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After the deadliest year in the nation’s capital in a quarter century, the D.C. Council will take an initial vote Tuesday on a mammoth public safety bill that includes dozens of changes to crime and punishment and policing laws, representing the council’s most definitive answer to date in the face of soaring violent crime.

The sweeping legislation would create new crimes such as “organized retail theft,” enhance punishment for illegal gun possession, revive a ’90s-era “anti-loitering drug free zone” tactic, greatly expand the collection of DNA in a law enforcement database and, after months of complaints from the D.C. police union, seek to undo or adjust a number of law enforcement accountability or transparency measures.

Understanding the D.C. Council’s omnibus crime bill

“This is an omnibus piece of legislation with comprehensive solutions,” said Council member Brooke Pinto (D-Ward 2), who wrote the Secure DC Omnibus Amendment Act. “And that’s why, taken as a whole, it’s going to improve safety and security for D.C. residents.”

Lawmakers have largely shown a united front in pushing the legislation, despite concerns a number of them have raised. Many oppose certain changes to the city’s police accountability laws, which passed after the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police. And some remain skeptical that certain provisions, such as <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/11/05/dc-mayor-drug-markets-bill/" target=_blank>drug-free zones</a>, will actually reduce or deter crime, criticism that has boiled over among criminal justice advocates opposed to ratcheting up criminal punishment.

A shaken Washington copes with surging violence: ‘This is not normal’

Still, the bill is virtually guaranteed to advance Tuesday, showing the extent of public pressure council members are feeling to respond to crime fears; it would probably get a final vote several weeks later. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D) is working behind the scenes with Pinto, who chairs the council’s public safety committee, to address lawmakers’ opposition to certain police transparency measures. Amendments are expected by Monday.

The legislation is a collection of more than a dozen proposals put forth last year, including from Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D), who strongly backs the bill. It has attracted support from the business community and increasingly frustrated residents who have expressed anger about everything from gunshots in their neighborhoods to what they describe as plain-view drug-dealing in buzzy corridors. Small businesses have been particularly outspoken, fearing the crime increase will damage D.C.'s economy if not reversed.

“Crime is alarming District residents and undercutting D.C.’s economic comeback following the pandemic,” said Malcom Fox, executive director of Opportunity DC, a group supporting D.C. businesses. “Restaurants and retailers have had to hire security to protect their customers and employees. Workers are reluctant to return to their offices because of carjackings and gun violence. Without a significant course correction, D.C. will lose employers and residents to neighboring regions.”

Violent crime increased by 39 percent in 2023, with the most homicides since 1997, while property crime was up 24 percent. Viral photos or videos of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/10/03/shoplifting-organized-retail-crime-theft/" target="_blank">bare shelves</a> at stores like CVS after reports of shoplifting only enhanced what some residents have described as a sense of lawlessness in the city, the source of Bowser’s proposal to create a new felony crime for “organized retail theft.”

A D.C. grocery store is removing Tide, Colgate and Advil to deter theft

But the bill has also attracted loud dissent: Racial justice advocates who in 2020 cheered the council for its <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/dc-police-reforms-make-it-easier-to-fire-officers-for-misconduct-expands-civilian-review-over-force/2020/06/11/3804dcaa-ab45-11ea-a9d9-a81c1a491c52_story.html" target=_blank>major action on police accountability</a> are now lambasting the omnibus legislation.

The tension has put the liberal council in a sticky spot. Lawmakers’ own Council Office of Racial Equity, which performs racial impact analyses on legislation, <a href="https://lims.dccouncil.gov/downloads/LIMS/53364/Other/B25-0345-REIA_B25-0345_Secure_DC_Omnibus.pdf?Id=183986" target=_blank>cast doubt</a> on whether many provisions would actually prevent crime, while warning that focusing on enhancing penalties or creating new crimes would have a disproportionate impact on Black residents in a city whose jail population is 90 percent Black.

Monica Hopkins, the executive director of the ACLU of D.C., called the omnibus bill a “throw-spaghetti-at-the-wall approach to addressing the issue of crime and violence in our city.” Hopkins criticized the changes to policing accountability and the creation of temporary “drug-free zones,” saying similar policies in the past have proved ineffective and hurt Black and Brown residents. And she argued the expansion of pretrial detention included in the bill goes against the principle of innocent until proven guilty.

“What we do know, and what history has taught us, is that moments of crisis are the precise times we must strengthen our rights and liberties, not turn our backs on fundamental principles,” Hopkins said.

