Opinion | Why do valet thieves, porch pirates and shoplifters feel so welcome in D.C.?

Who would have thought that a curbside valet service would become an opportunity for crime? That the simple task of providing a welcoming environment for arriving guests at a restaurant, hotel, wedding or church event might be subjected to blatant lawlessness? True, such crimes have been committed elsewhere — Tampa and New Orleans come to mind. Word does get around. But now in our nation’s capital?

Acting D.C. police chief Pamela A. Smith says her officers are educating businesses on best practices for this new world. Will that be anything like the best practices being implemented nowadays in grocery and drug stores, which keep much-sought-after merchandise under lock and key and the watchful eyes of armed guards? Is that the future of downtown dining?

Bowser, for good measure, adds that people shouldn’t leave valuables in plain sight. “If you make it less easy to steal your keys, then we probably will have fewer keys stolen,” she said.

Many dining customers, I suspect, are going to do Bowser one better. They simply aren’t going to patronize restaurants and other businesses in parts of this city where — because of an overburdened, understaffed police force — valet parking might become a thief’s playground.

All this might be of little concern to those who would just as soon ban cars from downtown, period. But the city also has an obligation to, and economic need of, its motoring citizens. Just as it does to D.C. residents in crime-pressed neighborhoods who don’t want to shop at stores with picked-thin shelves and locked-away items that are prone to theft.

And let’s not get started on D.C. porch pirates stealing packages from homes as fast as they are delivered.

All of them — the porch pirates, shoplifters, key thieves, even carjackers — go about their deeds because in this present ideology-conflicted law enforcement climate, they can and do get away with it.

This is not Mayberry, as Bowser says. That’s not what D.C. residents are hoping and praying for. They simply want the places where they live, work and shop, the places where their children go to school and play, to be protected. They are sickened to live in a city in which, as of July 20, 72 youths have been shot this year. That’s up more than 63 percent compared with the same time last year. Twelve did not survive.

Violence-weary residents don’t have to be told by experts that the certainty of being caught for a crime is a more powerful deterrent than the severity of the punishment. They know that. They also know that there are people stealing from porches, ripping off drug and grocery stores, committing carjackings, and firing guns who are not being caught. Recently, D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D) went so far as to say, “You can get away with murder in this city.”

This I know: There are no loud calls in the community to “lock them up and throw away the key.” Citizens would like, however, people who are dangerous to the community to be caught and punished according to the law. All they want is a safe city, and a criminal justice system they can trust and rely on. That isn’t asking for Mayberry.