crime

The District of Columbia’s attorney general has responded to a scathing letter to D.C. officials sent by Virginia AG Jason Miyares (R).

Miyares suggested that the District is soft on crime, endangering Virginia residents who visit as well as neighboring jurisdictions like Arlington. The letter was sent as “a direct response to the tragic murder of Christy Bautista,” an Arlington woman stabbed to death in a D.C. hotel room, allegedly by a man with an extensive criminal history.

In reply, D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb (D) penned a lengthy letter asking Miyares “for help to stop illegal gun trafficking into DC,” noting that “Virginia is the largest source of illegal firearms recovered here,” per a spokeswoman. Additionally, the letter points out that Virginia cities like Richmond have “experienced increased crime rates substantially higher than the national average.”

Schwalb goes on to highlight that serious crimes in the District are prosecuted in the federal court system. The D.C. court is overloaded and understaffed, resulting in delays and a “public safety crisis,” Mayor Muriel Bowser has previously asserted.

“I also invite you to join me and Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown in advocating for DC’s autonomy over our local criminal justice system,” Schwalb wrote. “As a fellow attorney and attorney general, I know you can understand how difficult it is for a community to improve public safety when it lacks meaningful control over its criminal justice system.”

Schwalb’s letter was sent prior to today’s mass shooting at a Northeast D.C. funeral home and stabbing on a Metro train at the Columbia Heights station.

update: FOUR PEOPLE SHOT OUTSIDE FUNERAL HOME — 4000 blk Benning Rd NE DC. Two men and two women were shot (one of the four is critical). Happened after a funeral. Another man with graze wounds at 4300 blk F St but he says he was shot there on F St. pic.twitter.com/3S2MeUzV1n

— Alan Henney (@alanhenney) April 11, 2023

The full letter is below.

Attorney General Miyares:

As the Attorney General for the District of Columbia, I share the frustration and anger regarding senseless killings and violent crime expressed in your April 6 letter to local District leaders. No issue is more important to the more than 700,000 residents of the District than enhancing public safety and preventing violent crime. Just like people in Richmond, Portsmouth, Norfolk and Newport News — each of which has experienced increased crime rates substantially higher than the national average over the past several years — residents of and visitors to Washington, D.C. deserve to feel safe and be safe.

Promoting public safety should be a bipartisan endeavor, not fodder for divisive political grandstanding. Developing and implementing practical solutions that will make our communities safer, now and in the long run, requires thoughtful, data-driven analysis and comprehensive, collaborative strategies. While there are several unsupported assertions and conclusions in your April 6 letter with which I disagree, I do agree with your observation that the proximity of our respective jurisdictions means that enhancing public safety is a regional issue which we must address cooperatively. To that end, I hope you will support efforts to improve public safety in the DMV region.

Improving public safety begins with curbing gun violence. As a necessary first step, we need to keep guns out of the hands of individuals who intend to cause harm. In communities around our country—urban, suburban, and rural—the presence of illegal guns is far too pervasive. Gun trafficking patterns remain remarkably consistent year to year from state to state, and most firearms recovered in the District originate in Virginia. According to the two most recent trace data reports from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), Virginia is, by far, the source state for the most illegal firearms recovered in DC. Virginia is the source for nearly four times the number of illegal firearms recovered in the District than the next leading source state, Maryland, which has stricter gun laws. In 2020, of the 1,580 illegal firearms recovered in the District, 667 originated in Virginia. In 2021, Virginia was the source state for 619 of the 1,574 illegal firearms recovered in the District. By contrast, the District was the source for only 58 and 67 of the illegal firearms recovered in 2020 and 2021.

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Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares (R) has sent a scathing letter to D.C.’s mayor and city council today, accusing them of jeopardizing public safety due to lax law enforcement.

The letter follows the stabbing death of an Arlington woman in a D.C. hotel room this past weekend. The Yorktown High School alum was pronounced dead in the room and the suspect, a 43-year-old man with an extensive criminal history, was taken into custody and charged with murder.

The suspect was released from jail by a judge this winter following an alleged armed robbery in October, NBC 4 reported.

“The letter is a direct response to the tragic murder of Christy Bautista over the weekend,” the Attorney General’s office said in a press release that also accuses D.C. officials of an “inability and refusal to enforce their public safety laws and address their crime spike.”

In the letter, Miyares writes that “due to the proximity of our communities, D.C.’s crime problem has become Virginia’s crime problem.”

Republicans in Congress have been on the offensive against D.C.’s government, accusing the District of being soft on crime.

With Democratic votes and President Biden’s signature, a D.C. crime bill that reduced the maximum sentence for carjacking, among other changes, was overturned last month. Meanwhile, GOP members grilled D.C. officials on crime during a House committee hearing last week.

There’s some debate over the actual direction of crime rates in the District, with news headlines this year like “Crime in D.C. dropped in 2022” and “Despite Falling Violent Crime, Some Adams Morgan Residents Say They Feel Less Safe” contrasting with “After violent weekend, D.C. homicides up 40 percent over last year.”

Miyares’ full letter is below.

Dear Mayor Bowser and City Council Members:

It has become painfully apparent that Washington, D.C., can protect neither its residents nor the thousands of Virginians who commute daily to the city for work or entertainment. As the chief law enforcement officer for the Commonwealth of Virginia, I feel responsible for the safety of all 8.642 million Virginians.

Unfortunately, due to the proximity of our communities, D.C.’s crime problem has become Virginia’s crime problem.

I refuse to stand by quietly as you continue to deny, reject, and refuse to address your very prevalent crime spike that is impacting D.C. residents and its visitors and commuters. Your unwillingness to enforce your laws and hold violent offenders responsible puts your residents and mine at risk.

Over the weekend, Christy Bautista, an innocent young woman from Virginia, was murdered in the supposed safety of her hotel room less than an hour after checking in to attend a concert in your city. A Capitol Hill staffer was brutally attacked in broad daylight. Over the summer, a young Arlington woman was harassed on the metro, and countless Virginians have been murdered in D.C. over the last three years, including Aaron Bourne, Kenithy Manns, Christian Gabriel Monje, and Ahmad Clark.

Yet, D.C. Council Chairman Mendelson recently denied that D.C. had a crime crisis. According to the Metropolitan Police Department, D.C. has seen two consecutive years of over 200 homicides — a distinction the city hasn’t reached in nearly two decades. In addition, carjackings have been steadily rising for the last five years. Homicides in Washington, D.C., have increased by 31% since this time last year, sexual assault increased by 84%, and motor vehicle theft has increased by 107%. In general, crime in 2023 has risen by 23%.

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