Tag: washington dc

DC Crime is ‘Down’? ABC News Anchor Says She Was Jumped, Coworker’s Car Was Stolen

ABC News anchor Kyra Phillips said Monday that she was assaulted just blocks from the network’s Washington, D.C., bureau within the last two years, adding to concerns over public safety in the nation’s capital despite official reports of declining violent crime.

Phillips shared her experience during a live broadcast, referencing multiple recent crimes in close proximity to ABC’s offices.

“We’ve been talking so much about the numbers and yeah, usually that’s how you play devil’s advocate, is you talk about, ‘Oh, well stats say crime is down,’” she said.

“However, I can tell you firsthand here in downtown D.C. where we work right here around our bureau just in the past six months, you know, there were two people shot. One person died literally two blocks down here from the bureau.”

She continued, “It was within the last two years that I actually was jumped walking just two blocks down from here. And then just this morning one of my coworkers said her car was stolen a block away from the bureau. So we can talk about the numbers going down, but crime is happening every single day because we’re all experiencing it firsthand while working and living down here.”

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DC lawmakers try to reclaim control of MPD, National Guard after Trump invokes Home Rule

D.C. Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton and U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen announced plans to reintroduce legislation granting the District of Columbia full control over its National Guard and Metropolitan Police Department.

This move comes in response to President Donald Trump’s recent decision to assume control of D.C.’s police department and deploy the National Guard without consulting local officials.

The proposed District of Columbia Police Home Rule Act would repeal the president’s authority to federalize the Metropolitan Police Department, while the District of Columbia National Guard Home Rule Act would designate the D.C. mayor as Commander-in-Chief of the National Guard, aligning with the powers held by state governors.

“President Trump’s unprecedented federalization of the D.C. Police today and his activation of the D.C. National Guard without D.C.’s consent underscore the necessity of D.C. statehood,” said Congresswoman Norton.

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“I’m Trying to Hold My Temper” – Race Baiting MSNBC Commentator TRIGGERED by Trump’s Crackdown on Crime in DC, Blames Obsession with Black Lives Matter and “Racial Politics” to Distract from Epstein Story

Eddie Glaude, an Ivy League critical race theory and African American studies professor at Princeton, went on MSNBC on Monday to condemn President Trump’s federalization of DC’s Metropolitan Police Department, blaming racism and Jeffrey Epstein for the move. 

“I’m trying to hold my temper,” Glaude told MSNBC’s Chris Jansing in response to the President’s comments during a press conference earlier. “I think there’s an ongoing argument that he’s having in his head with Black Lives Matter.”

It should be noted that in 2021, over 96% of suspects in Washington, DC homicides and nonfatal shootings were black, according to a National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform report.

“He really doesn’t really care about what’s actually happening in DC… because he’s not trying to get at the underlying root causes,” Glaude continued.

As The Gateway Pundit reported, President Trump announced on Monday that he is taking federal control over DC’s Metropolitan Police Department and authorizing the use of national guard troops to solve the “public safety emergency” in the nation’s capital.

Trump also called on Republicans in Congress to change the statutes to get rid of “no cash bail” and “some of the other things” that empower criminals in DC and other major cities across the nation.

“This city will no longer be a sanctuary for illegal alien criminals. We will have full, seamless, integrated cooperation at all levels of law enforcement, and we’ll deploy officers across the district with an overwhelming presence,” Trump said.

United States Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro went off earlier on the “young punks” that are terrorizing the city and revealed that minors are not even being prosecuted for violent crime but, instead, receiving a slap on the wrist and released back into the community.

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Journalist Notes ‘Tone Deaf’ Disconnection Between Democrats and Reality on Crime in DC

Alex Thompson of Axios took apart the new argument from Democrats that crime in Washington, DC is down, noting that their approach is tone deaf.

He says that while Democrats point to statistics, their numbers don’t match the feeling of regular people in the city who do not feel safe.

A co-panelist then jumps in to say that this is very much like last year, when Democrats kept insisting that the economy was great, which didn’t match with people’s feelings.

Partial transcript via Curtis Houck on Twitter/X:

“What’s striking is that national Democrats are not following Mayor Bowser’s lead on this, and that national Democrats have been insisting, ‘just look at the statistics. We have 30 year, 30 year low, you know, violent crime’…I’ve talked to Democrat strategists today that think that, you know, national Democrats saying, ‘look at the statistics’ is sort of a tone deaf way to react.”

