Back in November, Ayominde Miller-Agabyemi and six teammates traveled to Union Station from a football practice to buy meals at Chipotle.
“We [were] told that we couldn’t be in [a] group because it was larger than four people,” Miller-Agabyemi said. “We had to all go home right there and that was a problem because we were all hungry and it [wasn’t] very safe.”
It was after 6 p.m. and the group remained together under the instructions of their coach, who felt that would be much safer. The young athlete’s decision to adhere to the coach’s counsel made the difference between Miller-Agabyemi getting home that night or being transported to a youth detention center.
“[The] National Guard starts harassing people,” the recent high school graduate said. “[The] youth goes other places and then the cycle just repeats.”
Teens like Miller-Agabyemi are navigating a new look of policing they have never seen before, and the presence is growing well into their summer break.
As the summer sun heats up and the city celebrates America’s 250th anniversary, D.C. leaders continue to expand temporary youth curfews given the growing presence of the National Guard. It brings advocates and residents to drive concerns about the youth’s interaction with the juvenile justice system.
“The teen takeovers and youth curfews are connected to youth well-being because youth don’t have any place to go once the summer starts.” Miller-Agabyemi said. “When MPD started to enforce these designated juvenile curfew zones, all of these problems and the influx of MPD have built resentment and distrust between youth and police.”
Pirro Threats to Parents Ring Hollow
On May 18, U.S. Marshals Service Director Gadyaces Serralta announced his request for 1,500 National Guardsmen to be brought into the city, with a targeted goal of 5,000 troops joining the D.C. Safe and Beautiful Task Force.
Within the same announcement, U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro claimed that her office will begin to prosecute parents whose children violate the curfew under D.C. Code 22-811.
“This statute makes it unlawful for an adult to enable, facilitate or permit a minor to engage in delinquent acts,” Pirro said. “The penalty is up to six months of imprisonment.”
In addition, parents can be fined up to $500 and take court-ordered classes, with penalties applied regardless of whether the youth is prosecuted. These plans also prosecute parents in Maryland or Virginia whose children are found to be involved in takeovers within the District.
However, Code 22-811 does not list curfew violation as an offense contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
According to Adaku Onyeka-Crawford, senior attorney and director of the Opportunity to Learn Program at Advancement Project, D.C. Code 2-1543 does impose civil penalties on a parent, but they can be avoided.
“There are eight defenses that a parent can assert to avoid these penalties,” Onyeka-Crawford told The Informer, “including that their child was working, participating in a supervised recreational activity, or exercising their First Amendment rights.”
Even these defenses don’t hold up under curfew law; none of the penalties equate to a criminal nature or include jail time.
Attorney General Pirro’s pursuit to imprison parents will likely not be upheld in court, Onyeka-Crawford concluded, later emphasizing the growing record of failed indictments that involve the department grand jury and those who oppose the Trump administration’s policies.
“Attempting to jail parents for curfew violations would likely add to that failing record,” she continued, “and be yet another spectacular waste of resources.”
Since the beginning of the occupation, Advancement Project in collaboration with Black Swan Academy has hosted ‘Know Your Rights’ sessions that teach youth how to navigate interactions with law enforcement and federal officers.
One of the students who participated in these sessions was Ward 8 resident Atrayu Lee.
“You want a long-term solution, something that works, something that listens to the data, that shows that curfews don’t work nowhere across the world, and you want something bigger and better,” said Lee, a recent graduate of Thurgood Marshall Academy. “There’s no negotiating, I feel and I think I stand alongside some members of the council and community leaders when I say there’s no negotiation, there’s no curfew, there are no amendments to the curfew, none of that.”
In late April, Lee gave a testimony before the D.C. Council offering alternative solutions to the youth curfew. Since then, he feels as if nothing much has changed.
“The curfew puts us in bad spaces with the police and the other National Guard, DHS (the Department of Homeland Security), for no reason without committing a crime first,” Lee said. “Being outside by itself should not be a crime.”
