Crime has gotten so bad in our nation’s capital that it’s even becoming too dangerous for the criminals.
“An off-duty federal security officer on his way into work Saturday night,” reports The Washington Post, “fatally shot a 13-year-old boy who the officer said was one of two youths who tried to carjack him in the District’s Penn Quarter neighborhood, near public safety buildings and an entertainment complex, according to D.C. police.”
My heart goes out to this man who was forced to defend himself. But also to this foolish 13-year-old boy, who is gone.
Carjackings in the city have more than doubled this year over last, 821 and counting. According to the newspaper, those “involving juveniles are also up this year.”
The death of this perpetrator follows a recent incident in which “a 16-year-old girl driving a carjacked vehicle crashed into a utility pole in Northeast Washington and was killed.” The deceased girl’s 15-year-old partner in crime, now in police custody, had been released from “the city’s Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services” after “robbery and theft charges” only “because the agency had no available housing for her.”
“Violent crime in D.C. is up 41 percent this year,” The Post adds, pointing out that this recent shooting was just “several blocks north of where . . . the Washington Wizards played a home game . . . about three hours before.”
Good and evil have their own inertia. If crime pays, we will see more of it. And in more places. And if such acts are perceived to be easy to get away with . . .
The consequences of no consequences are proving all too consequential.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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3 replies on “Justice & Consequences”
The consequences of subsidizing fatherless families. The normal impetus, absent a father, of both male and female teens to try to be functional, independent adults as soon as possible. Inner cities don’t provide many entry level jobs for teens and crime has much less restrictive barriers to participation. Tends to attract the smarter and the self-starters.
Crime by DC juveniles is up? Who is raising these children? Who is teaching them that this is the right way to behave? Most likely the same people that called for defunding the police and for excusing criminal acts due to whatever excuse they make up for it today.
Regardless of the criminal’s age, it doesn’t help that D.C. is virtually a gun free zone.