Washington, D.C., Feels Neither Safe Nor Clean Because It’s Not

  Eddie Scarry visit on Twitter @eScarry

When your daily life in a city is marked by a series of fearsome conversations, signs of squalor, and dangerous encounters, no rational person can call it safe.

The Trump administration is confronting another major problem, so naturally, Democrats and the media are busy at work claiming the problem doesn’t actually exist or otherwise can’t be solved by any obvious solution. This time, it’s crime and disorder in Washington, D.C., something anyone who has lived there for 24 hours is appalled by.

I lived there for 14 years. The decay and lawlessness are a primary reason I left.

It was never worse during my time in the city than the past five years, and it never fully recovered by my departure in September 2024. The “Black Lives Matter” movement inspired D.C.’s elected Democrats to essentially legalize all sorts of theft and reduce the penalties on other crimes like carjacking and armed robbery.

After all that time spent in D.C., living in a grand total of six different neighborhoods, it’s a miracle I was never the victim of any crime other than someone attempting to break into my home while I was out of town once. (I won’t count that my car was stolen from a Metro parking lot because that was technically in Suitland, Maryland, minutes outside the city.) But I witnessed and heard from friends and colleagues of their own assaults, robberies, and general signs of danger.

The office for one of my previous journalism jobs is located downtown, three blocks north of the White House. One afternoon, a colleague left to head home when it was still bright out, only to return minutes later because a homeless man had reached up her skirt from behind just as she had made it to the sidewalk.

Another colleague’s car was broken into, and his suits were stolen. That same guy’s wife started her car to get it warmed up one winter day, and when she went back inside to grab their two young children, someone jumped in the driver’s seat and sped away. (Imagine if the children had been in the car and she had needed to run back inside for a moment.)

full story at https://thefederalist.com/2025/08/13/washington-d-c-feels-neither-safe-nor-clean-because-its-not/