Karen Bass claims fighting crime in DC is racist

LA Mayor Karen Bass has a problem with how the Trump administration is handling crime in Washington, DC. According to Bass, imposing curfews that protect youth and taking a hardline approach to dealing with violence is racist.

"I'm concerned about the way he is rolling that out in Washington, DC," Bass said, "which is essentially calling, essentially going after young black and brown youth in Washington, DC, imposing a curfew, saying that if they violate the curfew the parents could be charged $500. Saying that the kids could be detained and arrested.

"We've tried those policies before," she said, "they do not work. And it's my understanding that crime was going down in Washington, DC, so what is the purpose of this?" Bass has a network in LA to disrupt federal law enforcement.

The DC Police Union said that since the federal takeover, robbery is down 46 percent versus the previous week. Assault with a dangerous weapon is down 6 percent. Carjacking, 83 percent, car theft, 21 percent, violent crime 22 percent, property crimes, 6 percent, and crime overall is down 8 percent.

A curfew was put into place for the Navy Yard neighborhood, an area that sees teen violence and shootings, after a teen boy fired a stolen gun into a crowd of other young people. That curfew is from 8 pm to 6 am and the result has been a decrease in violence in that area.

DC has seen 56 percent of all carjackings since 2023 be committed by juveniles. In 2021, two teen girls ages 13 and 15 murdered an Uber driver while trying to steal his car.

While crime is decreasing in DC, it's doing so from record highs. There were 166 homicides in our nation's capital in 2019, the highest in a decade, which ramped up to 274 in 2023 and dropped to 187 in 2024. That's the 4th highest in the country.

The Trump administration has federalized the Metro PD for a period of 30 days and in that time there have been an increase in arrests and a notable decrease in street crime. There were over 380 arrests in just 11 days and that number includes illegal immigrants, gang members, and people who have been charged with assault, kidnapping burglary, larceny, sex offenses, drug smuggling, and other crimes.

Bass would rather complain that fighting crime in a majority black city, where the largest age group is between 20-29, than allow for those who are victims of crime—who are also primarily of this demographic—to be protected by law enforcement.