Inside Washington DC's Hidden Crime Crisis - Drugs, Gangs and Corruption Exposed

Ajouté : 2026-05-13

[00:00:01][music] >> Donal MacIntyre, investigative journalist best known for his fearless work confronting dangerous criminal organizations, is on a mission to uncover the modern face of international crime.

[00:00:17]Traveling with him to some of the world's best known cities, we'll meet members of the criminal underworld, police, and local residents to discover what life is really like [music] in the world's toughest towns.

[00:00:32]>> [music] >> Donal's in an American city with one of the highest murder rates in the country.

[00:00:38]It's everybody killing everybody.

[00:00:41]A place where politics and big business [music] fuels an illegal trade in sex.

[00:00:48]And who's buying sex in Washington?

[00:00:51][music] Politicians. They got money to spend.

[00:00:55]Where for many young men life expectancy is as low as 19.

[00:01:00]Might have to worry about people shooting you, robbing you.

[00:01:04]All that stuff.

[00:01:05]Donal's come to Washington, D.C. to find out what makes it one of the world's toughest towns.

[00:01:19]>> [music] >> Washington, D.C., the capital of America, is a compact city of just over half a million residents. Despite its modest size, each year as many as 20 [music] million people come to see the sights and check out the most iconic residence in America, the White House.

[00:01:52]It's an impressive city of fast avenues and imposing buildings, their very size and stature signifying the scale of America's power.

[00:02:04]But there's another side to Washington, a story behind these wonderful monuments [music] and marbled buildings.

[00:02:12]And it's the story of drugs, murder, and poverty. Washington is a divided city split [music] between rich and poor, haves and have nots, and white and black. It has one of the highest crime rates of any American city with an average of 15 violent murders every month. It's a city plagued by poverty and gang violence, and the gap between different social classes is [music] widening at an alarming rate.

[00:02:37]Over 50% of Washington's [music] population is African-American.

[00:02:41]And the historic election of Barack Obama, America's first black president, >> [music] >> ushers in a new era of change. But Washington is still a city with very real divisions. What always amazes [music] me is how can Congress and the White House exist and live in a city [music] where things are so screwed up? In Washington, D.C.

[00:03:04]in 2007, 1 in 70 people were victims of violent crime, [music] almost three times the national average.

[00:03:11]Drugs and guns have helped make D.C. the murder capital of the United States.

[00:03:15][music] The huge crime levels are fueled by crack cocaine, a drug that is devastating the poor black communities of Washington since its emergence in the '80s.

[00:03:26]One of its bitter [music] legacies is a soaring homicide rate.

[00:03:34]Donal's here to find out how this culture [music] of drugs and violence can operate within a stone's throw of the White House.

[00:03:42]He's going to ride along [music] with the police units on the front line of the war against drugs, guns, and prostitution. And he's going to meet the ex-gang members who are standing up to the rising crime [music] and preaching a message of peace on the streets. Today, they would kill because you just looked at them wrong.

[00:04:02]>> [music] >> But first, Donal is heading to leafy Georgetown, [music] Washington's most desirable neighborhood.

[00:04:13]It's a fashionable quarter of the capital popular with the well-heeled.

[00:04:19]Georgetown [music] is less than half a mile away from the White House.

[00:04:25]But even here, [music] amongst expensive shops and the cobblestone streets, Washington's violent criminal element is never far away.

[00:04:34]Donal's arranged to meet Toby Harnden, the U.S. editor of British newspaper The Daily Telegraph.

[00:04:40]>> [music] >> Toby knows only too well how these seemingly peaceful streets can turn nasty.

[00:04:47]Two years ago, he had arranged to meet up with a friend of his who had recently moved to Washington. A friend of mine, Alan Sennett, who was an aspiring politician who was over here. He was renting a place in Georgetown.

[00:05:00]He was very excited to be here. We were in email contact just setting up time to to meet and and catch up.

