D.C.’s mayor and police chief are urging the city’s council to again adopt a stricter juvenile curfew, in response to a spike in what’s being described as “juvenile activity.”
At an unrelated event Monday, Police Chief Pamela Smith said the uptick has been reported over the last few weekends.
Since it expired, Mayor Muriel Bowser has called for lawmakers to adopt a curfew similar to the one implemented over the summer. That curfew started at 11 p.m. and came in response to large gatherings that Bowser and Smith said sometimes resulted in crime.
A recent proposal described plans for an even stricter version of the city’s existing juvenile curfew. It would apply to everyone under 18 and allow Smith to create designated zones in which an 8 p.m. curfew for large groups could be implemented. But the measure was delayed during a council meeting earlier this month.
Bowser’s and Smith’s concerns came after reports of shootings and carjackings in the nation’s capital. Twelve people were shot in seven separate incidents, a police spokesman said, and there were several carjackings. Three people have been arrested and charged with having a gun, though nobody has officially been charged in any of the weekend’s shootings.
“Right now, they don’t feel like there’s any accountability,” Smith said. “So they’re starting to do the same thing all over again, and it is very frustrating.”
Smith said police have been reviewing crime trends ever since the council delayed taking action on the stricter curfew. The emergency legislation, which Ward 2 Council member Brooke Pinto introduced, would allow the curfew plan to remain in place until the end of the year.
Days after the proposed legislation stalled, Smith said, “The young people came out. They started putting flyers out, and really began to participate in that same behavior that they had before. It’s a challenge for us because we’re short resources.”
While Smith said the agency has “federal partners helping in this space,” police are returning to many places they’ve been before, ensuring the proper help is in place.
Though President Donald Trump’s crime emergency in D.C. has expired, federal officers and agents have remained. Bowser said Monday the number of federal police in D.C. has not gone down “precipitously.”
Juvenile crime becoming increasingly ‘predictable’
In some cases, kids are putting flyers on social media with a call to action. They’re usually organizing meetups to fight, Smith said, “and that has to stop, and so we’ll continue to monitor social media pages.”
In one recent instance near Rhode Island Avenue, Smith said a large group of kids stopped a man’s car. He got out and tried to move them out of the way, Smith said, “and then they ended up assaulting him.” As the man left the car, two kids jumped into it, Smith said. There are 10 to 12 young people that police are investigating in connection with the incident.
Meanwhile, Smith said one shooting Friday started with a fight at Kelly Miller Middle School between two groups of girls. The school de-escalated the situation, but the groups then met in front of a different school and fought again. One person tried to break up the fight, and Smith said a young person pulled out a gun, “discharging the firearm.”
Each of the 12 people shot last weekend is expected to survive, a D.C. police spokesman said.
“What we saw over the weekend was unacceptable,” Bowser said. “But sadly, it was predictable with young people wiling out, because they got the message that they could, and they are.”
The juvenile curfew, Bowser said, has been “effective in deterring these large groups of young people congregating, who may have guns and who may use guns.”
Under the summer variation of the curfew, groups of nine or more kids weren’t allowed to congregate in an area designated as a special curfew zone between 8 p.m. and 11 p.m.
A roundtable on the proposal to extend the more strict juvenile curfew and curfew zones is scheduled for Thursday morning.
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