Former Philadelphia Mayor Frank Rizzo once famously said, “A conservative is a liberal who got mugged the night before.” Democratic Congressman Henry Cuellar of Texas is known for being a pretty liberal character, particularly for someone representing the Lone Star State. But is he having a change of heart this morning? He might be, considering that he was carjacked at gunpoint outside of his DC apartment building last night. Thankfully, Cuellar was not injured during the incident, unlike too many other people in the district. The police even managed to recover his vehicle and return it to him, also unlike the majority of carjackings. We’ll have to wait a bit to find out if this will change his attitude about funding for the police and law enforcement in general, though. For the moment he’s just thanking the cops for their quick response and assistance. (NY Post)

Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) was carjacked at gunpoint Monday outside his Washington, DC, apartment building, according to his office.

The 68-year-old south Texas lawmaker was unharmed during the incident in DC’s trendy Navy Yard neighborhood at approximately 9:32 p.m., according to DC’s Metropolitan Police Department.

“As Congressman Cuellar was parking his car this evening, 3 armed assailants approached the Congressman and stole his vehicle,” Cuellar’s Chief of Staff Jacob Hochberg told The Post.

According to the report, three Black men dressed in all-black clothing held guns to Cuellar’s head while relieving him of his phone and his car. Perhaps he will come to realize that his experience was not unique, at least initially. Just this year there have been more than 750 carjackings in the District of Columbia. Three-quarters of those involved a firearm. That’s more than a 100% increase over last year and we still have three months to go.

What was nearly unique about Cuellar’s encounter was the response. Both the Metro Police and the Capitol Hill PD were involved almost immediately. They had the car back in a couple of hours and are continuing a manhunt for the suspects. This is not the type of service that most citizens of the district receive. The carjacking rate has gotten so bad that the Municipal PD set up a Carjacking Dashboard to track it. As of this morning, it shows that there have been 753 carjackings this year with 75% of them involving armed robbers. Of that large number, 189 cases have been closed. The rest remain unsolved for now, despite the city adding a new carjacking task force to handle the problem.

So why is this happening so often and what, if anything, can be done about it? This summer, the WaPo claimed that at least some of the increase in carjackings could be attributed to “gaps in the social safety net that were widened by the pandemic.” They also noted the steep increase in arrests of juveniles for this crime. But the reality is enforcement has been lax and too many carjackers – particularly the juveniles – know that they will be released almost immediately. The money is good and you rarely run into armed victims in DC because of the strict gun laws they have.

Keep in mind that Cuellar represents the Houston area in Texas. They have the same problem there. ABC News 13 in Houston maintains a special page on its website just to track all of the carjackings. An Uber driver there was recently murdered while being carjacked. Another man nearly died after being shot while a gang carjacked his Mercedes. Yet another wound up being carjacked while he was taking a new car for a test drive. (At least he hadn’t bought it yet.)

If you’re representing these people in Congress, isn’t this the sort of issue where you would want to demonstrate some leadership? Yes, it’s up to the state, local, and municipal governments to make the required changes, but Cuellar could form a partnership with them and perhaps even find a way to steer a bit more federal funding toward their law enforcement efforts. Perhaps last night’s carjacking will bring some enlightenment and push him in that direction. In any event, I’m glad he was unharmed. That’s more than those Houston carjacking victims I linked to above can say.