How bad is Washington’s crime problem? Well, that’s hard to know precisely, what with rampant fudging of crime statistics.
We get anecdotes. For example, via tweeted responses to an invitation by the X account Washingtonian Problems to “push back against the negative narrative about our city. Share why you love our beautiful home and help show the world the real DC.”
Whether the appeal was meant ironically, a possibility suggested by Not the Bee, I don’t know. But a good many reports of non-beauty ensued.
● “I was called into court to give a statement about a man who’d exposed himself to me on the metro. He had over 200 charges to date. Court was delayed four hours for him to ‘calm down’.… Once he had, she dismissed the new charges and let him go.”
● “Less than a mile from the Capitol, kids tried to steal my backpack. Punched, for no reason, by a guy on the Metro.… Cops recently showed me videos they can’t release. What’s happening out there is more insane than most imagine.”
● “I watched a man kick a plate-glass door in at a 7‑Eleven. 911 kept me on hold for almost five minutes before telling me not to call back, it was a property crime.”
Then there’s the news-making disgruntled DoJ employee who threw a Subway sandwich at a Customs and Border Protection officer.
From these reports and plenty others I think we can conclude that yes, crime has been a problem in Washington DC.
As has law enforcement.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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One reply on “Talking About Crime in DC”
Geez Paul, what’s happened to your libertarian ideals? Of course crime exists in the cities; it’s not about that. We are being rapidly conditioned to simply accept the sight of soldiers patrolling our streets. Is there something about that you don’t get…?