MSNBC justice and legal affairs analyst Anthony Coley asserted on Wednesday that Washington, D.C., residents are vexed by juvenile crime in their city.
U.S. AttorneyĀ Jeanine Pirro of the District of Columbia said on āHannityā Monday that there are ācrewsā of teens between the ages of 14 and 17 who commit crimes because they are ābelow the age of criminal responsibility unless they commit the crime of murder, rape one, armed robbery or burglary in the first degree.ā Coley said on āMorning Joeā that residents are irritated that stores lock products behind plexiglass to prevent theft.
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āThere is a gap between what the data shows and how many Washingtonians feel. And I live in Washington. This is personal for me. Many people are frustrated with crime that we see, particularly committed by juveniles in the city of Washington,ā Coley said. āPeople are frustrated ā¦ that when they go to CVS to buy deodorant, they have to get it from behind locked plexiglass.ā
āThese are not just random anecdotes. What we see in Washington Post polling, among others, is that roughly half of D.C. residents, mostly half of D.C., view this as a serious problem or an extremely serious problem,ā he continued. āAnd the question then becomes why ā¦ juvenile arrests are down in the District of Columbia, but we donāt see that in Baltimore, where year over year juvenile arrests are up.ā
Coley blamed lawmakers for the juvenile crime issue getting out of hand.
ā Jonathan Lemire rightly pointed out the $1 billion that Congress is withholding, which would allow Washington, D.C., to hire more officers,ā he said. āBut the D.C. Council has a role to play here as well, because some of the laws that they have passed are not as strong as they could be for juvenile offenders and for re-offenders.ā
However, Coley still argued that President Donald Trumpās crackdown on violent crime in the nationās capital was still ādisproportionateā and āa political stunt.ā The crackdown followed a rash of high-profile violent crime cases in the district, including former Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) employee Edward Coristine, also known as āBig Balls,ā receiving a brutal beating when he intervenedĀ in a carjacking of a woman at around 3 a.m. on Aug. 5.
The suspects for the alleged unarmed carjacking are a 15-year-old juvenile male and a 15-year-old juvenile female from Hyattsville, Md, according to officials.
Although legacyĀ media outletsĀ haveĀ reported that crimeĀ plunged by 35% in 2024, their numbers rely on local policeĀ statistics that exclude crimes like felony and aggravated assault.
Washingtonās Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) only includes homicide, sex abuse crimes, assault with a dangerous weapon and robbery in its overall āviolent crimeā data that demonstrated a decline in 2024. Aggravated assault and felony assault without the use of weapons are also excluded.
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