As Democrats push for Washington, D.C. to become a new state, it might interest them to start with a more modest goal: making America’s capital a safe place to live.
At least 11 people were shot, including a 7-year-old girl and two men who died, and one person was stabbed to death in the capital district this past weekend, The Washington Post reported.
Three people killed
The 7-year old victim, Reagan Grimes, was shot outside an apartment complex Saturday where her family was visiting relatives. The girl is expected to recover.
The three homicides all took place on Sunday. Twenty-year-old Delano Harris, of Northeast Washington, was killed Sunday evening in the Edgewood neighborhood. Police say that Paul Tyrone Dorn was fatally shot “in self-defense” the same night.
A 46-year-old man from Southeast Washington, Louis Cheeves, was fatally stabbed near Boone Elementary School as well Sunday night.
There have been 66 homicides in Washington this year, as of Monday, marking a 38% year-over-year jump. Last year, as cities all across America saw a spike in murders and violent crime, Washington’s murder rate climbed to 16-year highs.
Washington braces for summer spike
Even as Washington faces record violent crime, the city is bracing for a more routine spike that usually comes with the summer heat. The city will flood six neighborhoods with more police in a preemptive effort to quash the increase — Potomac Gardens, Carver-Langston, Fort Dupont, Marshall Heights-Benning Ridge, Washington Highlands and Douglas/Shipley — as part of an annual crime prevention effort.
Washington was recently the scene of the horrific murder of an Uber driver, in broad daylight, by two teenage girls who hijacked his car. And it’s not even June.
“We know unfortunately that summer sometimes brings more outdoor activity, more conflict, and unfortunately we brace ourselves and prepare ourselves for the possibility of more crime,” Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, said Monday.
City begs for cooperation
But city officials, who voted to defund police last year, are leaving criminals with little to fear.
Police Chief Robert Contee said that the violence “really ticks me off, to be quite frank with you” and begged residents to cooperate with anti-crime efforts.
This comes after a 7-year old girl was tragically shot dead in Chicago, a city that has suffered routine gun violence despite having strict gun laws, much like Washington.
The post Violent weekend in the nation’s capital, 11 people shot, including a child first appeared on Conservative Institute.
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