Though he said he had not yet reviewed the full racial impact study, Mendelson described the situation as a “public policy quandary”: He acknowledged the racial disparities in D.C.’s justice system are a problem. And he acknowledged, too, that “the research is pretty clear that the length of sentences does not have a deterrent effect.” But he argued <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/05/15/bowser-legislative-proposal-crime/" target=_blank>tougher gun penalties</a> — and new offenses that target increasingly lethal weapons and accessories — are a necessary response to the District’s proliferation of illegal firearms and increasing violence.

“I think this bill will have an impact, yes,” he said. “But I want to say that this bill is being considered in the complex context of the mayor repeatedly telling the public that legislative action is necessary to reduce crime, and a nervous citizenry that wants to see the government act.”

2023 was District’s deadliest year in more than two decades

Numerous members have stopped short of promising residents a sea change should the legislation pass, believing it should not be seen as a substitute for a comprehensive violence reduction plan. As Council member Christina Henderson (I-At Large) noted, “a lot of things in this bill are, how do you deal with accountability and consequences after a crime has already been committed?” And accountability, she noted, also still depends on prosecutors and judges under federal control.

Still, she added, “while there’s not a single event or moment that led to where we are, nor is there going to be one bill that leads us out — we’re at this point willing to try any and all things to try to reverse course here.”

In such an enormous bill, council members point to various provisions they hope will make the most significant difference — some of which have flown under the radar.

For Council member Charles Allen (D-Ward 6), it’s a provision mandating weekly reviews of shootings, enabling public safety officials to dig for fuller understandings of what led to each one. He and Council member Janeese Lewis George (D-Ward 4) hope clarifying the definition of carjacking in the criminal code — to account for situations where suspects rob someone of their keys when they are a little farther from the car — will help prosecutions. And Council member Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5) hopes job training programs that would be developed at the D.C. jail would reduce recidivism.

As carjackings rise, food delivery drivers navigate harrowing risks

Where they and multiple other members diverge with Pinto is on police accountability.

“Rolling back transparency and accountability around police misconduct is not something this council supports. And so I think that’s the area of concern that a lot of folks have, and I think that Council member Pinto is hearing that,” Allen said. He added Pinto has been open to collaborating on those issues.

Pinto has insisted there is no “reversal” of police transparency laws. The public safety committee also did not go as far as<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/10/23/dc-public-safety-bill-retail-theft-police-reform/" target=_blank> Bowser’s October proposal</a>. In an interview, Pinto argued the bill “strikes the appropriate balance of ensuring there’s accountability when misconduct happens while also maintaining basic employment rights for our officers.”

Some changes are adjustments that many members agree are practical responses to concerns police have raised, such as allowing police to review body-camera footage before writing police reports, except in cases of excessive or deadly force. The bill would further loosen restrictions on vehicular pursuits, which Mendelson said he hoped would reduce officers’ reluctance to chase, though the changes concern some lawmakers. The bill also adjusts the definition of prohibited neck restraints, which activists strongly oppose, but which Pinto said is intended to ensure officers who “incidentally” touch a person’s neck won’t be disciplined.

But other provisions would undo certain transparency parts of the Comprehensive Policing and Justice Reform Amendment Act, passed in 2022.

Under Pinto’s bill, only sustained complaints of officer misconduct would be available for public review. The public would not have access to the full scope of officers’ disciplinary records or complaints, and would not be able to see how cases in which officers were exonerated were adjudicated — information that was supposed to be available under the policing reform act. The District never funded that provision of the policing law, which is in part why Pinto argues she is not “reversing” it. She has argued that police are entitled to privacy if complaints against them are not substantiated.

“What it does is it reduces the amount, information the public has on officer behavior,” Parker said. “While I hear the argument that we want to share instances of proven and sustained allegations against officers, there is a value to knowing and seeing patterns that may arise even if allegations are not sustained.”

Even though that provision went unfunded, The Washington Post sued the city when it sought to keep police disciplinary records private in the case of an<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/interactive/2022/gay-dc-cop-parson-teen-florida-arrest/?itid=hp-top-table-main-t-3&itid=lk_inline_manual_3&itid=lk_inline_manual_3" target=_blank> officer charged with unlawful sexual activity with a minor</a>. A <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2023/12/14/foia-dc-police-misconduct-brett-parson/" target=_blank>judge sided with The Post</a> and found the newspaper should have access to the records in the spirit of the law. The records revealed the officer had a history of complaints, ranging from alleged excessive force to inappropriate language.

