Off-duty firefighter shot in D.C., Pirro upgrades charges against 17-year-old suspect

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00:00All right, well, just as we say that, here she comes, Jeanine Pirro there, U.S. Attorney

00:06in District of Columbia, talking to the media about this. Zeke DeZeken talking here on Live

00:12Now from Vox after this shooting there in the district.

00:14It's not right. It's just not right. All right. Thank you all for being here. We appreciate

00:22it. Shortly after 10 p.m. this past Saturday night, an off-duty firefighter was on his

00:29way home. He is someone who worked with Engine 18. He was a father of two. And at that time,

00:38a 17-year-old approached him with a gun. He tried to rob him. He pulled out the gun and

00:46said, give me your phone. According to the victim, the victim gave him the phone and everything

00:52that he had in his hands. At that point, the robber, a 17-year-old, gave the phone back

00:59back to the victim and said, I need you to unlock something. And obviously, what the defendant

01:08wanted was access to what was in the phone and all of the benefits that come from that.

01:13It was at that point that the defendant put the gun to the chest of the off-duty firefighter.

01:21And the firefighter tried to grab the barrel of the gun. And at that point, the defendant pulled the

01:27trigger and the firefighter was shot in the chest. And he started at that point to bleed out heavily.

01:36And it's our understanding that the 17-year-old was shot in the hand at about the same time. That 17-year-old

01:45is now in custody, thanks to the work of the Metropolitan Police Department and the FBI.

01:51And we have the aide in charge. We'll speak to you in a few minutes. Now, that case, or this case,

01:59is another example of juveniles with a gun who are going after the law-abiding citizens in this

02:06district. It is another example of why President Trump is moving to make sure that these defendants

02:14and that these young punks are being brought into the criminal justice system so that we have access

02:20to them, so that we get a criminal record, and so that we are able to identify them as the violent

02:26punks that they are. Now, on this male, this 17-year-old today stands charged with armed

02:36robbery while possessing a firearm in violation of 22 D.C. Code Section 4504. He is also charged with

02:45the possession of a firearm during a crime of violence, and he is charged with aggravated assault

02:52while armed. This case is going to be prosecuted in the D.C. Superior Court, where there is a mandatory

03:00minimum for these charges of five years. And as we speak now, the defendant is being presented

03:08in the Superior Court. Now, this is a very sad commentary on what's gone on. As a result of the

03:18surge, we have seen a reduction in violent crime. But we are continuing to see innocent Washingtonians

03:27in a situation where they're being approached by young kids with illegal guns who have no concerns

03:35about their accountability. And it is a reminder of why the president has decided to put additional

03:42resources into making D.C. safe for the people who live, work, and visit here. Now, these out-of-control

03:51juveniles who think nothing of illegally possessing a weapon and holding up individuals are now going

03:58to find that they will be made accountable, that there will be consequences, and there will be no

04:04more coddling of young criminals. This is why we fight, this is why we prosecute, and this is why the

04:11president is making safety a priority in the district. Now, I'm going to call upon the ATIC in

04:20charge, the assistant director in charge of the FBI, Darren Cox. He is in charge of the FBI field

04:26office. Hi, good afternoon. I'm Darren Cox. I'm the assistant director in charge of the Washington

04:32field office. First off, I'd like to thank you and your office for being so aggressive on charging violent

04:40criminals here in D.C. and making the streets safe. Also, to our partners, thank you for the

04:47partnership, our federal partners, and the Metropolitan Police Department for being aggressive

04:53in apprehending the subject. FBI agents, along with federal partners and MPD, aggressively apprehended

05:01the subject, took him into custody, and also participated in a number of interviews.

05:07Okay, thank you. And I'd also like to call upon Dave Hoagland, who is the president of IFF Local 36,

05:16who represents all the firefighters, both active and retired, in D.C. Go ahead, Dave.

05:23Thank you, Judge Pirro. I just want to thank you for chasing down this incident that happened over the

05:30weekend to take care of Firefighter GK. And he's a committed public servant who, on and off duty,

05:37serves the district and lives and resides in the district. And we appreciate your commitment to

05:41making sure that our responders are kept safe, both on and off the job.

05:46All right. Thank you. All right. Any questions?

05:48Are your plans to upgrade charges here? I know that that was what was asking. We charged with attempted robbery.

05:54Yeah, yeah. I have upgraded the charges. It is now armed robbery. And that's why I was so clear in describing

06:00he handed over the phone and everything else that was in his hands. So that is a completed as opposed to

06:07an attempted. And it's an armed robbery, which under Title 16, we have authority over 16 and 17-year-olds

06:15who commit armed completed robberies. Now, what I think is important to note is that we need to lower the age.

