Minors account for half of DC's carjacking arrests since 2023 — including pint-sized perps as young as 12: police data
Since August 2023, DC police have collared 333 carjacking suspects and 56% of those busts were of kids under 18, figures from Metropolitan Police Department show.
And 60% of the juveniles arrested for stealing cars were 15 or 16 — but ages ranged from 17 to as young as 12, according to police records.
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6 Former Department of Government Efficiency staffer Edward Coristine was beaten by a gang of 10 youths during an attempted carjacking in Washington, DC.
Truth Social/@realDonaldTrump
The disturbing statistics emerged as Trump has called on DC to start charging 14 year old's as adults to wrangle what he described as the 'totally out of control' crime in the city.
Over the past two years, DC saw a total of 1,046 carjackings — vehicle thefts where the owner was present. And 72% of those crimes involved a gun.
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Meanwhile, motor vehicle thefts — where the owner is not necessarily present — remained constant over the last two years — with 2,847 reported since Aug. 6 2024 and 2,844 during the same period the year before.
In the latest would-be carjacking to rock DC, former Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) staffer Edward Coristine, 19, was badly beaten by a gang of 10 youths on Sunday morning.
Two 15-year-olds — a male and a female — have since been arrested in the attack on Coristine, which occurred as he thwarted a carjacking attempt.
6 President Trump has threatened a federal takeover of DC over crime.
Trump Truth Social
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Trump cited the assault on Crostine in his Tuesday threat to bring the District of Columbia under federal control.
'Crime in Washington, D.C., is totally out of control. Local 'youths' and gang members, some only 14, 15, and 16-year-olds, are randomly attacking, mugging, maiming, and shooting innocent Citizens, at the same time knowing that they will be almost immediately released,' the president fumed on Truth Social.
'They are not afraid of Law Enforcement because they know nothing ever happens to them, but it's going to happen now!' he wrote. 'The law in D.C. must be changed to prosecute these 'minors' as adults, and lock them up for a long time, starting at age 14.'
Trump added that if DC leaders didn't clean up the streets, he would have no choice but to 'take federal control of the City.'
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6 An Uber eats driver was killed in a carjacking from two tween girls in 2021.
DC's left-leaning Attorney General Brian Schwalb has been famously relaxed about pursuing punishments for juvenile offenders — notably telling Fox 5 'kids are kids' in 2023 while explaining why he didn't believe in charging youths as adults.
'When you're talking about teenagers particular — their brains are developing, their minds are developing, and they're biologically prone to make mistakes,' Schwalb said at the time, explaining he believed in providing 'a chance of rehabilitation and going on to live lives of success and independence.'
But some legal experts — echoing Trump's assessment of the situation — think Schwalb's stance might be exactly what is fueling DC's pint-sized perps.
'It's led to perverse incentives,' Heritage Foundation senior legal fellow and former Florida Assistant US Attorney Zack Smith told The Post.
6 Surveillance footage of the suspects who carjacked an FBI agent in 2023 in DC.
Metropolitan Police Department
'Gangs are going out and recruiting very young juveniles to commit very violent crimes — things like shootings, carjackings, drug dealing, you name it — because they know under the D.C. attorney general's policy that even if these juveniles are caught for committing these crimes, they're likely only to receive a slap on the wrist,' he said.
'They may serve some period of time in a juvenile detention facility,' Smith added. 'The DC attorney general has essentially said that he is never, never going to prosecute a juvenile as an adult. No matter how old the juvenile is, no matter severe the crime that the juvenile offender may have committed.'
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DC's youth crime has forced crackdowns from city leaders, with Mayor Muriel Bowser imposing a district-wide 11 p.m. curfew for everyone younger than 18 through the end of August.
6 Police responding to Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar getting carjacked in 2023.
Fox News
6 A man pointing a gun out of a car window during an attempted carjacking that spanned from DC to Maryland in 2023.
FOX 5 Washington DC
Some neighborhoods even have 7 p.m. curfews for minors.
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And in 2021, a special task force was assigned to address carjackings.
The district has been wrestling with its crime in recent months and years.
A 21-year-old congressional intern was killed by a stray bullet in July, and last year former Trump administration official Mike Gill was killed in a carjacking.
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Then in 2023, Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar was carjacked at gunpoint outside his apartment while a month later an FBI agent was also carjacked.
And the year before Schwalb took office, a 66-year-old Uber driver was killed when two teen girls — 13 and 15 — used a stun gun to carjack him. Both girls pleaded guilty to murder, but were only sent to juvenile facilities until they turned 21.
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