WASHINGTON — A single knock-out blow to crime. That is what one DC Councilmember hopes will happen with her new crime bill.
On Wednesday, CM Brooke Pinto, chair of the Judiciary and Public Safety Committee introduced Secure DC Omnibus. It includes many crime-fighting measures already proposed and it updates others based on feedback from the community. They called it a historic public safety package. Pinto’s 89-page omnibus is a comprehensive package that includes provisions from more than a dozen crime bills. Pinto said it was the series of safety walks, including those East of the River, which shaped her response to crime.
“We’re seeing disproportionate impacts in Wards 7 and 8 so soliciting feedback from residents who are most impacted by gun violence was a very important part of this process,” said Pinto.
Secure DC makes permanent some measures passed in the emergency crime bills this summer including stiffer gun penalties and pretrial detention for adults and young people accused of violent crimes. Additionally, it develops a public dashboard for the Office of Unified Command or DC’s 911 call center and would redefine carjacking to include a person in the vicinity of a car, not just inside a vehicle.
“We have to treat these cases with the severity that they deserve,” said Pinto.
The bill would also legalize the sale of pepper spray, increase support for victims, track gun data, offer hospitality job training and better food at D.C. jail, give businesses grants to boost security, and lowers the threshold of felony retail theft from $1,000 to $500.
But despite fielding concerns from the American Civil Liberties Union and even Council Chairman Phil Mendelson, Pinto included the mayor’s plan for drug-free zones which ran into legal hurdles a decade ago.
WUSA9 reached out to Chairman Mendelson for comment but he hadn’t yet read the bill at the time of this article. When asked if she foresees a problem Pinto replied:
“I am confident in the public process I and my team have engaged in."
However, ACLU-DC released a statement Wednesday afternoon writing, “We deserve to be safe from crime and from abuse of power” calling the drug-free zones failed and ineffective. The complete statement by Policy Counsel Melissa Wasser is below:
“We deserve to be safe from crime and from abuse of power. Allowing officers to escape accountability and to harass people in designated zones will not make D.C. safer. Locking more people up before they are found guilty will not make D.C. safer. These types of provisions in the Secure DC Act are not ‘public safety’ solutions; they are measures that open the door for abuse of power.
When police officers are allowed to abuse their power without facing consequences, the public can understandably grow reluctant to interact with officers at all. The proposed changes to body-worn camera provisions would spread distrust of police. Such distrust undermines the legitimacy of law enforcement and erodes any sense of cooperation between harmed communities and the police.
Similarly, failed and ineffective ‘drug-free’ zones do little to prevent crime; instead, they open the door for police officers to harass people and violate our rights. The District can’t make it a crime to simply stand around. The Constitution requires that, before arresting someone, a police officer has probable cause to suspect that someone is intending to commit or is committing an illegal act. Ordering a person who has committed no crime to disperse, and then arresting them if they do not, makes mere loitering a crime, which is unconstitutional. Perhaps that’s why these zones were unanimously repealed in 2014, with then-Councilmember Bowser’s support.
And if preventing crime is the goal, pretrial detention is not the way. Pretrial releases in the District are not driving crime: 92 percent of people released from pretrial are not rearrested and only 1 percent are rearrested for a violent offense while awaiting trial. Locking more people up pretrial can have a negative effect on public safety. Even short periods of unnecessary detention increase a person's risk of re-arrest. Beyond its ineffectiveness, it is our constitutional right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. And pretrial detention does just the opposite -- it treats certain people as guilty until proven innocent.
We urge the D.C. Council to reject these and other provisions that put both our safety and our rights at risk. Instead, District leaders should build a comprehensive public safety system that focuses on prevention, effectiveness, and accountability.”
The omnibus bill would also allow police to collect DNA evidence from anyone arrested for a felony, but we are told the evidence will be destroyed if charges are dropped. It removes the term “use of force” if an officer shoots an animal or happens to touch someone’s neck during an arrest, and allows officers to stop someone for wearing a mask. Pinto described the mask provision as a reason to initiate a stop not to make an arrest. A two-year pilot program would install blue light surveillance cameras and emergency call boxes near metro stops. When a person activates the emergency call button, a camera will record video and audio and police will be deployed. However, Pinto removed her controversial proposal introduced last fall that would allow for warrantless searches of people convicted of violent crimes.
“We were unclear how this can be administrated without leading to harassment and that’s what the legislative process is for we heard ideas we heard opposition and feedback, and I didn’t feel comfortable moving forward so I took it out,” said Pinto. The Councilmember plans to vote on the bill out committee next Wednesday and is hoping for a vote by the full council on January 23.
Pinto said she hopes the mayor funds the bill in the upcoming budget, but she did not have an estimated price tag for the package.
Mayor Muriel Bowser issued the following statement urging the council to pass the bill.
“We know that driving down crime requires us to send a clear message that if you make our city less safe, if you bring violence to our community, you will be held accountable. I appreciate Councilmember Pinto’s leadership and partnership on this legislation that includes most of our Safer, Stronger 2.0 legislation and our ACT Now legislation. Passing it will support a system that prioritizes safety and accountability. In 2023, we saw pieces of this legislation move our city in the right direction. Now we can make those provisions permanent and focus on strategies and policies that will continue to make our city safer. I look forward to signing this bill into law and urge the Council to move with urgency to unanimously pass this legislation.”