06:23We need to make sure that we get a net of all of those violent individuals, young ones, who feel nothing

06:32or no consequences when they get an illegal gun and decide to use it. But there are also additional

06:38charges, as I stated.

06:40Can you upgrade this to attempted murder? I think a lot of people are wondering not as well.

06:46Well, you know, the aggravated assault while armed is probably the most serious we could do. Attempted

06:55murder is not covered under Title 16. Murder is covered under Title 16. Armed robbery is covered

07:02under Title 16. Murder won and rape. Okay? Those are the four. Okay.

07:09The issue is also that it took a long time for him to get in contact with 911. He actually had to call

07:13his fellow firefighters to come and help him. That's a continuing problem in the district that also creates

07:18issues in your office, I imagine. Has this office considered asking the president to reroute some of

07:23those National Guard and surge resources to helping return the line in OEC?

07:27Well, what I have done is I have spoken with Mayor Bowser and we are analyzing this situation and the

07:33call, what time it came in, how long it took to get those response, to get the response out. And we are

07:41very coordinated. And if we think that there is additional help that's needed, we will certainly

07:47ask for it. But right now we're working with the mayor and she's been very responsive. And it looks

07:53right now like it was pretty good. What you've got is the victim who clearly made a phone call,

08:00then asked the neighbor to make a phone call. In the meantime, there was help coming out. So we're

08:05on it. But right now we're not ready to say anything beyond that. Do you think you can get five years or

08:11would this person be released from juvenile? You are so smart. It's called the Youth Rehabilitation

08:21Act, also known as the YRA, which means that if you're under the age of 25 and you go to district

08:29court and there's a mandatory minimum of five years and you shoot someone with a gun as someone did not

08:34that long ago on a bus and you shoot them in the chest, which is very much like this is the judge

08:40decided I'm going to give you YRA and I'm not going to give you the mandatory minimum.

08:45And that's why we have to change the law. That's why it has to be changed. Right now,

08:49the judge has that power and we don't want that to be the case in DC. We want them to be accountable.

08:55You shoot somebody. All right, you're in the midst of an armed robbery, a violent crime with an illegal

09:01gun. This guy's got a bullet in his chest. I don't think a judge should be able to say,

09:05I'm going to ignore the mandatory minimum.

09:24Well, look, you know, in a case like this, you know, I only get involved

09:30with criticizing judges when I am exercised about the case. The judge issued a 12 month sentence

09:41and a three year supervised release. And the victim, the defendant in this case

09:46has to pay $657,000 back. Now, what I love about this case and you can do with the information,

09:53whatever you want is we have this person who admitted that she abused her signature authority

09:59over the State Department checking account by writing 60 checks over a two year period payable to

10:06herself. But then what she did is she wanted to QuickBooks real fast and change the name of the payee.

10:13So when they looked at the QuickBooks, it looked perfectly fine. So the judge realizing that she has

10:19a problem, which to me is not an excuse. Okay, she's got a problem going to the casinos. So the judge

10:25says to her, I'm going to set a release condition. And the release condition is you do not go to the

10:32casinos, i.e. you're a gambler. Okay, the same day she pled guilty, guess where she goes? She goes to

10:40the MGM National Harbor Casino. So I'm not real sure that this woman is going to follow the judge's

10:47instructions. So who knows when she might be called back for a resentence or a violation of probation.

10:52So hope springs eternal. Get it? Thank you. Thank you all for being here.

11:12Yeah, I was at the hospital with him till late Saturday night, along with members of his company,

11:17Truck 7 and Engine 18. They were the same members who responded to help him along with one of our medic

11:21units. So I think he's home recovering with his family. Everybody's very happy that he's safe

11:27and he's well. They actually left the bullet in him because they would have done more damage taking

11:33it out. But I think we're all breathing a sigh of relief that this wasn't worse.

11:38Do we know that? Do we know that?

11:57Okay, I don't know that that's the case. But what I can tell you is the president's crime surge in D.C.

12:06made an incredible difference. I mean, in terms of robberies, carjackings, violent crime,

12:12homicides down 53%. I think it's the best thing that's happened to this district. What does it tell

12:18you? I don't know yet. I haven't seen the numbers. I don't know if that's,

12:34that's something that I can conclude. You think I can read that without my glasses?

12:37While you're reading, can I ask the FBI one?

