Photo by Jim Havard on Flickr
On October 1, 2015, The Hill published an op-ed by ANC 6B10 commissionerDenise Krepp titled, “Summer of Simple Assault.” In this piece, she exposed the shockingly low number of prosecutions for misdemeanors in the District, where just about one in three misdemeanors ever makes it to the United States Attorney’s Office. Simply put, if you get mugged or – as in the case of one of Krepp’s constituents– brutalized and raped in your home, you can expect that the perpetrator may most likely slip through the cracks of a flawed judicial system. That the Department of Justice will place hurdles on your attempts to obtain incomplete data. That you will have to organize the community –in Krepp’s case, through a bake sale– in order to try to get enough funds to cover the $40/hour to obtain said data.
This Sunday’s Washington Post published the first in a series of investigative reports with repeat offenders as its focus. In this first article, Amy Brittain reports with precision the patchwork of neglect and failure that has led to stories like the one of Antwon Pitt, the 21-year old who allegedly raped and beat a Hill East neighbor 12 days after Denise Krepp had her op-ed published on The Hill.
This is an excerpt from the article, which you can read in its entirety on the Post’s website:
A parole commissioner signed off on the warrant on Oct. 13. The signed warrant had to be mailed to the U.S. Marshals, who would then enter it into the National Crime Information Center database, allowing law enforcement officers to arrest Pitt. The signed warrant did not arrive at the U.S. Marshals until Oct. 23 and was entered into the database that day, according to a Marshals spokesman.
“We don’t sit on requests for warrants,” said Supervisory Deputy Linwood Battle.
On Oct. 13, Pitt allegedly entered the 40-year-old woman’s home in Hill East, through an unlocked door, and raped her. He allegedly stole her cellphone, her husband’s checks and cash and fled to the Stadium-Armory Metro station, where he was recorded on surveillance video.
A task force composed of D.C. police, Secret Service and U.S. Capitol Police officers began to track the cellphone belonging to the victim.