Last Wednesday, as murders in the District of Columbia-more than 60 percent of them drug-related-soared past last year`s record rate, President Bush decried the ”deadliest month” in the capital`s history.
The beleaguered city`s mayor, Marion Barry, while denying for years that he used drugs, has portrayed himself as a committed leader in the fight against narcotics. And he responded immediately to the President`s publicly expressed horror by asserting that he and his police chief are working to find ways to cut the rapidly rising homicide toll.
There certainly was cause for George Bush`s outrage. The city recorded 28 killings from Jan. 1 to Jan. 17, when he made his speech-17 of them in the five previous days. Last year there were 52 homicides in January and 438 in all of 1989, up from the record 369 in 1988.
”We`re going to do something different,” Barry said. ”I don`t know what, but we`re going to do it.”
Well, Mayor Barry did ”something different,” all right. On Thursday, he was arrested in a Washington hotel room and charged with possessing crack cocaine. An FBI agent who was among those arresting the mayor said in an affidavit Barry had been filmed giving money to a ”cooperating witness”-
reportedly a female acquaintance of the mayor-and then taking the cocaine and smoking it.
The mayor, who had been scheduled to announce on Sunday his plans to seek re-election, was caught in an FBI sting operation in connection with what the government described as an ongoing investigation of local political corruption. Although he waived a preliminary hearing, his attorney said he will seek a jury trial and plead innocent.
If he does that, Marion Barry`s guilt or innocence will be a matter for his peers on the jury to determine. The charge, a misdemeanor, carries a maximum possible penalty of a year in prison and a $1,000 fine.
At a time when the nation is consumed by concern about the drug epidemic and its violent side effects, it is inexpressibly saddening to see our capital city bloodied and its mayor arrested on a narcotics charge. If he is convicted, this country should be infuriated. And perhaps finally understand that to conduct a serious war on drugs, we must cut the demand. We-or at least too many of us-are our own worst enemies.
