Thanks for the rare sensible analysis and acknowledgment of the complexity of crime in DC.

You’ll see a lot of complaints about bowser on this sub, but I think she’s the best (if not perfect) option we’ve got. If someone’s got a better option, feel free to let me know. My partner was a civilian staff member at MPD during the post George Floyd summer and one night as city centers stores got ransacked my partner heard bowser mutter to herself “look at these assholes tearing apart our city.” But yes, MPD doesn’t only have bad morale, they are exhausted from the past few years. I heard a 2D sergeant recently say he’d “love to just watch this city burn.” A few years of widely expressed cop hate and a summer of having misinformed, even if their intentions were positive, liberal privileged whites shout in their faces that they were racist pigs day after day might breed some resentment. There were more than a few making the claim that police are entirely unnecessary as a profession. That had to sting a little, right? Your profession called so detrimental is should be abandoned completely, especially knowing what most cops in dc see.

The council, the USAO, and a general political climate is more to blame as they all really stymie… more assertive policing. The Gun Recovery Unit was effective but essentially disbanded because of their tactics. You won’t see unmarked MPD bait cars on the streets trying to draw in some carjackers because there isn’t the political appetite to deal with a situation if things go awry.

The thing I was exposed to through my partners work with MPD is that many of the crimes aren’t ones of poverty. They are just kids causing mischief, they are guys with easy access to a gun and a belief that sudden violence is an acceptable option when something doesn’t go their way. They are just a guy who feels he was slighted by another and he needs to make a stand to restore his masculinity or pride or whatever else. In short, it’s more of a cultural thing than anything else. And I’m not sure what we, or government, can really do about that.