Naomi Biden was not the target of attempted automobile theft but her Secret Service detail fired at least one shot at three people who had broken a window of an unmarked Secret Service car parked outside her home.
In a statement provided to The New York Times, the Secret Service said its “protectees” – no names provided – faced no threat.
If so, that apparently puts the protectees with a small number of Washington residents.
“Outside the capital complex itself, I think Washington D. C. is the wild, wild west," Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Georgia) said on Washington Watch Monday. "It’s been almost impossible for the mayor to maintain any sort of law enforcement because you are seeing the consequences of their policies."
The Comprehensive Policing and Justice Amendment Act, enacted by the D.C. Council in 2022, introduced a number of measures that were not officer-friendly. It increased civilian oversight of police, allowed for the establishing of a public database of allegations of officer misconduct, made disciplinary records subject to release, and made it easier to fire officers for misconduct.
According to a press release from D.C. Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, its provisions are consistent with a number of progressive anti-police policies enacted by Democrats after George Floyd, a Minnesota man, died while in police custody in 2020.
The District of Columbia is afforded a limited amount of self-governance through the Home Rule Act of 1973 but it ultimately answers to Congress.
Questioned about the Naomi Biden incident, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said, “We’ve been very serious on dealing with the crime that we have seen across the country, and we’d love to work with Republicans on this. They have not been serious on this.”
In other words, the White House press secretary spun the incident to blame the Republican Party.
“Republicans are the only ones who have been serious on this,” Clyde countered on the "Washington Watch" program.
The reason the Republican Party is known for praising police officers is because it is the party of law and order, the Congressman said, but the public has witnessed Democrat-led cities slash funding for their police departments and run off their own officers.
Naomi’s grandfather, Joe Biden, vetoed H.J. Res. 42, a Republican-led effort that would have overturned D.C.’s Comprehensive Policing and Justice Reform Amendment Act.
“While I do not support every provision of the Comprehensive Policing and Justice Reform Amendment Act of 2022, this resolution from congressional Republicans would overturn commonsense police reforms such as: banning chokeholds; setting important restrictions on use of force and deadly force; improving access to body-worn camera recordings; and requiring officer training on de-escalation and use of force,” the elder Biden wrote.
Polices like the CPJRA Act have led to a massive shortage of officers and employees for The Metropolitan Police Department, Clyde said.
Washington, D.C. is experiencing a surge of violent crime, according to MPD statistics. In the first six months of 2023, homicides had reached their highest rate in more than 20 years, Bloomberg reported.
Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat who has been in office since 2015, says she wants to get tougher on crime.
“We have to reverse the policy environment in the city that, quite frankly, went haywire in the last three years,” she told reporters in October.
The Washington Post reported that the District’s police force has shrunk to its lowest level in 50 years.
“When you don't have law enforcement officers, you're not going to have law enforcement," Rep. Clyde summarized. "That means crime is going to be on the rise."
