My sister is having a bad summer. My sister Peggy and I had dinner in Georgetown recently and when we came back to my house, where her car was parked, she was short a Buick.

Two polite officers who responded to our call said they could do little, amid a rash of brazen car thefts by teenagers. One officer said that even if they saw the perp driving her car, they could not chase them because of laws passed by the D.C. Council.

Donald Trump announced plans to deploy the National Guard to Washington and place the DC Metropolitan Police Department under direct federal control in a push to reduce crime in the nation’s capital.Credit: Bloomberg

Kids – some too young to drive legally – can just hot-wire cars to get home. It was two 15-year-olds charged in a carjacking attack on a former DOGE employee that helped set off President Donald Trump’s crusade on crime in the district. The council has been notoriously lax toward juvenile offenders.

Peggy had always loved that Buick. We figured we’d never see it again.

The next morning, though, an officer from a working-class Maryland suburb, banged on her door. Her car was found in a park, running and nearly out of gas. When she collected it, after paying a $US215 ($330) towing charge, she found an odoriferous collection: half-eaten pizza, soda cans, fast-food wrappers, a used condom and a couple of debit cards.

She called police to tell them about the debit cards, thinking they could help trace the........

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