A 15-year-old boy has been arrested and charged with assault with intent to kill after shooting a man on 14th Street in Northwest D.C. Sunday afternoon, and four accomplices remain at large — the latest proof that progressive governance has turned the nation's capital into a playground for violent juveniles who know the system won't hold them.
The Metropolitan Police Department arrested the teen Thursday, but the question isn't whether police can make the arrest — it's whether any prosecutor will keep him locked up, or whether he'll be back on the street before the shell casings are cold. This is what happens when a city refuses to prosecute, refuses to detain, and refuses to protect its citizens.
According to WJLA, the shooting occurred Sept. 27 around 1 p.m. in the 2700 block of 14th Street Northwest. The suspect approached the victim, pulled a gun, shot him, and fled. Four additional persons of interest were captured on surveillance footage. Police are asking the public for help identifying them. The victim was taken to a local hospital for treatment.
The 15-year-old, from Northeast D.C., was charged with assault with intent to kill while armed with a gun. That charge — assault with intent to kill — is not a juvenile mischief case. It is a calculated act of violence by someone who had no legal right to possess a firearm and every reason to believe the consequences would be light.
This isn't isolated. In DeKalb, Illinois, Police Chief David Byrd confirmed this week that a minor who illegally obtained a firearm shot and killed 18-year-old King Howell Jr. outside a Husky Ridge apartment building on Sept. 11, according to Shaw Local. "And that's why we had the death of a young man, and that is sad in of itself," Byrd said. Arrests are said to be "imminent." A separate suspect is being sought in a Sept. 25 stabbing on Ridge Drive that injured one man.
Byrd blamed "conflict resolution" — as if the problem is that young criminals simply haven't been taught to talk it out. "Adults don't know how to resolve conflict. And that is the crux of the matter in both these incidents," he said. That framing buries the real issue: minors with illegal guns who face no meaningful consequences. 7th Ward Alderman John Walker was blunter, asking at a City Council meeting what could be done to "get these bad violent offenders to understand that we're done playing around."
Meanwhile, in Reading, Pennsylvania, 38-year-old Luis Rivera-Encarnacion drove from Ohio to meet what he believed was a 15-year-old girl for sex, according to the Reading Eagle. He was caught in an undercover sting after four weeks of communication with Criminal Investigator Joseph Snell, who had been posing as the teen. Rivera-Encarnacion admitted he "screwed up" and had booked a motel room. He's being held on $200,000 bail.
One predator crosses state lines for a child, and at least he's being held on bail. A 15-year-old shoots a man in broad daylight in the nation's capital, and the system that produced him offers no answers — only the quiet assurance that he'll likely walk before long.
Four suspects remain unidentified in the D.C. shooting. How many more armed teenagers does it take before the city admits its policies are the problem?
