jurisdiction differs,
california, New York, DC, they all have slightly different laws and
slightly different classifications for misdemeanors and felonies.
But in a lot of these major cities,
tons of things that you would never think is a misdemeanor,
you would think it's a felony because it's so violent, are misdemeanors.
And when those people were starting to get a lot less sentences and
they're not being held pretrial and they're committing crimes over and
over again, that's part of what piled up.
And then Democratic voters were like, no, in Portland,
they're like gone, san Francisco, no thank you to these kind of laws,
etc, and it happened in New York, and now in DC.
DC is a little bit different situation, as we explained here, but basically,
the voters are telling their Democratic councilman and
mayor, turn around, turn around, crime is too high.
>> Yeah, and look, I wanna tell you more of what they're tryna do, so
the mayor of DC, Mariel Bowser, had a proposal, and
apparently the proposal led to some backlash among activists.
And so what Pinto decided to do was pursue an emergency bill, and
emergency bills pass differently in the council, okay?
So they don't need to basically go through the vote two times.
There are far less obstacles.
They do a one-time vote, and the nine council members vote on it once, and
if it passes, it passes, right?
So that's the emergency bill.
And what Pinto did here was do away with some of the more contentious or
controversial elements of Mayor Bowser's proposal.
And so I wanna tell you what Pinto's emergency bill entails.
So the bill would still tilt, this is graphic eight,
the law in favor of more pretrial detention for
youth accused of dangerous or violent crimes, whether or not they were armed.
But it keeps some exceptions for drug-related crimes and
burglaries that don't involve real or imitation guns.
It also strikes the particularly controversial Bowser proposal that would
allow judges to detain kids for
their own protection regardless of whether they presented a danger to the public.
I can't even believe that Bowser proposed that,
I'm very happy to see that Pinto took that out of the emergency bill.
>> So that's a Democratic mayor that proposed something so
draconian that other Democrats and people on the left were like, no, too much.
>> Right.
>> Too much, and we agree it's too much.
Okay, so you've gotta find the right balance.
I know extremists on both sides say, no, there should be no balance,
there should only be radical options, right?
No, the answer is in the balance, and your voters,
your left-wing voters are telling you that.
>> So the emergency bill would expand protections for
children who have experienced child abuse and allow contractors and
consultants who have access to schools to be prosecuted for sexual abuse.
I think everyone agrees that that's a good thing.
Create a new offense for firing a gun in public.
I think everyone will agree that that's a good thing, right?
>> In the middle of a city, are you crazy, how is that not against the law?
>> Make it easier for prosecutors to extradite people for misdemeanors and
use GPS, I should say data from ankle monitors to prove people's guilt in court.
Add strangulation to the definition of a crime of violence in the DC code,
which I think makes a lot of sense.
And finally, require the city's Criminal Justice Coordinating Council
to publicly share more data on the outcomes of diversion
programs that offer services instead of traditional prosecution.
I would absolutely love for them to do that.
I think it's important for us to get that data to see whether or not the diversion
programs are being implemented properly, whether they're effective,
if they are effective, they should be more widespread throughout the country.
That data is important, and I've been really, really wanting to see that data
for a while, so I love that's part of this emergency bill as well.
>> 100% to me, that's almost the most important part,
because I don't know ahead of time if they're gonna work or not.
I know ideologues on both sides are positive,
they don't need any stinking data, right?
But for me, if the diversion programs are working,
if different things we're trying other than policing is working, great.
If it isn't working, well, okay, then we have to go to a different direction.
If you believe in just orthodox ideology, you don't care about the facts.
You go, no, this is what I want, and I don't want to know whether it's working or
not, right?
Well, I do sorry, and so sorry that I'm rational.
So please tell us if these programs are working, if they are, let's do more,
if they're not, let's do less.
>> And finally, look, even if this emergency bill passes,
there's one major problem in DC, and
this problem is shared among many big cities across the country.
There's a pretty severe shortage of police, and Bowser is kind of panicking
about it, they're offering $20,000 bonuses to new police recruits.
>> Now 25,000, they cranked it up.
>> So they're having difficulty attracting people to work as cops, and
it's following what happened in 2020,
people know how unpopular it is to be a police officer.
And so there were a lot of early retirements following the 2020 protests,
and then after that, it was just difficult to get new recruits.
The size of the DC police force has shrunk to a half-century low as
officers leave faster than they can be replaced.
Despite some hiring in the past year, the force has just over 3350 sworn
officers at the end of March, a net loss of about 450 over the past three years.
Police chief Robert Conti said he expected the size of the force
could fall to about 3130 by the end of fiscal year 2024.
So that is a problem, and what they're doing now is having
these cops work mandatory overtime shifts.
That's not a system that's gonna work out so well, in my opinion.
>> And we overpay when they do overtime.
So look, guys, this one's also nuanced.
So for the guys taking early retirements, actually, I'm happy about that.
Now there's less cops on the street, but these are the guys who are the most,
the biggest belly acres about now I got to follow the constitution, now I can't beat
people up, now I have to do my job, I'm retiring early, I don't like it.
Good, I want you to retire early, go go go go, but we have to replace them, okay?
So now if you did a program where you said, all right, we're gonna cut
the number of cops we have and Washington did stop spending on hiring new cops.
You have to have an alternative and then you have to tell us,
did the alternative work, right?
But right now I don't see an alternative in Washington and
just stopping the money to the cops without saying, okay,
let's redirect the money to X, Y or Z, right?
Well, that's a terrible plan.
And so now a lot of the council members are saying, and this is not definitive,
but it's an important data point, look here's when we had more cops and
we had less crime, here's now when we have less cops and we have more crime.
But that's not surprising if you don't do the alternative, yeah,
of course you're gonna get these results.
There is no fantasy land where there's less law enforcement,
less social services, less everything, and somehow you have less crime,
that's not a thing, right?
So give me an alternative and for God's sake, test it and give us data back on it,
otherwise, go hire some cops and make sure they actually follow the law and
do their job right, it's not too much to ask for.