Thanks to the D.C. Council, the District has always been the friendliest city in the U.S. for criminals. Want to shoot up the corner? Sell drugs? Rape, rob and pillage? Come to D.C.
The D.C. Council has been rolling out the red carpet for criminals since the 1970s by lowering sentences, raising the bar for cops to make arrests and making it harder for prosecutors to keep suspects behind bars. But the current crime legislation that just passed the council puts a bull’s-eye on the cops and almost begs bad guys to pull the trigger.
Under this bill, possessing or using cop-killer bullets is virtually sanctioned. Prosecutors must first prove that a person “knowingly” has possession of these body armor-piercing bullets. Even if they can prove that high threshold, the perpetrator gets a one-year minimum sentence.
“No one will ever be prosecuted under this law,” says Kristopher Baumann, chairman of the police labor committee for the Fraternal Order of Police. “It’s impossible to prove.”
Baumann and the FOP had asked the council to pass a 10-year mandatory sentence. Mayor Tony Williams asked for seven years. The council preferred a one-year term.
“I think the FOP overreacted,” Judiciary Committee Chair Phil Mendelson told me.
Easy for him to say, from the comfy confines of the John WilsonBuilding. Try rolling up on a drug deal on Kennedy Place with guns drawn.
“There’s one purpose and one purpose only for these bullets — to shred bullet-proof vests,” Baumann says.
Here’s Mendelson’s reasoning: “Suppose someone has a bullet and doesn’t know that it is armor piercing? Suppose a kid finds a bullet in a field, puts it in his pocket, the bullet is armor piercing and he gets arrested. Should he get one year?”
Talk about a stretch. By Mendelson’s flaky reasoning, prosecutors would have to find a receipt for the cop-killer bullets, and the perp would have to admit knowing they were the armor-piercing kind. Then, perhaps the bad guy would get a year behind bars.
This is precisely the kind of thinking behind the loose laws on crime the council has passed for years.
True, the emergency crime package the city council passed last week does make it easier to detain some alleged criminals charged with handgun violations or robbery, pending trial. This could slow the revolving door that spit thugs back on the street the morning after they were arrested. True, the bill would pay for more surveillance cameras and fund some programs for kids.
But for the officers who risk their lives every day to keep the peace, the bill adds one more level of fear. It is a fact that our thugs are well-armed. It is also a fact they are getting more brazen about aiming their automatic weapons at cops.
The council has given them one more avenue to shoot to kill.
Harry Jaffe has been covering the Washington area since 1985. E-mail him at [email protected].