[00:05:09]Unfortunately, Toby never got a chance to meet his friend.

[00:05:13]Alan Sennett was brutally murdered on this quiet, leafy backstreet of Georgetown. It was a murder that sent shockwaves across the city.

[00:05:26]Alan Sennett, a 27-year-old British political campaigner, >> [music] >> had lived in Washington for only 3 weeks.

[00:05:36]>> [music] >> In the summer of 2006, Alan was walking his female companion home.

[00:05:43]Just outside her house, they were approached by three men wielding a gun and a knife.

[00:05:51]Initially, it looked like it was it was a robbery, a hold-up.

[00:05:55]Um both of them cooperated, but at that point it it took a um an even uglier turn.

[00:06:02]According to the police reports, the assailant with the gun grabbed the woman and began dragging her [music] down this driveway.

[00:06:12]It was here that he attempted to rape her.

[00:06:15]Alan, you know, he was he was very brave. He was he was a hero, really. He He He couldn't stand there and just watch that happening. So he he made a move. And then in the melee, they they held him down and they and they slit his throat. And then he died over there. Callous. Callous. Callous.

[00:06:33]>> Absolutely inhumane and and pointless and senseless.

[00:06:41]Barely 3 hours later, police arrested four people in connection with the murder. Among them was a woman and a 15-year-old boy.

[00:06:50]The gang were known to the police for a string of other violent attacks. [music] They pleaded guilty to murder, >> [music] >> and the two ringleaders, Christopher Piper and Jeffrey Rice, were given a combined sentence of 89 [music] years in prison.

[00:07:08]Sennett's murder raised fears that the violent crime endemic in Washington's poorer parts was spreading to the city's more affluent areas.

[00:07:18]Alan's murder seemed to symbolize the crossing of boundaries between the two worlds.

[00:07:22]>> [music] >> To understand the nature and spread of crime in Washington, it becomes clear to Donal that he'll need to cross to the other side and explore Washington's darker corners.

[00:07:38]Donal MacIntyre is in Washington, D.C., the capital of America.

[00:07:44]A stately city home to some of America's most famous landmarks.

[00:07:51]But look behind this facade, and what is revealed is a much bleaker picture.

[00:08:00]Washington is a racially divided city.

[00:08:04]More black men are jailed here every year than graduate from high school.

[00:08:09]The black majority originally came to Washington on the run from the deep south. Victims of slavery and prejudice, many believed that in the capital they could get a piece of the American dream.

[00:08:21]The reality has been characterized by poverty and violence.

[00:08:26]Nowhere in America is the inequality between the races more evident than in the capital.

[00:08:32]Many of Washington's inner city problems stem from the use of illegal narcotics.

[00:08:37]In the late '80s, a new drug emerged, the side effects [music] of which catapulted Washington to murder capital of the USA.

[00:08:46]Crack is a cheaper, highly [music] addictive derivative of cocaine.

[00:08:51]The drug swept across America pushed by dealers who made huge profits as the addiction set in.

[00:09:00]>> [music] >> Crack devastated many of America's inner city communities.

[00:09:06]This city was one crazy city in the 1990s, murder capital in the U.S. And listen, you know a city's got its problems when the mayor is addicted to crack cocaine.

[00:09:22]>> [music] >> At the height of the crack epidemic, the problem spread from the streets to city hall.

[00:09:29]The mayor at that time was Marion Barry Jr. But unfortunately, we do have a serious problem of drug-related targeted killings. [music] But in 1990, Marion Barry hit the headlines when he was caught by the FBI smoking crack cocaine in a hotel room.

[00:09:47]Footage of the FBI raid was broadcast across the world, [music] causing shockwaves throughout America.

[00:09:55]>> [music] >> Barry was arrested and served 6 months in prison.

[00:10:00]>> [music] >> Amazingly, he was reelected as Washington's mayor just 4 years later.

[00:10:13]Marion Barry has agreed to meet Donal at a famous Washington landmark, Ben's Chili Bowl Diner.