“And it’s very much — isn’t this the exact same problem that Democrats had last year? ‘Look at the statistics! We promise you the economy is great’ while people are going, ‘it doesn’t feel great to me.’ That feels like a lot of this conversation around crime that you can point to statistics all day long that say, ‘hey, D.C. is safer this year than it was last year,’ but do people feel safe? Bottom line, if they don’t, they may be more okay with something that would otherwise be considered extraordinary.”

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President Trump Deploys 120 FBI Agents to Washington DC Streets to Combat Violent Crime and Carjackings

President Donald Trump has authorized the deployment of 120 FBI agents to the streets of DC to help local law enforcement fight crime.

The move to utilize the FBI for street crime comes amid Trump’s promise to make DC “one of the safest cities in America.”

This unprecedented step comes amid escalating concerns over public safety in the city, where residents and visitors alike have faced heightened threats under previous administrations’ lax policies.

The agents, primarily from the Washington Field Office, will be reassigned from counterintelligence and public corruption divisions to overnight patrol shifts with DC police officers, according to a report from The Washington Post.

This deployment is part of a broader federal initiative, with reports indicating that nearly 450 federal officers from agencies including the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Marshals Service, and the Park Police have been mobilized across the district.

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Former D.C. Diplomat Charged with Sexually Abusing His Children’s Playmates

A World Bank consultant, former Australian diplomat, and father of three is being held without bond and charged with sexually abusing three of his children’s playmates who lived in his Northwest Washington, DC, neighborhood.

Thomas Mahony, 42, was arrested in July and accused of sexually abusing two 7-year-old girls and one 8-year-old boy.

“Mahony, dressed in an orange jumpsuit and handcuffed,” appeared in D.C. Superior Court Thursday where he failed to get bond as he was considered a “significant flight risk,” according to Washington Post coverage of the case.

According to the Post:

The arrest has shocked the D.C. youth swimming community, where he was known as a proud father who regularly volunteered to time races or take team photos. Two of the swim teams Mahony had volunteered with, All Star Aquatics and MVP Dolphins, sent emails to families asking them to contact police with additional information.

Court records cited by the newspaper revealed that police wanted to arrest Mahoney as far back as November 2023 when he allegedly assaulted one of the girls while she on a playdate with his children.

The U.S. attorney’s office declined to prosecute due to “consideration of the government’s burden of beyond a reasonable doubt,” according to the Post’s examination of the records.

Now prosecutors have charged Mahony with two counts of first-degree child sexual abuse and one count of second-degree child sexual abuse stemming from incidents from February 2023 to July 13, 2025.

Under D.C. law, first-degree abuse involves a sexual act while second-degree abuse involves sexual contact that can occur over or under clothing.

All three minors reportedly told authorities that they had been at Mahony’s house having fun with his children doing typical activities like “watching a movie, playing video games, or pretending to run a Target store” when the abuse occurred.

In a court filing this week, prosecutors revealed that more charges could be on the way.

The mother of two of the children told the Post she once considered Mahony “the hero of the community.” Her family first got to know him “in 2023 as the involved father and volunteer photographer at events hosted by their children’s elementary school.”

“The only thing you can do is just cry,” she said. “I feel like I failed as a mother by trusting this person.”

Prosecutors worked to keep Mahony jailed ahead of his Thursday hearing. They expressed concern that the Australian national would flee the United States, citing his relationship with the Australian Embassy. Even if he surrendered his passport, he could obtain another there, they argued.

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DC crime eclipses Latin American capitals as Trump weighs federalizing the district

President Donald Trump’s threat to federalize Washington, D.C., should it fail to effectively deal with violent crime, comes as the city’s crime statistics show the American capital is less safe than many of the major cities of Latin America.

Washington, D.C., recorded 187 homicides in 2024 in a population of roughly 702,000. That total represents a murder rate of 26.6 per 100,000. That figure marked a 32% drop from 2023’s 274, when the rate was roughly 41 per 100,000.

Data from the Heritage Foundation shows that in 2023, D.C. had a homicide rate of 40.9 homicides per 100,000 residents and ranked fourth worst in the nation, behind only New Orleans (53.8), St. Louis (53.7), and Detroit (40.9). 

“If D.C. were a state, it would have the highest homicide rate of any state in the United States,” the conservative think-tank added. 

By way of comparison, the 2023 rate for Mexico City stood at about 8 per 100,000. Bogota, Colombia boasted a rate of 14 per 100,000 in 2023. Quito, Ecuador boasted a rate of 45 per 100,000, just slightly higher than D.C. in that year.

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New hate crime charges filed in killing of Israeli Embassy staffers, raising death penalty potential

D.C. federal prosecutors have filed federal hate crime and murder charges against the man accused of gunning down two Israeli Embassy staffers this spring, giving the Justice Department the option to pursue the death penalty in the case.

The newly unsealed indictment lays out the alleged digital footprint of Elias Rodriguez’s antisemitic views that prosecutors say fueled the deadly shooting of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah MilgrIm, a young couple who were days away from being engaged in Jerusalem.

The court documents include a “notice of special findings” that includes the potential for Mr. Rodriguez, 31, to receive the death penalty. 

Surveillance video showed Rodriguez advancing closer to Lischinsky and Milgrim as they fell to the ground, leaning over them and firing additional shots. He appeared to reload before jogging off, officials have said.

The defendant is accused of flying from Chicago to the District with his legally owned pistol to carry out the May 21 attack outside the Capital Jewish Museum. 

The new indictment says Mr. Rodriguez shouted “Free Palestine” when he shot the couple dead as they left the venue, according to court documents. 

Surveillance video allegedly captured Mr. Rodriguez standing over the victims and firing more shots into the couple after he initially downed them.

The filing said he then went inside the museum and claimed he killed the pair “for Gaza” and “for Palestine” while brandishing a red keffiyeh, a traditional Arabic scarf often associated with anti-Israel activists.

Mr. Rodriguez continued to shout “Free Palestine” during his arrest, the indictment said, and made statements about “intifada” and “revolution” as well. He also yelled  “shame on you” at event attendees inside the museum and “shame on Zio-nazi terror.”  

Old social media posts cited in court documents include a 2024 post that said “Happy New Year, Death To Israel.”

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Ex-DOGE staffer nicknamed ‘Big Balls’ left bloodied after savage DC carjacking attempt by 10 juveniles

A 19-year-old former Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) staffer was beaten and bloodied by a mob of 10 minors early Sunday as he thwarted a carjacking attempt in the nation’s capital, according to DC police.

Edward Coristine, whose LinkedIn handle earned him the nickname “Big Balls” at DOGE, was with a woman near downtown DC when he saw the group of juveniles approach their car and “make a comment about taking the vehicle,” according to a Metropolitan Police Department incident report obtained by The Post.

“At that point, for her safety, [Coristine] pushed his significant other … into the vehicle and turned to deal with the suspects,” the dramatic report continues.

“The suspects then began to assault [Coristine],” the ex-DOGE staffer told officers, who rolled up on the scene at the same time he was being attacked.

Officers patrolling the 1400 block of Swann Street NW — a popular area with several shops, bars and restaurants about a mile north of the White House — noticed “a group of approximately ten juveniles surrounding the complainants’ vehicle and assaulting [Coristine],” the report states.  

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No Escape From Washington’s Fiscal Doomsday Machine

If you don’t think Washington is in the maws of a Fiscal Doomsday Machine, think again.

And the place to start is with the 30-year CBO projections—expressed as the dollar increase from the current $29 trillion level of publicly held US Treasury debt.

To wit, if Washington does nothing except leave current tax, spending and structural deficit policies in place (i.e. baseline policy), the publicly-held debt will grow by $102 trillion over the next three decades, reaching a staggering 154% of what would be $85 trillion of GDP by 2054.

Moreover, that outcome assumes that Rosy Scenario does not loose her footing for even a moment through the middle of the century. Stated differently, the underlying CBO projections presume that there will be no recession during the 34 year span from 2020 to 2054, and that, in fact, there will be perpetual full-employment at about 4% from here on out.

Of course, during the last 30 years there have been three recessions (shaded area) and no such full-employment perfection was even remotely achieved. The short spells of 4% unemployment or under, in fact, were few and far between—in stark contrast to the CBO baseline which presumes 4% unemployment year after year until 2054.

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