Standing not far from where three people were shot and killed in the Anacostia neighborhood Saturday night, D.C. Ward 8 Council member Trayon White called for the deployment of the National Guard to help the District get a grip on the tide of killings that have taken place.
White addressed a crowd gathered for the news conference on Good Hope Road in Southeast on Tuesday afternoon.
“I know those who live here know that we are clearly in a war zone,” he declared. “I’m going to say it again: We are clearly in a war zone.”
As he repeated the phrase, the crowd joined in on those last four words and chanted along with him: “In! A! War! Zone!”
White was referencing the words of acting D.C. police Chief Pamela Smith, who said over the weekend that the District was not a war zone, despite the jump in deadly shootings.
In the first six days of August, 16 people had been killed on D.C. streets. Since the start of the year, there have been more than 160 homicides.
White said he had reached out to Mayor Muriel Bowser’s office and to the D.C. National Guard to see what steps would have to be taken in order to put troops on the ground in the District.
Asked what the National Guard would do, he said, “One of the biggest thing they could provide is presence.”
He added, “The issue right now in our community is that you hear it over and over again, we don’t have enough officers. We don’t have enough resources.”
In an interview on CNN Tuesday night, White noted that Ward 8 is “33 officers short than what we normally have in our local jurisdiction. … We don’t have the manpower to cover the areas, the hotspots, in D.C.”
While White favors bringing in the National Guard, he said dealing with the wave of violence that’s swept over the District since the start of the year would require even more than that.
“I don’t want to make this press conference simply about the National Guard,” White said. “Because it’s really about us creating solutions for our own people. Job opportunities, careers, mental health services, a quality education.”
White added something else would have to be added to the mix of fighting crime — more attention to the young people committing some of the crimes, including carjackings and deadly shootings.
What’s needed, said White, is “Parenting. I’m going to say it again: Parenting.”
Families directly affected by violent crime joined White’s call for programming for young people and accountability from families.
Regina Pixley, an activist and founder of the nonprofit Regina’s Place, said she’s spent all her life in the District, and as part of her work, made it her business to visit distressed families at crime scenes.
But lately, Pixley said, her children told her it wasn’t safe.
“I don’t want to be going to work and getting carjacked by one of your damn kids or grandsons,” she said. Someone in the crowd called out, “Amen, amen.”
Pixley continued, “I’m afraid in my own community.”
Just days after her 35-year-old son Bernard “BJ” Hodges was gunned down not far from the news conference along Good Hope Road, Tempie Satcher also addressed the crowd.
“When I was growing up, they said it took a village,” she said. Looking out into the crowd, Satcher called out, her voice strained with frustration, “Where’s my village? Where are my warriors, where are my kings and queens, where are you?”
Satcher said it’s time to get rid of the idea that people who turn to the police to report crimes are “snitches.” The word “snitching,” she said, “needs to go under the ground.”
Satcher said, “We need to bury that word. There’s no such thing as snitching when you’re trying to protect your community.”
