Feds, Local Police Team Up on D.C. Crime

By BRIAN WESTLEY

WASHINGTON – The police chief has declared a crime emergency in the nation’s capital, and every major law enforcement agency from the FBI to the U.S. Park Police has teamed up to help stem the recent surge of violent attacks on residents and tourists this summer.

The new violent crimes task force will coordinate the agencies’ resources, such as surveillance and lab work, and extra hours for police and prosecutors.

“We can drive the crime down, I have no doubt about it,” said Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey. “When you put a coalition like this together, I don’t see how we can fail.”

Other agencies involved are the U.S. attorney’s office, Metro Transit Police, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the U.S. Capitol Police, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the U.S. Marshals Service, and the Secret Service.

The city also has stepped up enforcement since the homicide rate hit one a day during the first two weeks of July.

Ramsey’s crime emergency declaration allows him to adjust schedules and cancel vacations for officers.

The District of Columbia Council followed this week with emergency legislation allowing the use of surveillance cameras in residential neighborhoods and authorizing the mayor to tighten the city’s youth curfew and expand police overtime.

“Our goal is to reduce violent crime in the city by 50 percent over the next 30 days in every area of the District of Columbia,” Mayor Anthony A. Williams said Friday.

Under the task force, prosecutors and police will team up to identify crimes with common suspects, locations and motives, and the FBI’s crime laboratory will expedite all tests ordered by the task force.

To keep suspects from returning to the streets, prosecutors will seek to have more 16- and 17-year-olds charged as adults and ask judges to hold robbery suspects without bond when possible.

Authorities will seek long-term solutions at a violent crime summit sometime in the next two months.