Via Shutterstock.

With renewed attention on the illegal ATV and dirt bikes roving through the streets, particularly in the wake of the killing of local journalist Charnice Milton, the D.C. police union is arguing that a large part of the problem lies with the courts.

Police say they’re doing the best they can to apprehend riders within the set of constraints they are given—among them, a no-chase policy. But the penalties aren’t enough, the union said in a lengthy release.

The offense for operating an ATV or dirt bike is a misdemeanor, with a maximum penalty of 30 days in jail and a $250 fine.

“Our officers are doing great work in apprehending illegal ATV and dirt bike riders with the resources they have and within MPD rules for pursuing suspects,” D.C. Police Union Treasurer Gregg Pemberton said in a statement. “However, when suspects are arrested, the OAG and D.C. Superior Court Judges have not been enforcing penalties that are strict enough to deter this behavior.”

Riders say the vehicles offer an outlet and an art in communities with few economic opportunities, and that they aren’t the menace that many make them out to be. “We’re not hurting anybody,” a rider with a popular Instagram account that documents his exploits told the Post.

But drivers recount being swarmed by the vehicles and neighbors complain of the deafening roar in the middle of the night. The conflict over the popular summer pastime has been ongoing for years.

Meanwhile, the list of both pedestrians and riders who have been killed or seriously injured in crashes involving the vehicles is growing. In one case, a 23 year-old woman’s hips and pelvis were crushed after being struck by a dirt bike in Southeast; the rider reportedly laughed as he sped away.

And then there is Milton’s unsolved murder. Police say she was shot in the 2700 block of Good Hope Road SE last month, possibly by a person riding a dirt bike who was aiming for another group of riders. They have released black-and-white footage from a nearby surveillance camera showing a group of vehicles, some with two riders, driving through the street.

Police Chief Cathy Lanier said the department is working to ramp up efforts to get dirt bikes and ATVs off the streets. “They want us to pursue them right then and there, and that as you can imagine is dangerous,” she said at a recent press conference. “Our safest option is to impound those vehicles and take them off the street in a safe way, and not to create an additional harm moving forward.”

Given the dangers of high-speed pursuits, police don’t give chase as a matter of policy. And the problem isn’t unique to D.C. The police’s no-chase policy in Baltimore was the subject of the documentary 12 O’Clock Boys, which came out in 2013.

According to the police union’s analysis, MPD still managed to make 147 arrests in the past 15 months. They’ve turned to other tactics—including swarming riders as they fill up at gas stations and targeting the vehicles before they even get on the road.

Excluding the 11 juveniles and 18 pending cases, only 33 defendants were found guilty. Of the remainder, roughly half had the charges dropped entirely. The attorney general’s office pursued the other half, but they were later dismissed through community service or another plea agreement, according to the union.

Of the 33 people who were found guilty, none were given the maximum fine of $250. One defendant was ordered to pay $150, another $50; the remainder weren’t fined at all, the union said. And while judges sentenced them to a collective 371 hours in jail—an average of 12 days per defendant—all of it was suspended.

“This means that none of these defendants were sentenced to serve even one hour of actual jail time,” the union said. They also noted that at least five of defendants had been arrested more than once for the same offence.

MPD did not respond to requests for comment about the issue.

Such figures have the police union deeply frustrated, though. They feel they’ve put serious effort to apprehend riders despite the inherent difficulties with this particular problem, but the courts have not doled out any significant punishment. From the release:

The position of the D.C. Police Union is this: Our officers are doing what they can within the law and with the safety of the community in mind, but even when they are able to outwit and apprehend these scofflaws safely, the OAG and the Judges at DC Superior Court don’t agree on the egregiousness of this offense and how it endangers our community. This is not a failure of law enforcement; it’s a lack of enforcement from prosecutors and judges. In order to solve this rampant problem in the city, all agencies must realize its detrimental impact and hold defendants accountable. The sentences and the penalties must be more reflective of how the rest of us view this behavior: intolerable and highly dangerous.