Posted by Ilya Somin:
Great Moments in Washington, DC Police Work:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2007_07_08-2007_07_14.shtml#1184215880
Amber Taylor [1]posts on an egregious example of incompetence by the
Washington, DC police:
Yesterday, two men tried to break into my friend's home while she
was inside. One man attempted to pry the door open and the other
tried to get in the window. She called the police and, because the
men were still milling around in a nearby alley, she was able to
identify the perpetrators. One of them had just been released that
morning; he had been either charged or convicted (not sure on
details) for robbery.
The police told her that "D.C. doesn't have an attempted burglary
statute" and so they could not arrest the men. They let them go,
although now they know who my friend is, where she lives, and that
she fingered them to the cops.
As Amber notes in her post, DC does in fact have an attempted burglary
statute, and the police could have arrested the suspects on other
charges as well.
Sadly, this is not an isolated incident. Despite its many virtues,
Washington, DC has a [2]longstanding reputation for having [3]perhaps
the worst city government in the country (see also [4]here). That's
one of the reasons why, when I moved to this area back in 2003, I
chose to live in northern Virginia rather than in the District.
Fortunately, I have had little occasion to use the services of the
Fairfax County Police. But the one time I did need their help (a noise
complaint that was a far less serious and urgent problem than that
experienced by Amber's friend), they dealt with the issue swiftly and
effectively. Perhaps if more people[5] vote with their feet against
DC, the District's political leaders will have some incentive to clean
up their act.
References
1. http://haloscan.com/tb/bamber/6863332088787108556
2. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1316/is_n12_v20/ai_6977500
3. http://americandreamcoalition.org/adcblog2/?p=125
4. http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=1025
5. http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2006_04_02-2006_04_08.shtml#1144029647
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