As D.C. struggles with a spike in carjackings nowadays, such was also the case in the early 1990s.
Councilmember Harold Brazil got the council to pass unanimously a bill in the 90s establishing a 15-year minimum prison sentence if a gun were involved in a carjacking, a seven-year minimum if no gun was involved and no bail if arrested.
7News caught up with Brazil to talk about the current situation and the motivation behind the bill he got approved 30 years ago.
“If they feel that they can do it, and just slap on the back of my hand and let me go,” said Brazil, “They’ll keep on doing it at least there’s plenty of them that will keep on doing it.”
A number of observers today point back to the law as something that worked, though the minimum is seven years, not 15 years.
Here are some of the carjacking statistics from the Metropolitan Police Department as of Aug. 10, 2022:
- A 36% increase in carjackings on Aug. 10, 2022, compared to 2021. Now, 304 carjackings, then 224.
- Gun involved 73% of cases
- Juvenile carjacker 70% of cases
- Total arrests 2022, 83 arrests
“You can’t maybe, put a juvenile away forever, for maybe a longer period of time as you would an adult, but something needs to happen to them,” said Brazil.
MPD’s website does a breakdown of where the 304 carjackings have occurred.
- Sixth District (far Northeast) 64 carjackings
- First District (Capitol Hill area) 59 carjackings
- Fifth District(near Northeast) 55 carjackings
- Third District (Central D.C.) 52 carjackings- Third District saw a nearly 200% increase in carjackings since 2021.
And for Brazil, the carjacking problems are not just hypothetical.
“It was the early part of this summer,” he said, “Folks carjacked my wife in front of the house. Of course, I’m in the house, but I don’t know anything about it. She was just coming back home. Carjacked her.”