Mother of DC murder victim praises Trump for cracking down on crime

The mother of a DC murder victim is praising President Donald Trump for his recent actions to crack down on crime in the nation’s capital, saying her son "didn’t die in vain."

Tamara Tarpinian-Jachym watched Trump’s Monday announcement and cried, the Washington Post reported. "Eric, you didn’t die in vain," the mother recalled saying. Her 21-year-old son, who was working as an intern for Rep. Ron Estes, was struck and killed by a stray bullet over the summer in downtown DC. 

"If we would’ve known the city was so dangerous we wouldn’t have let him go," she told the outlet over the phone from Massachusetts. "He paid with his life." 

She added that the Monday announcement that the DC police department was being placed under federal control and the National Guard was being deployed to assist in cracking down on crime gave her hope. "Hope that my son won’t just be a statistic. And hope that these changes will mean no other innocent people will get shot."

Eric Tarpinian-Jachym was described in his obituary as a "beloved son, brother, nephew, grandson, student, and friend" whose "heartbreakingly short" life was filled with "passion, curiosity, and achievement."

Police say that Tarpinian-Jachym got caught in the middle of a drive-by shooting in northwest Washington, DC on June 30 when he was struck by a bullet and killed. No arrests have been made. 

Ahead of Trump’s Monday announcement, after Trump threatened earlier in August to take federal control of DC, Tamara Tarpinian-Jachym told ABC News, "As far as I'm concerned, if Trump feels that he needs to take it over until they [city leadership] can get their act together and start prosecuting these juveniles and these people to the fullest extent of the law and not slap their hands so they can go out and do it again and get into more violent crime as they age, I feel it's a good idea."

"My son didn't deserve what happened to him. Nobody deserves that. He was shot. He wasn't the intended target."