At dawn on Saturday a call came into the 911 center reporting a disturbance on Crittenden Street Northeast. Officers from the 4th District responded to radio calls. On their way to the quiet neighborhood, between Providence Hospital and Fort Totten Metro, fresh reports reached them: a man had a gun. The cops pulled up to the house in the 700 block in a marked car. They walked to the rear. As they reached the backyard, shots rang out. The shooter was hiding on an awning roof. He targeted one of the officers and hit him at least three times.
The officers were “ambushed,” in the words of Police Chief Cathy Lanier — by a 15-year-old boy, we were to find out.
The downed cop was rushed to Washington Hospital Center to treat wounds to his neck, shoulder and chest. His protective vest probably saved his life.
Cops exchanged gunfire with the kid, who ran through yards and hid under a porch, where police found him and his weapon. He had a few scrapes, so they took him to the hospital. He was quickly released, arrested and charged with armed assault with intent to kill.
A cop goes down in the line of duty and you would expect some reaction from the powers that be. Mayor Vince Gray visited the officer in the hospital on Saturday and met with his family.
Any love from Phil Mendelson, chairman of the council’s Judiciary Committee? Not that I could tell.
Council Chairman Kwame Brown contacted the cop’s family on Monday and headed to the hospital in the afternoon. Neither the name of the officer nor the teen was made public. Brown visited with the officer’s mother and friends. The cop was up and around and on his way to being released.
“The officer was going to work, doing his job to protect us, and a 15-year-old shoots him,” Brown tells me. “We have to get guns off the streets, starting with 15-year-olds.”
Brown promised to make gun violence “my issue” after the budget is passed.
“There have to be some consequences for youth who commit crimes,” he says. “We have to help them on the front end, but on the back end — enough is enough.”
Right now there’s not enough in the way of consequences.
A hearing in D.C. family court was in progress Monday evening, but the proceedings were protected by juvenile privacy laws. Here’s what to expect: Under D.C. law, Attorney General Irvin Nathan has the discretion to prosecute the case or recommend the feds handle it. Most likely, Nathan will keep it, in which case the kid who tried to kill a cop will skate. If he gets convicted, the worst case is he spends a few years in New Beginnings, the District’s alleged reform school. He might wind up in a halfway house.
When he becomes an adult, he goes free and has a clean record. Because he’s a juvenile, his criminal acts remain out of bounds to the public. A would-be cop killer could be your neighbor.
So goes justice in the nation’s capital.
Harry Jaffe’s column appears on Tuesday and Friday. He can be contacted at [email protected].
