McConnell rails on D.C. crime from Senate floor

Sen. Mitch McConnell bludgeoned D.C. leaders over the city’s crime woes Thursday as the District tries to move on from its most violent year since the late ‘90s.

The Kentucky Republican used his floor speech to take a swipe at the deteriorating public safety he said is found in all major American cities — which are largely run by locally elected Democrats — before directing his attention at the nation’s capital.

“Washington’s radical local government has lost the plot,” Mr. McConnell said. “The city’s leaders aren’t just failing to get rampant crime under control — they’re actively making matters worse.”

The senator blamed the D.C. Council for cutting police funding in the wake of the 2020 police killing of George Floyd and contributing to the Metropolitan Police’s lowest recruitment numbers in 50 years.

Mr. McConnell also criticized Mayor Muriel Bowser’s program that gives away free tracking devices to people so they can find their car if it’s stolen.

Further, he bashed the prosecutors’ decision not to pursue two-thirds of criminal cases in 2022.

Residents, community leaders and local and federal politicians have pointed to the low prosecution rate as a reason for why the District witnessed its bloodiest year in over a quarter century in 2023.

Last year, the city saw a surge in robberies, a record number of carjackings and 274 homicides — the most since 1997.    

Mr. McConnell said MPD recorded 53 car thefts in the first three days of 2024. By the end of the first week of the new year, he said there had been 44 robberies.

The senator also commented that there were 125 carjackings in the city during its first week, but publicly accessible police data show there have been 15 reported carjackings to start 2024.

“The American people deserve to walk the streets of their capital city without fear. They deserve leaders who care more about safety than about keeping up with the far left’s new soft-on-crime orthodoxies.”

D.C. leaders have sought to aggressively shore up the city’s public safety apparatus in the new year.

Ward 2 Councilmember Brooke Pinto introduced legislation Wednesday that seeks to broaden the legal definition of carjacking, create new felony firearm offenses and give judges more discretion when seeking to hold violent juvenile and adult suspects before their trials.

U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves, the federal prosecutor who handles most major crimes in the District, also skewered the D.C. Council for trying to nominate a convicted murderer as a member of the city board that sets sentencing policy.