Washington, DC, Democrat Mayor Muriel Bowser declared a public emergency in the nation’s capital this week after the opioid fatalities spiked and juvenile crime soared ten percent from 2022’s alarming rate.
The order will enhance the activation, implementation, and coordination of aid agreements between the District, federal, and local authorities to allegedly reduce crime.
Crime soared in 2022 after U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Matthew Graves refused to prosecute 67 percent of those arrested. In turn, 222 criminal homicides occurred in 2023, a 35 percent increase from the same period in 2022, according to police statistics. The district eclipsed 200 killings on August 12, the earliest point since the late 1990s.
D.C. currently ranks 173 in safety on a list of 182 American cities, sinking from 168 last year, according to a study released in October by WalletHub.
Some District residents told Breitbart News the crime there resembles a “war zone.” In the first nine months of 2023, police data shows:
- 458 juveniles arrested for robbery, carjacking, homicide, assault
- 151 juveniles arrested for carjackings
- Juveniles account for 66 percent of the carjacking arrests
- 863 carjackings reported so far in 2023.
District officials also say that juvenile fatalities are far too high:
- 97 juveniles have been shot — 15 fatally — in the last five weeks
- 5 children died on court-ordered electronic monitoring alone
“This number alone tells us that we have to provide more intervention for kids who are in trouble,” Bowser realized during a press conference on Monday. “To that end, this public emergency will allow us to increase capacity more quickly and efficiently across the continuum of placements for kids that are ordered by judges into care.”
District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser speaks during a news conference on Nov. 9, 2022, in Washington. Amid rising crime rates and spiraling public tensions over gun violence, Bowser and the legislative branches are locked in a public dispute over the future of crime prevention in the nation’s capital (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File).
Bowser also will use the public emergency to combat the opioid crisis plaguing the capital city:
- Fatal opioid-related overdoses then doubled from 213 to 461 from 2018 to 2022
- 96 percent of fatal opioid-related overdoses originated from fentanyl
Former President Donald Trump vowed to restore law and order to D.C. if reelected. Sharing on Truth Social an exclusive Breitbart News report in October titled “D.C. Residents Fear Crime Surge Turning Area into U.S. War Zone,” the former president called the town run by Democrats a “dirty, crime ridden death trap.” He pledged that reforms would be a part of his reelection platform.
“Washington (D.C.) has become a dirty, crime ridden death trap, that must be taken over and properly run by the Federal Government,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “It is, and will be, part of my Election Platform. We will clean it, renovate and rebuild it — and, most importantly, MAKE IT SAFE.”
Follow Wendell Husebø on “X” @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.
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