12:41Oh, wait a minute. It went down this week. Where'd you get your numbers? Stop it.

12:46That's from the 15th.

12:47This is? From the 15th.

12:50And today is? The 22nd. We haven't, we haven't gotten it anymore.

12:54Yeah. Last week it continued to go down. All right.

12:56Can I just, can I just ask how, how you happened to be there Saturday night?

13:00Is this part of the extended cooperation or were you there for a specific operation?

13:05Sure. This is part of the surge on D.C. and we have agents that are out every night

13:10working with the federal and MPD partners. And we happen to be there and we responded aggressively.

13:17Just like Director Patel has said, the FBI is working to crush violent crime and we are crushing

13:23violent crime. And we have agents out on the street every night working to do that with our partners.

13:28There's some reports that those agents out on the street at night are detracting from some of their

13:33previous work on both national security and white collar criminal investigations. Any response to that?

13:38Uh, I don't want to respond to that. Thank you.

13:40Is there anything else we could say about the 17 year old criminal background? Anything that you know?

13:45Uh, I, it, it would be, um, I can't, I'm not allowed. So why are you asking? You know,

13:51I can't. You were just hoping that I would. Yes. And we have had great discussions with the mayor

14:06about the changes that we all need to make D.C. safe again. And, and, and we continue to work with

14:13the mayor's office and with Leslie Appiah and, you know, her counsel. Um, look, we all want to make

14:19D.C. safe. And I think the more we work together, the more we could do it. That's why the president,

14:23that's why the attorney general Bondi, that's why everyone is involved in this. And there was this

14:28continuative continuing cooperative, uh, engagement by, you know, the feds and in the, in the district,

14:36which I think is important. Judge, your office continues to lose prosecutors. And that's in

14:40addition to the 90 or so that you were down from the beginning, including from high profile cases,

14:44like the, the Jewish capital shooting. Yeah. I know you brought in resources,

14:48but your office is still continuing to bleed prosecutors. What are you doing about that?

14:52And what effect is it having on not just high profile cases, but everyday cases?

14:56Well, first of all, um, if you know anybody who wants to work here, you should give me their resume.

15:02That's number one. But number two is look, we continue to try to get the best

15:06people we can in the office. And it's not unusual for people to leave a prosecutor's office.

15:11They get their experience and then they go out into the private sector and they make a lot of money.

15:16And this is a very, um, it's a very big and important office. And I'm not surprised

15:22that people would leave this office to go on to other things. They have families,

15:26they have kids that are growing that need college educations. It's, it's not that unusual.

15:31And we continue to add prosecutors as we go forward. I don't see that as anything other

15:37than the normal course of events. It's not an easy market in the private sector,

15:41especially in law firms, right?

15:42Well, with good people, it is. With good people, it is. All right, everybody. Thank you.

15:47... of Halligan and EDBA. Are you concerned at all that there's

15:51starting to be this political, political, political...

15:54Politicization? No, I am not.

15:59I am not worried about that at all. All I know is that this office will continue to fight the fight,

16:04and we will continue to work with all our partners, and we will be fair and just. Thank you.

16:11All right. You're just listening in there, Janine Pirro and other officials in Washington, D.C.,

16:15talking about this most recent shooting of an off-duty firefighter. And now the charges against this

16:2217-year-old saying it's now upgraded to armed robbery while in possession of a firearm and also

16:28aggravated assault, saying they carry some mandatory minimums of five years. So diving into some of that,

16:36they also talked about the recovery as the bullet will remain inside the off-duty firefighter as they

16:43didn't want to get it out potentially to cause even more damage. And I want to put this up because

16:47there's also questions about Washington, D.C. and the most recent crime crackdown, the surge

16:53of law enforcement there in our nation's capital along the East Coast. This coming in from the

16:58Attorney General Pam Bondi saying our mission to make D.C. safe again continues with 57 additional

17:05arrests yesterday and three illegal firearm sales. So obviously a big deal in terms of this here on

17:12live now from Fox as we are diving into the latest with that out of our nation's capital. And of course

17:18this is a story that we were diving into in Washington, D.C. as I want to give you a little

17:23bit more detail on what we are learning from this situation in Washington, D.C. as a D.C. firefighter

17:32recovering after police a teenager shot him in an attempted robbery on Capitol Hill. The fellow

17:38the firefighters from Engine 18 rushed to the scene for the rescue there. And I believe we are continuing

17:45on and I do want to talk about it. Let's fly away for a quick two minute break. More top headlines after

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