Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares blasts DC elected officials for 'crime explosion'
WASHINGTON (7News) — Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares is blasting Washington, D.C. elected officials for what Miyares calls a “crime explosion” in the district.
Miyares says DC’s crime problem has become Virginia’s crime problem.
The Virginia Attorney General sent a letter to Mayor Muriel Bower and DC Council Chair Phil Mendelson ---- the letter says it has become “painfully apparent that Washington, D.C. can protect neither its residents nor the thousands of Virginians who commute daily to the city.”
Miyares is pointing to the Capitol Hill staffer who was brutally attacked and the murder of Christy Bautista who was killed in her hotel room.
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“She did what a lot of Virginians do,” Miyares said on WJLA-TV on Friday. “They go into the District to enjoy the best of the arts and the theater. She was there to just see a concert. She was there not even an hour and she was murdered by a total stranger. And to find out that this individual had already been arrested for armed robbery and he got out on bond in which another murder took place. It was just heartbreaking to see what had happened There’s been a crime surge in Washington, D.C. It's frustrating for me to see elected leaders in Washington, D.C. testify in Congress just recently as this past month, in which they said there's no crime problem and by every objective measure, crime has gone up.”
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DC City Council Chairman Phil Mendelson pushed back on Miyares criticisms on Friday during a WJLA interview.
“It is false to suggest that we are unwilling to address crime,” Mendelson said. “In fact, we have a budget before us right now that we're considering where we're looking at whether others more resources we can put into MPD to fight crime.”
“When folks say, and in fact, I think the Attorney General put this in his letter, we have a crime crisis, yes, crime is a concern, but crime is actually when you look at the statistics down,” Mendelson said. “I wouldn't call it a crisis. It's a concern. What can we do to reduce the incidence of violent crime.”
Mendelson said he would like to join forces with Miyares in pressing the U.S. Attorney to prosecute more aggressively. Miyares agreed during a live interview with WJLA on Friday.
