The D.C. Council on Tuesday passed emergency public safety legislation as the city weathers a violent summer, establishing a new crime for firing a gun in public and making it easier for judges to detain people charged with violent offenses before trial.
by council member Brooke Pinto , passed 12-1, with opposition from council member Janeese Lewis George . It will be in effect for 90 days after the mayor signs it. Pinto’s bill is similar to that lawmakers are expected to debate in the fall, but Pinto said some provisions could not wait as the city confronts rising homicides and carjackings.
A spokeswoman for Bowser did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the criticisms leveled at the mayor. For her part, Pinto’s bill, the Prioritizing Public Safety Emergency Amendment Act, expands access to private security cameras through an incentive program and allows pretrial GPS monitoring data to be used as evidence against defendants, among several other provisions. It also creates new crimes, including endangerment with a firearm and a strangulation offense. Such charges had previously been included in the Revised Criminal Code Act that Congress blocked from going into effect.
Lewis George argued during the meeting Tuesday that expanding a presumption of pretrial detention to all violent crimes would mark a dramatic change to the District’s law, repeating mistakes of the tough-on-crime past and depriving defendants of due process. “This really is a hard one,” he said. “I have quite a lot of sympathy [for the argument] that Janeese Lewis George was making, but I also do think — I wish we were not doing this on an emergency basis, but it is an emergency.”Only one council member, Vincent C. Gray , participating virtually and without commenting on his position, supported Lewis George’s amendment.
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