Opinion | Crime doesn’t have to be violent to create a sense of lawlessness

Violent crimes and homicides dominate the news, but there are other criminal offenses that don’t draw blood yet contribute to the sense of lawlessness gripping parts of the District.

Think of the flash-mob-style robbery at a 7-Eleven store in Foggy Bottom that occurred last Sunday not long after we left our church two blocks away. I know the neighborhood like the back of my hand, having grown up in the area. And I’m no stranger to petty crimes. But those old neighborhood misdeeds are nothing like what was caught on surveillance video showing the 7-Eleven heist: Dozens of youths entering the store, taking whatever they could get their hands on, then fleeing on bikes or walking toward the nearby Foggy Bottom Metro Station. Employees reportedly said that another group, maybe twice as large, carried out the same kind of robbery at the convenience store last year.

A nonviolent episode, perhaps. But still an offense that weighs heavily on a neighborhood’s feeling of safety.

As also with the case of the CVS on Connecticut Avenue near the Nebraska Avenue NW intersection. Earlier this month, three individuals, according to WTOP News, entered the store and ran down the aisles using trash bags and shopping carts to steal items, before taking off in a stolen car. I frequently patronize that CVS and other businesses on the block. The same group struck 20 minutes later at a CVS on Massachusetts Avenue in the Spring Valley NW neighborhood, WTOP reported.

On two occasions, I witnessed customers amble out of the Giant at Van Ness Street and Connecticut Avenue NW carrying bags of merchandise not paid for.

At the Safeway store on Piney Branch Road near the Georgia Avenue NW intersection, I walked in on the store’s security guard moving to and fro, trying to block a young shoplifter, who adroitly darted past with his goods.

Brazen disregard of the law, true. But those thefts don’t really stand out. They aren’t extraordinary. They have become commonplace events, if I believe what is also reported in the news and on social media.

Lives and bloodshed lost? No. Toll on a community’s sense of safety? Yes.

To her credit, Bowser does recognize what is obvious to all who live here, namely that the District is, as she stated in congressional testimony, “experiencing a dangerous trend in some crimes in the city.” Not unlike other cities across the country.

This week, Bowser unveiled her new “Safer, Stronger DC” legislative proposal aimed toward closing what her she views as “gaps that exist in our public safety ecosystem.” Her major proposals would make it easier for judges to detain defendants awaiting trial, increase sentences for gun crimes and other offenses, and raise barriers for inmates convicted of serious crimes to get early release from prison. Bowser’s proposals are landing in the laps of progressive members of the D.C. Council who often part company with her on criminal justice issues.

It is unclear whether most council members share her concern to the point of wanting to act, notwithstanding rising homicides, car jackings, shootings of juveniles and a 24-percent increase in theft. And some criminal reform advocates question whether her suggested changes will improve public safety.

The mayor is pressing for speedy consideration before the council goes on summer vacation. Under the current schedule, that would entail conducting a legislative debate and two votes by mid-July. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D) told DCist/WAMU, “that would be difficult. These are complicated issues.”

Only if the council makes it so.

Bowser, of course, bears the burden of producing substantive evidence that her proposals are needed; that without her changes, crime in the District, especially juvenile crime, will only worsen. Her case must be based on solid data, not armchair speculation. And the council must make time to listen, examine, weigh the claims and act, as required by their oaths and conscience, before taking time off. Summer break can wait.

District residents under duress deserve no less from their elected public servants.