The Roots of Violence in the Nation’s Capital

The liberal media is abuzz with alarm about President Trump’s announcement that he is interjecting federal law enforcement resources into the nation’s capital to restore public safety. The rhetoric is, as always, high from the partisans who want to portray Trump’s actions as the onset of authoritarianism. There’s a nest of problems with this view, beginning with the fact that the District of Columbia is a federal enclave, over which the Congress of the United States is constitutionally entitled to exercise jurisdiction and adopt laws for the good of the people who work and reside there. The second problem is more straightforward: the District of Columbia is a place where serious crime has run rampant for years.

In my first years in Washington, D.C., in the 1970s, the troubles may have been fewer, but they were not non-existent. I shared a townhouse within sight of the Capitol (the city has always been a pricey proposition for eager young people). One fine fall morning, I came out of the apartment to find that the hood of my Chevy Nova hatchback had been pried open and the battery stolen. The police took a brief report but were not optimistic about recovery. I likely needed a new battery anyway, so life went on.

Petty thefts like these are not the Washington, D.C., of today. The response of D.C. officials to the news of more active federal policing is itself a reflection of the problem. Leaders there have gotten used to the mayhem. Take the example of the young congressional intern, Eric Tarpinian-Jachym, 21 years of age, shot and killed in northwest Washington on June 30. The deed is horrifying, and the family is devastated. But look at the likely perpetrator: a 16-year-old boy, who was also wounded in the gun battle near the Washington Convention Center in the heart of the city: a minor in a gangland shootout. Eric’s mother Tamara described her dead son as “the kindest person you could be.” “I talk to Eric a lot,” she says, “I still text him every day. It’s very, very difficult.”

Four days later, another precious life, Honesty Cheadle’s, was taken in the city, ironically on the day we celebrate our national independence. Returning from a fireworks display in the backseat of her father’s car, Honesty was struck by a bullet allegedly fired by 24-year-old Charles Rucker of southeast Washington. Even more grievously, it appears that Rucker shot into the car intentionally. There is no early word whether Rucker was a drug user, but it wouldn’t be astonishing.

Then there is the case that triggered Trump’s intervention on Monday. Overnight on August 3, a gang of youths approached a young couple in D.C.’s fashionable Logan Circle and demanded they hand over their vehicle. Edward Coristine, who came to Washington as a member of Elon Musk’s DOGE team, attempted to shield his girlfriend from the thugs and pushed her into the car for safety. He was immediately assaulted and beaten bloody. The assailants, two of whom have been caught and one of whom is still being sought, are reportedly 15 years old. These events happened at 3 a.m. One member of this wolfpack was female.

What is happening in D.C. isn’t really a debate over statistics and jurisdictions. It isn’t mere fodder for talking points and political points. Something is deeply amiss, and when a horde of high school sophomores is roaming city streets in the middle of the night and committing felonies, something truly out of the ordinary is happening.

It’s not just the District of Columbia. The criminals at work in Logan Circle hail from Hyattsville, Maryland. And it’s not just juveniles. During this same time period, a news report appeared in neighboring northern Virginia of a man being arrested in a local mall for attempting to kidnap a toddler from a children’s play area. He was caught just as he was close to exiting with her to the parking lot. Then came this shocker: the accused kidnapper, who was moments away from success in snatching this baby girl, has a rap sheet of 30 — yes, 30 — prior criminal charges, including felonies and malicious wounding inflicted on a family member.

Why was this man free? The answer is simple. Among the many charges against him are several that the Fairfax County prosecutor has refused to prosecute. The same county prosecutor, Steve Descano, has been scorned by Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares (R) for failing to pursue a chronic sex offender named Richard Cox, a man who has a habit of entering women’s locker rooms and restrooms in Northern Virginia and exposing himself. The District of Columbia, which reportedly declines to prosecute minors for even aggressively violent acts, is clearly not alone in this chronic neglect of justice. There is a national trend in the collapse of respect for the law, and this stage — where prosecutors look the other way time and again — is but the end stage of the disease of social decay.

What do we know about 15-year-olds out on the streets doing carjackings in the middle of the night? First and foremost, we know that for many there is no father in the home, at least not one who isn’t consuming drugs, ready and waiting with a deadbolt and a determination that the child is not leaving the house at that hour. Welcome as the action is to tamp down the chaos that is taking lives in Washington, D.C. and other major cities, the roots of the problem need profound attention. The issues are eternal and not just contemporary. As Founding Father John Adams wrote to the Massachusetts Militia in October 1798:

“Because We have no Government armed with Power capable of contending with human Passions unbridled by morality and Religion. Avarice, Ambition, Revenge or Gallantry, would break the strongest Cords of our Constitution as a Whale goes through a Net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

The cost of remote governance when self-governance fails is astronomical. It is time for every participant in our national clashes over the fonts of peace and order in our nation to look homeward and to recognize that the answers are nearby and not afar. We cannot abandon teenagers to the corruptions of street life and expect domestic tranquility. We cannot license and spread the availability of ever more powerful narcotics, including cannabis, and be surprised at the psychosis and acting out that follow. We cannot encourage men to spend their time imagining dazzling cartoons of women through AI and other playthings, and expect them to engage in positive interactions with real women. We cannot gaze helplessly at the once-resplendent capital of democracy and tolerate the killing there of human beings on the verge of being born, and then expect respect for human life and property to flourish.

These are among the reasons the strongest cords of our Constitution now seem so frayed. If we want the National Guard to stand at ease, our internal safeguards must be renewed. The messages and mission of faith, family, and fidelity need a rebirth in every human heart.

AUTHOR

Chuck Donovan

Chuck Donovan served in the Reagan White House as a senior writer and as Deputy Director of Presidential Correspondence until early 1989. He was executive vice president of Family Research Council, a senior fellow at The Heritage Foundation, and founder/president of Charlotte Lozier Institute from 2011 to 2024. He has written and spoken extensively on issues in life and family policy.

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