Democrat-Run Washington, DC, Sees 27% Surge in Homicides Year-to-Date

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SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images

AWR HAWKINS

17 Aug 20230

2:40

Democrat-run Washington, DC, has witnessed 166 homicides year-to-date in 2023, a 27 percent increase over the number that had occurred by this time last year.

According to Washington, DC’s, Metropolitan Police Department (MPD), there were 166 homicides in the city from January 1, 2023, through August 16, 2023.

There were 131 homicides during the same time frame in 2022.

Sexual abuse cases are up too, with 99 instances January 1, 2023, through August 16, 2023. There were 85 sexual abuse instances during the same time frame in 2022.

Robbery is up 63 percent from where it was at this point last year and auto theft is up a whopping 114 percent.

Arson is 167 percent higher at this point in 2023 than it was at this point in 2022.

On August 8 Breitbart News noted that heavily gun-controlled Washington, DC, is on pace for the city’s deadliest year in two decades.

The city has all the gun controls Democrats push on a national level with promises that the measures will increase safety.

Gabby Giffords’ gun control group, Giffords, points out that D.C.’s gun controls include universal background checks, gun owner licensing, a red flag law, an “assault weapons” ban, a “high capacity” magazine ban, firearm registration, waiting periods for gun purchases, and gun storage laws, among other controls.

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in 2010, a speaker at the 2023 Western Conservative Summit, and he holds a Ph.D. in Military History, with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.

Shops Create ‘Booby Traps’ to Ward off Drug Addicts in Democrat-Run Philadelphia

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AMY FURR

17 Aug 20230

2:31

Businesses in Democrat-run Philadelphia are using unusual methods to protect their stores from drug addicts, a recovered addict told Fox News.

“The businesses don’t last long. When they are put in the community, the community tends to tear them down. It’s not a place for anything to thrive,” Frank Rodriguez said, according to the article published Wednesday.

The city’s Kensington area is full of drug users, which is deeply unsettling for the families living there.

In May, Breitbart News reported the “tranq” drug was taking a heavy toll on Philadelphians who have been spotted slumped over and passed out on the sidewalks.

“The city has been grappling with a rise in addicts using the drug called Xylazine, which is also referred to as ‘tranq,'” the outlet said, noting it has been linked to overdose deaths.

Some officials call it the “zombie drug” because it can eat a person’s flesh. Pix 11 News reported in May that Xylazine is an animal tranquilizer that “knocks out horses,” but it is now “knocking out humans and sometimes killing them.”

Suppliers have reportedly laced the fentanyl and heroin supply with it due to its low price and availability.

Rodriguez used to deal and use drugs in the area but got sober and left that life behind him. Now he says the increase in drug use and criminal activity has some businesses trying hard to stay open.

“They have to set up these crazy little hacks and booby traps just to keep people off of their stoops. There are businesses that set up sprinkler systems, so they can just be inside and hit a button, and the sprinkler system goes off,” he told Fox.

The outlet’s Jesse Watters recently blamed Beijing and Mexico for the fentanyl and tranq crisis in Philadelphia as video footage shows Rodriguez walking among the drug addicts.

He said law enforcement and city officials do not uphold any rules regarding the crisis in the area.

“You see the chaos that’s going around. You’re gonna see people, blood running down their arm, needles in their neck, needle in their arm, pipe in their mouth. Everything goes out here,” he said:

“You’re literally dealing with chemical warfare; that’s what’s happening,” he explained, adding it was only getting worse.

Watters said, “China is sending us the fentanyl; the Mexicans are trafficking it here,” then said President Joe Biden (D) is doing “absolutely nothing about it.”