Harry Jaffe: D.C. Council ‘hypocrites’ dismiss law to prevent crime

Another shooting, another dead teenager, another funeral — another hug from Marion Barry. Are you sick of this routine yet?

In my coverage of crime in the nation’s capital for the past quarter-century, I learned that cops and citizens agree on one thing: Everybody knows the bad guys. They represent the 2 percent of the population that constantly breaks the law, gets arrested — and shows up on the street again and again.

Witness the facts we are learning about how four young people died last week. A van pulled up, a gunman poked an assault weapon through the open window and started to shoot, bodies dropped. Four were killed, five wounded. Now we learn that the young driver had been well-known to police. He had been arrested, held, released, and walked from halfway houses. The alleged gunmen — Orlando Carter and Nathaniel Simms — had each been behind bars days before the attacks — and released.

Why were these repeat offenders on the street? Police had busted each for committing violent crimes, from assault with a deadly weapon and robbery to stealing cars and attacking a police officer. Yet they were armed and present last Tuesday to kill and maim more innocents.

The finger pointing has commenced. Cops blame federal prosecutors for not locking up the thugs; prosecutors cite lack of evidence; council members finger the feds, too.

Attorney General Peter Nickles blames D.C. council members. Last year he and Mayor Adrian Fenty tried to get the council to pass a law that would allow cops and prosecutors to identify members of violent gangs, take them off the streets and keep them jailed. It would have used civil injunctions to keep streets safer.

Hiding behind dimwitted charges that the law could be racist and allow cops to single out black kids, Barry, Michael Brown, Yvette Alexander, Harry Thomas Jr. and other council members shouted down the bill. Jack Evans, Muriel Bowser and Jim Graham voted for it. It went down in a welter of demagoguery.

“It’s hypocritical for politicians like Michael Brown and Yvette Alexander and Barry and others to use all this rhetoric about race,” Nickles says. “This law has proven to be an effective tool against gangs in Texas and California. We had names of gang members who had come into the crime system again and again. We were ready to roll.”

The council killed that piece of the crime bill.

“Now we are going through another cycle of violence,” Nickles says. “We light candles, we say moving things, then more kids are killed. What’s the council doing about it?”

Short answer: little beyond going to funerals.

Georgetown Councilman Jack Evans is willing to reintroduce the civil gang injunction law again. Can the rest of the council rise above racism, pass the bill and let cops lock up bad guys?

What’s truly racist is that the council — in not acting — allows more black kids to be killed.

E-mail Harry Jaffe at [email protected].

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