U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro said the FBI is joining the effort to track down the juveniles responsible for a melee that erupted inside a Navy Yard Chipotle and went viral over the weekend.
Ms. Pirro said she asked the FBI to help investigate in order to get a handle on the youth crime that she said remains a glaring issue in the city.
“What happened this past Saturday night at Chipotle in the Navy Yard, and what we’re seeing increasingly across the District is not only unacceptable, it is violent, it is dangerous, and it is illegal,” Ms. Pirro said Monday at a press conference.
Metropolitan Police said the fight erupted around 8:40 p.m. Saturday in the 1200 block of First Street SE, shortly after fans had left the ballpark following the game between the Washington Nationals and the Baltimore Orioles.
Videos of the free-for-fall showed black-clad juveniles throwing punches and hurling chairs at each other while restaurant patrons and staff cowered on the perimeter.
While the Metropolitan Police is leading the investigation, Darren Cox, assistant director of the FBI’s Washington field office, said his agency is dedicating resources to finding the youths and charging them.
“If the subjects are 18 or older, they are considered adults in the eyes of the law, and any federal crime that they commit will be investigated and referred to the US Attorney’s Office here in DC for full and aggressive prosecution,” Mr. Cox said.
Ms. Pirro called on the D.C. Council to renew a temporary juvenile curfew, which allows police to break up large gatherings of juveniles earlier in the night instead of waiting for the midnight curfew to kick in on weekends.
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, asked the council to restore the emergency juvenile curfew soon after Ms. Pirro brought up the temporary measure at her media briefing.
The D.C. Council this month declined to renew the emergency curfew. The lawmakers did pass a permanent curfew bill that contains many of the elements of the emergency order, but the need for congressional review and other procedural hurdles mean it likely won’t take effect until the end of the summer.
Ms. Bowser and Ms. Pirro said the District needs the temporary curfew in place now so police can dismantle the teen takeovers that sprout up throughout the city, especially during the summer months.
“The absence of this vital tool is having a profound negative impact on both public safety and sense of safety in the District. We cannot afford further delay,” the mayor said in a statement.
The U.S. attorney also reiterated her threat to charge parents for their children’s disorderly behavior.
Some parents are playing a part in the “upheaval that is going on in this District that is impacting everyone who lives here,” Ms. Pirro said.
Michael Spence, who works on D.C. Superior Court cases for the U.S. attorney’s office, said prosecuting parents who live outside the District may be possible as long as prosecutors have evidence that their child committed crimes in the city.
Ms. Pirro added that parents could face fines, court orders or six months in jail if they are convicted of allowing their child to take part in illegal acts.
“These are not harmless gatherings. They are violent and they are disruptive,” she said. “And you can see from what happened at Chipotle this past weekend, it was not just violence occurring between individuals. It was simply destruction of property. It was a takeover of a restaurant by individuals who felt that they could get away with it.”
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