DC Crime Bill Hearing… Local Coverage of Violent Crime

Mike DeBonis / Loose Lips Daily at the Washington City Paper has a wrap up of the D.C. Council hearing yesterday (Monday) on the Omnibus Crime Bill as well as links to video of local TV coverage of recent violent crime in the District.

Earlier Borderstan postings on the crime bill:

• Jack Evans: Pass Mayor’s Omnibus Crime Bill
• April 13: Mendelson Holding Town Hall Crime Mtg in Shaw
• Gang Stats from Crime Bill Hearing
• March 18: Public Hearing on DC Omnibus Crime Bill
• Omnibus Crime Bill Roundtable Recap
• Friday, Dec. 5: D.C. Council Hearing on Mayor’s Crime Bill

From Loose Lips Daily:

There was no shortage of drama at yesterday’s crime-bill hearing. Early in the day, public safety committee chair Phil Mendelson recessed the hearing after a top OAG official didn’t show for his issue-by-issue panel format, as both LL and WaPo‘s Theola Labbé-DeBose noted. Peter Nickles, who apparently considers council hearing procedure to be under his purview, said his people would appear once or not at all.

At the end of the day, Nickles was given 10 minutes to speak, and he went off on Mendelson’s supposed obstructionist ways, as Michael Neibauer recounts in Examiner: “I don’t want the record to have a lot of namby-pamby about this issue….I’m not a politician. I don’t expect to mince words…of what needs to be done by this council in order to have more process. We are processed to death.” Mendo had the last word, though: He gave it right back to Nickles, and as the AG demanded to respond, he gaveled the hearing to a close.

GOTTA NOTE–After Jack Evans‘ podium-pounding performance at last week’s press conference, he couldn’t make the hearing. He was in Vegas. Jim Graham was left to do the law-and-order thing.

NC8, WRC-TV, WUSA-TV, WTTG-TV follow up on weekend violence and the hearing.