If you want some sense of what it’s like to live in D.C., open today’s Examiner for the three following stories:
- A D.C. schools official has pled guilty to stealing $383,000 from the district’s charter schools. She faces perhaps three years in prison.
- A D.C. cop responds to a call (second story down) from a home alarm system. He sees a credit card on the table, takes it, and tries three times to use it to withdraw $1,700 from various ATMs. He has pled guilty and is facing 10 to 16 months in prison.
- A D.C. work supervisor (just below that item) admits to taking bribes to let people avoid their serving their community service sentences.
Just for good measure, let me add that there have been 21 breakouts from the DC jail since 2000, and there is strong evidence that one from last summer was an inside job (no one has been charged, more than a year later). One can only wonder how long this plundering has been going on, and how much of it hasn’t been discovered.