[00:10:19]Donal hopes Barry can shed some light on why the city has become such a dangerous place.

[00:10:28]Although he was no longer the mayor, Marion Barry is still involved in politics and is a much loved figure in the Washington black community.

[00:10:37]How did your drug problem start? I don't know. I guess it started uh a long time. You resisted and at some point somebody offered you something.

[00:10:47]You say no, you say no.

[00:10:50]Brain step in it.

[00:10:51]Uh it has no respecter of position, of color, of title, of income, of nothing.

[00:11:02]And your personal experience really matched many ways tells the story of Washington.

[00:11:08]>> Well, it does it gives you a better view of what life is all about on the other side of the street. You got the have and the have nots and the situation getting worse.

[00:11:17]That is the divide between the have and have nots in Washington, D.C. is getting worse.

[00:11:25]Marion Barry's political career started 40 years ago as an activist in the civil rights movement. What kind of place was this city in the '60s? This city has changed drastically. You know, back in that that time the the divide was much wider.

[00:11:43]I mean, would you believe as late as 1955 in Washington, D.C. there was segregation.

[00:11:51]The schools were segregated.

[00:11:53]It was a very very polarized.

[00:11:58]For Washington's [music] black community, the anger they felt about this inequality erupted on the 4th of April, 1968, [music] the day Martin Luther King was assassinated.

[00:12:09]>> [music] >> Thousands of people took to the streets [music] of Washington when they heard the news. For 3 days, Washington was subjected to some of the most [music] violent and destructive riots ever witnessed on American soil.

[00:12:28]They were rage.

[00:12:30]Black rage and they showed it through burning things down.

[00:12:35]>> [music] >> For 3 days, [music] Washington burned.

[00:12:42]The city was completely devastated.

[00:12:44]Entire blocks were reduced to rubble.

[00:12:47]>> [music] >> But it but it woke up America, I tell you that.

[00:12:51]America was in was in tremendous shock.

[00:12:54]And believe that black people were that uh fed up.

[00:13:03]Washington was nearly destroyed. The city was rebuilt, but now 30 years on, poverty and inequality remain.

[00:13:11]Conditions which paved the way for the trouble of the 1990s.

[00:13:14]>> [music] >> And how did this city become the notorious murder capital of the USA? The crack cocaine epidemic did that. There were murders, people fighting over turf, fighting over the billions of dollars that were coming in had had captured victims and villains.

[00:13:36]>> [music] >> There are now half as many murders in Washington than during the height of the crack epidemic.

[00:13:43]However, [music] the drug is still a scourge in low-income inner city housing projects and as Donal's just discovered, it can also reach the highest [music] level of political office.

[00:13:54]Marion Barry's continued presence on the political scene is an embarrassment for many [music] D.C. residents.

[00:14:02]But he is not the only politician in this city [music] to have hit the headlines for a scandal.

[00:14:08]In Washington, D.C., a city [music] of powerful political players, scandal is never far away.

[00:14:18]>> [music] >> Every week, large numbers of lobbyists, fundraisers, [music] and politicians all converge on the city eager to do business.

[00:14:31]>> [music] >> And it's no surprise that when a large number of men hit town, many without the company of their wives, another sort of business can flourish. Prostitution is big business [music] here. Girls are trafficked into the city from all over the world to meet the demand for sex.

[00:14:48]>> [music] >> Prostitution is illegal here, but that hasn't stopped sex scandals from rocking the foundations of Capitol Hill, the very seat of American political power.

[00:14:58]In one spectacular case a few years ago, the whole house of cards came [music] close to tumbling down. In October 2006, Deborah Jeane Palfrey was arrested [music] for running one of Washington's biggest prostitution rings.

[00:15:13]Better known as the D.C. Madam, Palfrey ran a very [music] successful high-class escort service.

