Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares on Thursday told D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and the D.C. Council that a “crime explosion” in the city has put Virginia residents at risk, and asked the lawmakers to “address the scourge of violent crime that is growing more intolerable by the day.”

Miyares wrote that D.C. officials “deny, reject, and refuse to address” the city’s crime spike in a letter addressed to the city’s top elected officials. Bowser’s office did not respond to a request for comment on the letter.

Like in many U.S. cities, homicides in D.C. have been steadily rising in recent years, and during the COVID-19 pandemic other crimes like carjacking jumped dramatically. The number of homicides is up 30% this year compared to the same time last year, and there’s been a 21% increase in carjackings. Overall violent crime is up 2% this year over the same time last year; D.C. ended 2022 with a 7% decrease in violent crime.

Bowser has said in the past that she is concerned about public safety in D.C., and has expressed particular concern about the decreasing number of police officers in the Metropolitan Police Department. Since 2020, some 500 officers have left MPD; like in many parts of the country, hiring new officers has remained a challenge in D.C.

In his letter, Miyares cited the killing of Harrisonburg, Virginia resident Christy Bautista last Friday at a motel on New York Avenue NE. Bautista, who had come into D.C. to attend a concert, was stabbed dozens of times; police later arrested and charged George Sydnor Jr., 43, for the killing. It was later revealed that Sydnor had been released from custody earlier this year pending sentencing in an attempted robbery in D.C., and he was also facing related charges in Prince George’s County.

“Actions speak louder than words — and the only actionable items taken by Washington D.C. leadership have been ways to lessen criminal penalties, further fostering an environment for criminal activity. There is no deterrent for illegal behavior in Washington, D.C., as these repeat offenders know they will either not be charged or let back on the streets in no time,” wrote Miyares. “That’s why we lost Christy Bautista. D.C.’s lenient policies and perspectives are responsible for her murderer’s release when he should have been in custody. An innocent woman lost her life to someone who should have been in jail. Her murder is a tragedy that should have never happened.”

Miyares was referring to the recent dust-up over a D.C. bill that revised the city’s century-old criminal code. While the bill was unanimously approved by the D.C. Council late last year and was set to take effect in Oct. 2025, Congress blocked it last month. Miyares criticized the revised criminal code bill earlier this year, just as many Republicans used it to accuse Democrats of being “soft on crime.”

But on the other concerns he raised, there’s less that Bowser and the city’s lawmakers are able to do.

Violent crimes committed by adults are prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney for D.C., a federal office. Recent data shows that the office opted not to prosecute 67% of the cases it was brought by D.C. police. (The office told the Washington Post and Washington City Paper that some of the reasons for that percentage had to do with police work and evidence, but that it did prosecute a larger number of the most violent offenses like homicide.) During recent testimony to the House Oversight Committee on crime in the city, Council Chairman Phil Mendelson specifically asked Republicans to help find more resources for the U.S. Attorney’s office to prosecute local crimes.

In a statement responding to Miyares, Mendelson echoed this point.

“I would like to join forces with AG Miyares to press the U.S. Attorney to prosecute more aggressively. The man who murdered Christy Bautista last weekend was on the streets because the federal prosecutors (who prosecute all of our felonies) plea bargained his arrest for armed robbery with gun to a lesser offense, because a federally appointed judge released him from custody pending sentencing, and because the federal marshals had not apprehended him when he skipped a court date. The only role of the District in that case was to arrest him, which we did,” he said in a statement.

The city’s judiciary is also largely not under local control; the president nominates judges for D.C. Superior Court and the Senate confirms them, but the process is often bogged down, leaving the city with judicial vacancy crises.

Miyares also referenced the daytime stabbing of a congressional staffer on H Street NE late last month, allegedly by a man who had just been released from prison. But D.C. residents who commit felonies serve their sentences in federal facilities, and their reentry is coordinated by a federal office. City officials say they regularly ask to be notified when the Federal Bureau of Prisons is about to release a D.C. resident after they’ve served their sentence.

“We have no control over the Federal Bureau of Prisons, which has custody over residents sentenced for felonies. This is dangerous, because people are sent hundreds of miles away and disconnected from everything they need to reintegrate successfully once their sentence is complete. And when they do come home, D.C. isn’t notified, and they’re most often placed under federal supervision unaccountable to us locally,” Councilmember Charles Allen (D-Ward 6) said to House Republicans last week.

D.C. officials and activists have also long complained that most of the guns used in crimes in the city come from outside the city, and Virginia has often been identified as a key source of illegal weapons.

“Indeed, given the pipeline of illegal firearms flowing into the District from the Commonwealth, [Miyares] is in a position to stop that flow, to stop the gun violence in our city by holding Virginia arms dealers accountable,” said Mendelson.

A recent Washington Post poll found that while many D.C. residents said they were worried about homicides and carjackings, a majority of them said they generally felt safe. The number of residents of Northern Virginia and suburban Maryland who said they felt safe in their communities was generally higher than their counterparts in D.C.

Miyares also targeted Mendelson for saying at last week’s House hearing that D.C. isn’t facing a crime “crisis.” In his testimony, Mendelson told members of Congress that while crime is of concern in the city, the number of violent crimes in 2022 was 45% lower than a decade before.

“Our nation’s capital should be a beacon of hope and freedom for the entire world, not known as a place where attending a concert can end one’s life,” Miyares wrote in conclusion. “I urge the city’s leadership to address the scourge of violent crime that is growing more intolerable by the day.”

This post was updated with a statement from D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson.