Letter from Washington DC, city of insecurity and fear

The capital of the United States, home of the government and an amazing number of armed teenagers, set a deplorable record last year: it became the city with the highest number of carjackings in the country per 100,000 residents.

Police reports show that on average, there were almost three carjackings a day – incidents when drivers had their cars taken away at gunpoint. The trend continued in the first month of 2024 – just two a day.

In absolute numbers – there were 958 carjackings in 2023 while 57 have already taken place in January.

Pistol-packing teenagers committed most of the violent thefts of occupied cars. Relatively few are arrested. In January, eight of the criminals involved in the 57 incidents were arrested.

Such numbers have instilled a pervasive sense of insecurity and fear among many residents. As one user put it in a tweet: “What’s scary about crime in DC these days is the randomness. You don’t need to be involved in drugs or gangs to get carjacked.”

The capital’s carjacking wave rarely makes national news except when the victims are prominent in politics or business. In October, Henry Cuellar, a Democratic congressman, recalled what happened to him when he returned to his home in the city’s trendy Navy Yard neighbourhood.

“I was just coming into my place. Three guys came out of nowhere and they pointed guns at me. I do have a (Karate) black belt but I recognise when you got three guns – I looked at one with a gun, another with a gun, and a third behind me. So they said they wanted my car. I said ‘sure’.”

Cuellar’s car and his cellphones were later recovered a few miles from where they were taken. The carjackers, thought to be in their mid-teens, disappeared and there were no arrests. Case closed.

But a more recent attempted carjacking had a bloodier outcome. On February 5, a former official of the Trump administration, Mike Gill, was shot dead while sitting in his car at 5 pm to pick up his wife from her law office in an upscale area of the city.

His wife found him on the sidewalk, his head in a pool of blood, one leg still inside his car. The assailant fled on foot and was shot and killed by police while attempting another carjack.

The wave of carjackings prompted city authorities and police into different actions. DC mayor Marion Bowser declared a public emergency in November and promised to improve monitoring of criminal activity. Police handed out free air tags to help victims of carjackings find their stolen cars.

A sweeping crime bill is under discussion by the 13-member City Council, the legislative branch of the District of Columbia. It dates back to the 1973 Home Rule Act which created a local government for the country’s capital. Council decisions can be overruled by Congress and DC citizens still have no representation there.

While the council discusses ways to stem crime – a bill is expected later this month – there is plenty of advice for citizens who live in fear. A local television station, extrapolating from police data, recently published a list that highlights how widespread crime has become.

The guidance boils down to advice to look over your shoulder wherever you go.

It stemmed from a crack cocaine epidemic in the city and turf wars between drug gangs in defined areas. Use was widespread. The capital’s mayor at the time, Marion Barry, was arrested in January 1990 smoking crack cocaine in a hotel room.

I arrived in Washington in 1998 and, like most residents, did not feel insecure and threatened by violence. Today’s security guidance emphasises that you can be a victim anywhere.

Carjackers find their victims anywhere and at any time with the following situations or locations more common:

· ATMs
· Gas stations
· Car washes
· Garages
· Parking lots
· Grocery stores
· Mass transit
· Intersections controlled by stop lights or signs
· Highway entrance and exit ramps, or any place where drivers slow down or stop

One of the fiercest critics of how the American capital is run has been former president Donald Trump, an extremely unpopular figure in a city which voted more than 90 per cent against him in the 2016 elections.

Trump is facing trial for criminal charges in Washington and has unsuccessfully tried to move the venue.

“No way I can get a fair trial, or even close to a fair trial, in Washington, DC. There are many reasons for this, but just one is that I am calling for a federal takeover of this filthy and crime-ridden embarrassment to our nation,” Trump said in a posting on his social network, Truth Social.

But letting the federal government run the city – the only capital of a country whose citizens have no representation in Congress – is unlikely to fix its problems. According to a series of surveys over the past few years, Americans are deeply distrustful of the federal government.

As former Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill put it: “Dysfunction and chaos are now in the political bloodstream,” and citizens “see this as part of normal, polarised, partisan politics in Washington”. 

So, perhaps fixing the carjacking epidemic is better left to the city.

(Disclaimer: The views of the writer do not represent the views of WION or ZMCL. Nor does WION or ZMCL endorse the views of the writer.)