[00:15:20]When police raided her house, they seized [music] her telephone records, from which a number of high-profile political figures were identified. I think that there was fear on Capitol Hill and also fear in you know, in the top echelons of the executive branch that there were going to be names of of people who were Johns of the the D.C.

[00:15:40]Madam.

[00:15:42]Washington was gripped [music] as the D.C. Madam threatened to sell her client list to pay for her legal defense.

[00:15:49]One of the first casualties was Randall Tobias, the Deputy Secretary of State.

[00:15:55]Before he resigned, he ran the Bush administration's program to crack down [music] on prostitution.

[00:16:01]Tobias reportedly told ABC he had called on the business for in-condo masseuses.

[00:16:06]The fear on Capitol Hill was [music] who's next?

[00:16:10]Who's next?

[00:16:12]If convicted, Palfrey faced a jail sentence of up [music] to 55 years for her role in running a multi-million dollar vice racket.

[00:16:21]But just before her trial, the D.C.

[00:16:23]Madam committed suicide.

[00:16:27]It was the end of the Palfrey story, but not the end of prostitution in Washington, D.C.

[00:16:33]She got busted. There are 30 D.C. Madams right [music] now, probably have clients upstairs in this hotel.

[00:16:42]A quick internet search for Washington, D.C. [music] escort services yields hundreds of results.

[00:16:51]Massage parlors and spas offering in-call and out-call services [music] advertise freely.

[00:16:57]Most of them are located in downtown Washington in the heart of the business district.

[00:17:05]Prostitution is where the legitimate business of D.C. collides with the illegal world of [music] sex trafficking.

[00:17:16]This is downtown D.C. and this is where big business meets big politics. This is known as the lobbyist corridor. The White House is just three blocks down there to the right. But just a couple of hours, the lobbyist corridor becomes the prostitutes runway.

[00:17:35]When the working day ends, the streets in this part of town take on a seedier atmosphere.

[00:17:42]>> [music] >> Inspector Steve Schworm works for the prostitution unit, a specialist department devoted [music] to investigating sex trafficking within D.C.

[00:17:54]Tonight, the unit is planning a raid on a massage [music] parlor in downtown Washington.

[00:18:00]That is our target location.

[00:18:03]And considering we're going to be set up, we're going to try and pull into this bus stop area here so that way we can kind of observe our undercover officer entering the location.

[00:18:11]The target for tonight's bust is a Korean massage parlor. Officer Schworm is in the area.

[00:18:16]The prostitution unit have sent in an undercover officer whose job it is to establish if prostitution is happening on the premises.

[00:18:26]A lot of these Korean massage parlors are nothing but fronts for prostitution.

[00:18:32]You know, some of these girls that may work in a Korean massage parlor will be told, "Oh, you know, I got a cleaning job for you. I'm going to be a maid."

[00:18:42]Uh they come to America and of course, you know, she's forced into prostitution.

[00:18:49]The unit get the call [music] from the undercover officer and enter the building.

[00:18:56]Okay, sir. Get dressed.

[00:18:58]Anybody else in here? Any more customers? Get them dressed.

[00:19:04]As they suspected, the massage parlor is a front for an illegal brothel.

[00:19:12]Can you speak English here?

[00:19:14]Okay. Stay right there. Stay right there.

[00:19:17]The girls claim not to understand English, so the police begin to search the property for evidence of prostitution. Oh, look at this. We got money.

[00:19:26]It was thrown under the mattress.

[00:19:28]All these are chemical smell.

[00:19:31]Uh it's all good.

[00:19:33]The girls that actually work here stay on the premises 24 hours a day. There's cots set up in the back. They sleep here.

[00:19:39]It's not a fun life. These girls can see anywhere from 20 to to 40 customers a day.

[00:19:49]Police find a pile of cash and some underwear in the room.

[00:19:55]But as the client was not caught in the act, he's allowed to go free.

[00:20:01]But the police arrest one of the girls.

[00:20:03]She'll be charged with soliciting and prostitution.

