jonetta rose barras: Has Brooke Pinto secured her reelection?
It probably doesn’t matter that despite a historic rise in violent crime that is instilling fear in many DC residents, causing them to dramatically alter their daily routines while contributing to the closure of significant numbers of small businesses, some DC Councilmembers appear reluctant to take strong and decisive action that could give the police and courts necessary tools to rein in dangerous criminals. Earlier this week, they raised numerous concerns about Ward 2 Councilmember Brooke Pinto’s massive crime bill, the Secure DC Omnibus Act of 2024, telegraphing a clear message: While the Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety has unanimously approved the legislation, it’s likely to be a different story when the full council takes its first vote next month. I’m guessing the bill will pass, but not in its current form and not without some dissent.
It also probably doesn’t matter that the $4.5 million needed to implement the bill this Fiscal Year 2024 hasn’t been appropriated and may not be available until near the summer. According to council sources, Mayor Muriel Bowser would have to propose those funds in a supplemental budget that she is likely to send to the council sometime in March. The council’s budget director, Jennifer Budoff, told legislators the full cost for implementation over the four years of the city’s financial plan is $42 million.
Yes, that’s right, the council is expected, once again, to pass a legislative proposal in the absence of money to pay for it — a process I have repeatedly described as reckless financial and public policy management.
Truth be told, regardless of whether Secure DC ultimately secures a crime-ravaged DC, it clears a path for a Pinto victory in the Democratic Party’s June 4 primary. The legislation provides her with a sturdy platform from which to make her case that she has responded not just to her constituents but the electorate citywide.
Rampant, unpredictable violent crime has become the top issue for DC residents, federal officials and tourists; individuals in each class have been victims over the past three years. In 2023, DC saw 274 homicides, a 35% increase over the previous year when there were 203 murders. Overall violent crime jumped by 39% in 2023 to a total of 5,336 incidents. Criminals have been relentless.
In 2020, when Pinto was first elected to the council, she was deemed by some political observers and fellow candidates as too inexperienced and politically naïve. Much was made of the fact that she came from a wealthy New England family. She was able to ride out that wave of criticism, partly because she had the support of then-DC Attorney General Karl Racine. Since then, she has made more friends — although she continues to wrestle with critics in the ward.
In 2023, when Pinto sidled up to Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen, the prior judiciary committee chair, and helped push colleagues to override Bowser’s veto of the Revised Criminal Code Act of 2022, many residents placed her in the soft-on-crime column. President Joe Biden and Congress eventually repealed the law, citing as justification the concerns raised by the mayor.
Over the past year, Pinto has aggressively pushed legislation that has incorporated a public health approach while making it difficult for repeat offenders to slip through the hands of law enforcement. All of that is music to the ears of those who, seeking a tougher approach, have argued that the council has been fiddling while criminals have taken over the city, resulting in a national public impression of a lawless nation’s capital and complicating DC’s economic revival.
“Secure DC is the culmination of a robust and thoughtful public engagement process that makes me confident that taken together, the 100+ interventions and solutions in the bill will make DC residents safer and more secure by preventing crime, ensuring accountability when crime does occur, and improving government coordination to meet the needs of District residents,” Pinto wrote in her Jan. 23 newsletter. She reiterated that message during her opening comments on Tuesday when the bill was presented at a meeting of the Committee of the Whole.
As written, Secure DC is a mashup of Pinto’s own previous proposal of the same name, along with parts of measures previously introduced by other councilmembers and Bowser. Among other things, it would allow the establishment of 120-hour drug-free zones, and amend parts of the Comprehensive Policing and Justice Reform Amendment Act of 2022 — a bill some have linked to the local defund police movement and blamed for declines in overall public safety, matters that are now at the heart of an effort to recall Allen.
Secure DC also would: amend penalties for certain firearm possession offenses; expand the definition of carjacking; expand the offense of assault on a police officer; provide for pretrial detention in more instances, particularly when there is the likelihood that the perpetrator could commit another crime if released; establish an offense for directing organized retail theft; amend the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect Act of 1977 to clarify what information can be shared among agencies regarding delinquent children; allow for the collection of DNA evidence earlier in the legal process; permit police to review body camera footage before writing up official reports in most cases; refine the definition of a chokehold; and provide police with somewhat more leeway in chasing suspects by car.
Council Chair Pro Tempore Kenyan McDuffie raised concerns about changes to collection of DNA and what seemed like a permanent expansion of pretrial detention. The latter had been included in emergency legislation approved last summer.
“I have a lot that concerns me,” said at-large Councilmember Robert White, who like Pinto is running for reelection. “It is already illegal to sell drugs and do drugs in public. I want to understand how drug-free zones make us safer.”
His colleague Christina Henderson also questioned their efficacy; she worried too that such zones, if located near treatment clinics, could bring greater police scrutiny to people dealing with substance use disorder.
Many residents might be happy if that were the result. The decriminalization of marijuana and the epidemic of fentanyl have increased the dangers on many streets where there are open-air drug markets.
Councilmembers seem to be mouthing the panoply of arguments that have been made by various advocacy groups and nonprofit organizations like the ACLU, who were also just fine with criminal-coddling provisions in the revised criminal code and the policing reform bill, passed initially on an emergency basis in 2020.
Pinto faced each complaint, standing by the bill she and her team shaped. She told McDuffie that “31 states” have DNA collection at the time of arrest as provided in Secure DC. She told White that the drug-free zones provide “an additional tool” for officers. She also “rejected” the premise of some claims that somehow changes to previous reform measures — some of which have not yet been implemented due to an absence of funding — represented an abandonment of DC values.
The biggest rejection of the community’s values is the wanton criminal activity that has been allowed to fester, if you ask me.
“I am confident this council will move forward with this legislation,” said Council Chair Phil Mendelson after the initial Committee of the Whole discussion.
Whether that amounts to a pledge or just a prediction, it means something only if councilmembers resist their usual practice of yielding to the desires of advocates and lobbyists, which could lead to a watered-down bill that lacks key provisions in the current version. Instead, they should finally answer the daily cry for help emanating from residents in every quadrant of the city.
jonetta rose barras is an author and DC-based freelance journalist, covering national and local issues. She can be reached at thebarrasreport@gmail.com.
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