Rep. Mike Collins (R-GA) slammed Washington, D.C.’s crime policies on Wednesday after his staffer was held at gunpoint.

“No one feels safe. [D.C.] is a gun-free zone, and you just saw where two people got out with guns. What needs to happen is we have to get back to a nation of law and order,” Collins said during an interview with Fox and Friends. 

Collins’s staffer, Octavian Miller, and his friend were attacked by two people earlier this week in downtown Washington. The suspects escaped after holding them at gunpoint. Miller told the network he had a message to Washington’s leadership: “Please take care of your constituents. … We should be able … to walk and just feel safe in our nation’s capital.”

“We live in a city where it feels like you have to fend for yourself,” the staffer added.

Collins ripped Washington’s crime laws restricting law enforcement from engaging with or targeting criminals. 

“We don’t prosecute people, and in the city of D.C., we don’t even pursue them,” Collins said. 

“I had a member come up to me yesterday and talk about one of his staffers that got held up,” Collins said. “He presented his Apple Watch to the police, showed them where they were, and they said, ‘We aren’t allowed to pursue.’” 

For the past four years, Washington police have been operating under a police reform law spearheaded by Council of the District of Columbia member Charles Allen. In 2020, Allen spearheaded emergency police reform legislation in response to the death of George Floyd. Allen’s Comprehensive Policing and Justice Reform Emergency Act, which he amended in 2022 as the Comprehensive Policing and Justice Reform Amendment Act, introduced sweeping restrictions on law enforcement, including on the ability to pursue criminal suspects. The law was widely criticized by law enforcement, including D.C. Police Union Chairman Gregg Pemberton, who said the legislation “shut down all of policing in the city.” 

“This bill passed [in 2020], and it’s been in effect for almost four years now,” Pemberton said in January. “What we have seen over the past four years is nothing but mayhem. If you look at the crime stats, just last year, we ended up with 274 homicides — the highest we have seen since 1997 — which was a 35% increase from the year prior, which was yet another record year.”

“We had a 60% increase in robberies — I think something like 2,600 robberies,” Pemberton added. “We had almost 1,000 carjackings, which was a 109% increase over the prior year — doubling the number of carjackings that went on in the city. Violent crime overall was up 40%, and property crimes were up 26%.”

This year, however, crime has gone down in the district. All crime is down 16% from this time last year, with violent crime down 26%.

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In the summer of 2023, the D.C. Council passed emergency legislation to address shortcomings in Allen’s bill, relaxing some of the restrictions on police pursuit. While police are still only allowed to pursue suspects in cases in which it is the only remaining option, they are now allowed to chase someone who presents an “imminent,” not just an “immediate,” threat of death or serious bodily injury to another person. Under the new policy, police are no longer required to consider whether the chase would seriously injure the suspect.

Secure D.C., the district’s newest crime bill passed in May, adopts the same language surrounding police pursuit.