“Lots of people in this city have problems with the police,” said Robert Becker, a board member with the D.C. Open Government Coalition. “They should have access to information about them … If a cop gets a whole bunch of complaints that don’t end up in sustained findings, we’re not going to know that.”

Pinto has pointed to an array of new or expanded tools included in the bill that she said are intended to help police solve crimes, such as public safety grants to expand security cameras or emergency callboxes in busy corridors. The District would also join more than two dozen states in allowing police to collect DNA evidence from suspects at the time of arrest, versus after conviction.

One of the new policing tactics was cut from the bill, however, after significant concern about racial profiling. The provision would have allowed police to conduct random, warrantless searches of people charged with or convicted of violent crimes while they are on supervision, which Pinto said she removed after “really moving” testimony from formerly incarcerated people who told her how traumatizing that could be.

Other hot-button provisions remain, such as the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/11/05/dc-mayor-drug-markets-bill/" target=_blank>creation of drug-free zones</a>.

Police would designate a drug-free zone for up to five days and be allowed to arrest anyone who refuses to leave if they are in the zone with the intent to deal or use drugs. The tactic had been on the books in D.C. during its crack epidemic but it was repealed in 2014 amid constitutional concerns. Council member Robert C. White Jr. (D-At Large) has been among the loudest critics, questioning why police need to create special zones when it is already illegal to deal drugs.

“I don’t see how this fixes the underlying issue,” he said in a legislative meeting last week. “Without a comprehensive strategy for drugs and drug issues, it seems like this activity, even if it gets disrupted, moves one block over.”

When he questioned the mayor about the benefit of the tactic at a breakfast Tuesday, Bowser said the police chief needed the tool to deploy limited police resources. “When people say there is drug use on a street or in Chinatown, what do you want the police to do?” the mayor asked. “Do you want them to walk up and say, ‘We think you’re smoking marijuana on the street and we’re going to arrest you, and you won’t be charged, and you’ll be back on the street doing it again?’”

H Street was once a symbol of D.C.’s rebirth. Now, it’s barely holding on.

Henderson sought changes in the legislation to require the Department of Behavioral Health and service providers who help people struggling with addiction to also be looped in whenever police are creating a zone. Her concern was people could be targeted by police if they were on their way to receive services at a clinic, or for simply existing in the zone as a person with a history of substance abuse.

But many lawmakers have made peace with drug-free zones at the insistence of what they described as hundreds of their constituents. Lewis George said it’s an instance where “perception is trumping policy”: Even though she questions the effectiveness of the zones, residents strongly support them and so she and other members are giving them a chance.

“That’s the hardest one, if I’m honest with you, in the sense that this is a problem that I speak with residents about all the time,” she said, ticking off the intersections in her ward where open-air drug dealing is clear: Kennedy and Georgia, 9th and Illinois, Spring and 14th. “It’s one of those neighborhood issues that impact us the most.”

Lewis George was the lone “no” vote on the council’s Prioritizing Public Safety emergency bill in July, strongly objecting to the expansion of pretrial detention for adults and certain juveniles charged with violent crimes. Pinto’s omnibus retains the expansion for adults, while including certain cases where juveniles should be ordered detained before trial, such as for alleged carjackings.

Lewis George said she still does not support those provisions, pointing to data showing that <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/07/11/dc-council-passes-public-safety-legislation/" target=_blank>fewer than 2 percent of people</a> are charged with new violent crimes while out on bond and doubting the link to the current crime crisis.

But she would be supporting the bill overall, she said, believing the benefits outweighed her concerns.

“The community is essentially at the moment where everybody is crying out,” she said, “and rightfully so. We want to see a real focus on public safety. We want to see a change. We want to see implementation. So the Council is coming together, getting it done for our city.”

Drake University, BAJMC in magazine journalism; BA in writing

Meagan Flynn covers D.C. government and politics on The Post's Metro team.

Meagan Flynn

Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting, finalist (part of a team), 2020

Brown University, B.A.

Emily Davies is a reporter covering crime and criminal justice in Washington, D.C. She started at The Washington Post as an intern in June 2019.

Emily Davies

Marquette University, BA in journalism, communications

Peter Hermann covers crime for The Washington Post. He previously worked for the Baltimore Sun for 22 years, covering a Baltimore suburb and then the Baltimore Police Department.

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D.C. Council prepares to take first vote on sweeping anti-crime legislation

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