Under Mayor Muriel Bowser’s emergency orders, MPD can either transport the curfew violators to a precinct or youth detention centers run by the Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services until a guardian or Child and Family Services Agency can pick them up.
Lee went on to further explain that Pirro’s plans to persecute parents have only struck fear and uncertainty in his mother, Charlene Golphin.
“When Jeanine Pirro came out and said to think about arresting parents because kids were out, that’s the only time I [saw] fear in her eyes,” Lee said.
Golphin takes care of seven younger children besides Lee. One of the children receives additional care due to a disability. She says that, in the midst of summer curfew, it is not accessible for her to pick up Lee from work or extracurricular activities.
“But everybody’s circumstances [are] not the same,” Golphin told The Informer. “It’s not like you can just stop everything you’re doing to go pick your kids up and then to be held accountable for your children when honestly, at a certain age, you can have rules laid out for your children, but they get their own conscience.”
Parents, Teens Question Whether D.C. Is Still Their Home
As of June 5, 3,450 National Guardsmen have been deployed from 19 states across the country, including the territory of Puerto Rico, to be a part of the DC Safe and Beautiful Task Force for America’s 250th celebration.
Agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration, FBI, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and Homeland Security have all increased their presence in the District.
Although there is no oversight that Congress has provided in the case of federal agents violating the constitutional rights of citizens, the D.C. Council passed two emergency bills in March.
Bill 26-354 would require MPD to publicly release body camera footage when officers, including from federal agencies, are involved in serious or deadly force against a civilian. Meanwhile, the FAAR Act requires MPD officers to record the names, badge numbers, employing agency, and other identifying information regarding each present or participating federal officer at the scene of excessive force being used against a civilian.
“The bottom line is simple: D.C. residents deserve to know what happens when force is used in our city. Federal officers cannot come into D.C. and operate without accountability.” D.C. Council member Robert White (D-At-large) wrote on March 4 in an Instagram post.
In the early evening of June 15, the Free DC Project planned a Youth Safety Block Party in front of the Martin Luther King Library, where a scheduled public meeting — titled “Violent Crime in D.C.: What’s Worked and What’s Next” — was meant to take place. The meeting included Pirro, interim MPD Chief Jeffery Carroll and D.C. Deputy Mayor Lindsay Appiah.
Youth leaders and community organizers held a press conference before the party could formally begin. Speakers included Free DC Executive Director Keya Chatterjee, Harriet’s Wildest Dreams Program Manager Frankie Seaborn, Amiyrah and Aaliyah Payne with DC Girls Coalition Advisory, and Miller-Agabyemi.
“There’s been no level of transparency since we’ve been occupied 10 months ago. We made a concerted effort to push the council,” Seaborn said, offering kudos toWhite, who introduced the FAAR Act. “The FAAR Act was to make sure that we knew who was on site…whether from the FBI, HSI, ERO. When [those federal agents are] on site with MPD, we should know who was on that gernstein.”
Youth leaders and twin sisters Amiyrah and Aaliyah, 16, explained how, while traveling within their school area of NOMA, they often run into National Guard before they run into police officers.
“The Metro police are a lot more friendly towards the kids because they see us every day,” Amiyrah said. “But when it’s the [MPD], they’re on the National Guard side, or they’re just not interfering at all.”
CEO of Open City Advocates and former public defender Penelope Spain continues to call on leadership to see the next generation as future leaders of the city instead of a public safety concern to be patrolled and locked up.
“If we had a city with leadership that valued the voice of young people and saw that teenagers are our next — our upcoming generation of employees, residents and voters. They are an important aspect of our city,” Spain said. “When you don’t offer those opportunities and you offer nothing — which sadly, our city has really often [had] very little over these last five years — then what else is there other than to just band together.”
With little to no engagement for the city’s youth to enjoy, it leaves teens like Miller-Agabyemi to experience an endless cycle of encountering increased law enforcement throughout the summer months.
“Because more youth are on the street, so they are going to put more National Guard,” he told The Informer. “[The] youth goes [to] other places in bigger numbers, and then the cycle just repeats.”
