Washington's 'crime has exploded' have the Democrats ruined the US capital?

Intro down the fact is is that crime here has exploded people do not feel safe I have a bullet hole through my living room Washington DC Capital to the United States the richest and most powerful Nation on Earth when you think of DC you might conjure images of grand monuments and museums yet the city has gone through a painful past few years [Music] high crime homelessness and poverty all blight America's capital and like many cities across the country people have become fed up with Democratic Leadership these Democrat policies are failing us many are now fleeing once prosperous metropolises to safer and cleaner suburbs my name is Stephen Edgington and I'm a journalist from the telegraph I traveled to Washington DC to find out what has happened to the city and why Meeting Isaac Smith I began by meeting Isaac Smith an ambulance driver and first responder who agreed to show me around the city yeah so you've lived in DC for how long a little over three years okay so have you seen a big change in homelessness in carjackings and crime and things like this our crime is up I want to say at least 30 percent from since the time I moved in just since the time I moved in the fact is is that crime here has exploded um people do not feel safe um I have a I have a bullet hole through my living room um don't worry it wasn't meant for me it was there when I moved in you know I hear gunshots frequently and I live right next to an elementary school and I'm going to take you by this elementary school I'm going to see if it's still there but there there's a bullet hole in one of the in one of the windows all right let's see if they fixed this window so you'll see that there's a sign yeah oh there it is okay there's the shot I believe that this is a city and we should take it seriously well there you go there's some stuff over there so there's some tents over here so this is is this a classic example of DC basically I mean there's a lot of that right this is the richest country in the world this is the capital of the richest country and one of the most famous monuments yeah next to it we've got a tent city full of homeless people um you know and it's you know like I said we aren't investing in the shelters we aren't um you know and we you know we aren't taking care of the you know we aren't taking care of these people is what I'd say and it's you know and look if nothing else for appearance's sake yeah somebody has driven their car straight through that so can you explain why you think Democrat policies has caused the rise in homelessness has caused the rising crime in DC well because at the end of the day they don't believe that people have agency they don't believe that people have free will so people do not act they are acted upon now I'm going to tell you drugs is a massive problem we have hundreds of people every year who die in the city of overdoses I spent a lot of time picking up people who had overdosed on drugs I had one patient I took him to the ER three times in one day yeah we you know he'd overdose be passed out do you basically think that there's sort of an equal drugs is essentially tolerated in DC absolutely um it is not treated as the life-ending life-threatening you know and here's the thing like yeah it may take decades to kill you but you know it ruins your life you have no quality of life the Democrats basically say that crime happens because of poverty and because of societal issues right and and don't get me wrong that creates an environment where it can flourish but you're not made to murder somebody you're not made to sell drugs and when they make that choice they bring that right they bring down the standard for the whole Community right they drive out the businesses so it scares off the legitimate employers it makes it hard right when you get drug dealers in your neighborhood it makes it harder for you to earn a legitimate living you know the schools break down because we have juvenile delinquency is very very high in D.C and part of it is that we don't seriously try to prosecute juvenile delinquents and this has led to a rise of gangs actively recruiting children I know many people I know at least three Congressional staffers that have been robbed or assaulted and so the crime is getting so out of control there's actually you know members of Congress and their staff no longer feel safe and they're normally the last people affected by this sort of thing so they it is actually interfering with the functioning of the legislative branch and it's very notable that the national Democrats have not come to the aid of DC's local government despite being in favor of statehood and theoretically in favor of DC having more self-government they they on the crime bill at least have said no this is getting out of control and a minority of the Democrats worked with the Republicans to overrule it foreign let's take a step back to understand Boris Rivkin what Isaac is talking about last year local DC Democrats passed major changes to the city's criminal code which reduced punishments judges could hand out to criminals to understand more about how the city's local politics works I met up with Boris rivkin a former Republican Congressional adviser who has since left D.C there is a controversy boiling about a recent bill that the D.C city council passed to end among other things maximum sentencing for carjackings and other types of property crimes and similar crimes including even some violent crimes there has been a surge of carjackings in D.C it's become almost the carjacking capital of America at this point and it's gotten so bad the DC law is so out of control even the mayor of DC the ultra liberal Uber woke mayor vetoed it and the D.C city council overrode The veto of the mayor and seeing that you know enough is enough at least you know you know Joe Biden couldn't make it out to East Palestine he can't to see the southern border properly he's you know in his basement half the time in Delaware but he even he came to the conclusion that well this this DC law is going too far I I got to do something about it so Congress the Senate just passed a bill to overturn to reassert its ultimate authority over D.C and overturn that terrible bill whilst Biden vetoed the police reforms in DC in this instance this represents an exception to the rule Michael Schelenberger cities across the country have seen similar spikes in violent crime and homelessness and many blame the election of radical Democrat politicians and prosecutors I sat down with the author and journalist Michael schellenberger who has written extensively about San Francisco's recent drug epidemic to ask what has happened to American cities in the last few years I mean what's happening in Washington DC and in other American cities in terms of homelessness is basically the same thing that's happened in Seattle San Francisco Los Angeles Portland Vancouver other Progressive West Coast cities which is that you have very Progressive members of the city councils of the governing bodies of those cities that have decided that certain laws should not be enforced against people deemed to be victims so you've seen city council members in Washington D.C have demanded that people be allowed to Camp illegally on the sidewalks not be required to come inside to shelters that's even though by the way we know that you're three times more likely to die as a homeless person if you're living outside unsheltered as we say then if you're inside and it's from drug overdoses homicides car accidents some people complain about shelters it's you know they're not the most Pleasant places but they're definitely safer than living on the streets so when you see this increase of tents around places like the train station around subway stops it's almost always because there's there's some political momentum behind not enforcing basic laws and these laws it's important to remind ourselves these laws are important to both protect Public Safety and Public Health to have these public spaces including sidewalks and Parks available to all of us but they're also there to protect the most vulnerable Among Us particularly the so-called homeless the vast majority of whom are suffering from untreated mental illness and drug addiction Washington Laurie Furstenberg DC's main Railway Hub Union Station became a symbol of the city's decline with homeless people taking over much of the beautiful building I traveled there to meet Laurie Furstenberg who unsuccessfully attempted to run as the DC Republicans mayoral candidate recently we've also seen massive tent cities pop up across America DC has also experienced this particularly here at Union Station so there was a lot of a lot of tents here right recently there were there were I had sent some pictures that I took last year and have posted and did a story about this about not only the tents that have been here but when you walk around Union Station so there were uh I mean when when Steven says tent cities that's what it was outside I mean it was appalling but inside when you get off the train and I'm not over exaggerating if you would go into the restroom you would have people cleaning themselves homeless people trying to clean themselves in there homeless people sleeping in the corridors down in the train areas you would see uh in the waiting areas and then of course as we're going to walk around later you're going to see all of the shops that have closed down so you try to run for mayor for the Republicans can you discuss why you did that yes so uh the short of that story is uh so I've been living here now almost going on four years and when I moved here I could see how irrelevant the Republican party of DC operated with everything that's going on around our nation with again our Marxist cities now we everyone in my opinion needs to take a stand somehow if you find this a problem you need to stand up somehow and I could not believe that the Republican Party had not run a mayoral candidate in 16 years here the Democrats long-standing domination of DC politics means no one else is to blame the debacle facing the city meanwhile for tourists who come here the image of America as a shining Beacon of prosperity and freedom may be shattered [Music]