Council Approves Public Safety and Residential Tranquility Measures

With the Council’s annual all-consuming consideration of the mayor’s budget proposal as submitted coming to a close, and our efforts to put our own stamp on what will ultimately be the budget we approve ready to kick off, our budget efforts are at a key inflection point. Yet, even in this intense budgetary moment, the process of considering and passing new legislation must also proceed unabated.

At our most recent Legislative Meeting, the Council took the first of two necessary votes on a number of measures involving community safety and tranquility. At the core of each bill is an attempt to legislate just enough to achieve the desired goal, without unnecessary overreach that impinges on individuals’ civil liberties.

One measure attempting to maintain this delicate balance was the Peace DC Omnibus Amendment Act, another in a series of collective, omnibus public safety measures the Council has undertaken in recent months. One such prior measure, the Secure DC Omnibus Amendment Act, included provisions related to a presumption that those accused of certain crimes may pose an inherent flight risk and/or a danger to the public, and as a result should be detained even prior to trial. In such cases, a person being detained under these terms can be released if and only if the court finds that the presumption of detention is not merited and therefore can be rebutted.

In the Secure DC law, the detention presumption was extended to cover crimes such as rape, child sexual abuse, child cruelty, aggravated assault, kidnapping, manslaughter, and carjacking, as well as certain narrowly-defined additional offenses by juveniles. However, this broadening of the detention presumption was scheduled to sunset on July 15 if no further action was taken by the Council. While the Secure DC law included a provision requiring an expedited study of the effectiveness of the measure, in an attempt to inform the decision about a potential extension, the results of the effort were largely inconclusive. The Peace DC measure as approved at the first of two necessary votes, if approved again on a second vote, would extend the temporary expanded detention presumption permanently.

An additional element of the Peace DC measure sought to balance the District’s past success with mandating higher education requirements for police trainees with a current need to facilitate recruitment. The measure as passed at first reading allows for the current training academy curriculum to partially count towards the currently required training hours, if an accredited university agrees to provide twenty hours of credit for the academy offerings (towards the sixty total required hours).

Other provisions of the Peace DC bill would extend the automatic sealing of criminal records in cases of non-conviction to less serious crimes in addition to the more serious crimes already covered under current law. This corrects an inadvertent gap in past legislation. The measure also clarifies an aspect of Fire and Emergency Services survivor benefit law to ensure coverage of both those who die in the line of duty, and those who die from performance-of-duty illnesses within two years of retirement, should be treated equally and receive coverage.

An effort to allow special police officers who already hold law enforcement authority within the Metro system to issue notices of civil infraction for fare evasion was removed from the bill as passed at first reading.

Another measure receiving the first of two necessary votes at the most recent Legislative Meeting was a permanent version of a residential tranquility measure passed by the Council on an emergency and a temporary basis back in October of 2024. That effort was meant to achieve a balance between Constitutionally protected freedom of assembly rights with the expectation of tranquility (including auditory tranquility) in one’s home.

The prior versions of the bill struck that balance by maintaining the preexisting residential protest hour limitation between 10PM and 7AM, but layered onto this a ban on the use of amplification devices at such protests between 7PM and 9AM. The temporary measures also banned throwing projectiles at homes during protests, and disallowed protesters who had been ordered to disperse from immediately returning and re-initiating their protests. A ban on the wearing of masks at residential protests was removed from the emergency and temporary versions of the legislation prior to passage. The permanent version of the residential tranquility measure largely continues the terms of the emergency and temporary bills, but also provides for the seizure of unattended amplification devices at residential protests.

One further public safety measure passed at the most recent Legislative Meeting related to the Safe Passage ambassadors who assist students with safe travel to their schools. The goal of the measure is to improve communication and coordination between schools and Safe Passage ambassadors, as well as to expand and standardize training for those providing this critical public service.

An emergency measure passed at the most recent Legislative Meeting allows the District government to proceed with the purchase of a number of row homes on Georgia Avenue, NW. By consolidating these properties with a surplus District-owned firehouse that is just adjacent, the intent is to provide for a more consistent, comprehensive, and goal-focused redevelopment of the larger parcel. By allowing the District purchase of the properties to proceed, a previously scheduled auction of the properties will be avoided.

The Council’s next Legislative Meeting is scheduled for July 1. Unusually, the Council’s two Legislative Meetings subsequent to that one will be held on Monday, July 14 and Monday, July 28 (instead of the usual Tuesday). This was done in order to accommodate the Home Rule Charter-mandated deadline for Council approval of the District budget.