[00:20:08]Often [music] these girls are trafficked into the country illegally and forced into this type of work.

[00:20:13]>> [music] >> For the police to catch the traffickers, they have to hope that some of the girls will be willing to testify [music] against them.

[00:20:22]But they are terrified of reprisals and so this seldom happens.

[00:20:26]>> [music] >> The biggest victims, the ones that always lose, are the girls.

[00:20:40]To get a first-hand account of what it's like to work as a prostitute in this city, Donal's arranged to meet someone who knows all too well what dangers these [music] streets can bring.

[00:20:51]Donna has been a prostitute in DC for the past 20 years.

[00:20:56]She will only talk to Donal in the presence of her pimp, Eric.

[00:21:01]Her experience of walking [music] the streets has given her a unique insight into how this city operates.

[00:21:08]Now, in terms of Washington, is sex big business in Washington? Washington is a sex city. [ __ ] sells in Washington, without a question. It does. [music] And who's buying sex in Washington?

[00:21:23]>> [laughter] >> You buy from the common Joe up to the most high. The politicians.

[00:21:29]When they want to get away from >> [music] >> the business and retire up out of town, they got money to spend.

[00:21:39]But Donna is fully aware of the dangers that her lifestyle exposes her to.

[00:21:44]I've lost a lot of girlfriends in the lifestyle like that, you know, and their life was taken from getting in cars and never returning. [music] And um you would think that would change my way of living, but it's my way of surviving.

[00:22:03]These dangers often force prostitutes to work for a pimp. Too often, however, it's the pimp's themselves, rather than the clients, that can pose the biggest threat to the girls.

[00:22:15]Some pimps run their things on the fear and on the violence, okay? Some of them actually just run them on that and and they really they say they care, but they don't really care. I mean, it's just the sort of thing where, you know, look, go get me my money. If you don't have my money, bang bang.

[00:22:35]This is something that Donna has endured herself.

[00:22:40]You're not even expecting it.

[00:22:43]And then your daddy calls you up and you know, talk to you, but you know, make you feel comfortable and stuff and then you know, hit you with, you know, I know that you I know that you ain't do what you supposed to do and and and then you get some, you know, they call it pimp smack.

[00:23:04]It's from the backhand.

[00:23:07]And then after you um they'll do that to you.

[00:23:11]Um you know, you kiss you you make you give oral sex to them, you know, to them and get [ __ ] and stuff like that and then you see yourself straight with a busted lip and black eyes and stuff.

[00:23:24]So, I know what it's like to be abused.

[00:23:35]Clearly, [music] in Washington, big business rubs shoulders with the seedier world of prostitution. There's a lot of money floating around this city and also a lot of money to be made.

[00:23:46]>> [music] >> And in a city that is as fractured and divided as Washington, it's not hard to find gangs, [music] pimps, or sex traffickers willing to exploit others for personal gain.

[00:24:01]Coming up, Donal accompanies local law enforcement as they hunt down a gunman Anyway, the officers of the FBI are about to pounce.

[00:24:11]and discovers >> [music] >> how easy it is to buy an AK-47 assault rifle.

[00:24:22]Washington DC has one of the highest violent crime rates of any city in America.

[00:24:28]It's also one of America's most divided cities. The divide between the haves and have-nots in Washington DC is getting worse.

[00:24:37]>> [music] >> While prostitution and politics mix in the high-rise business district, Washington's poorer neighborhoods are plagued with drug-induced violence and drive-by shootings.

[00:24:49]Every day, within the shadow [music] of the White House, police are engaged in a constant battle to curb rising crime and remove [music] guns from the streets.

[00:25:01]Donal wants to see for himself the challenges in keeping law and order in this city.

[00:25:08]So, he's arranged to ride along with the city police, whose job it is to combat this violence.

[00:25:15]Well, if anyone's going to show me the city beyond the monuments, beyond the Lincoln Memorial, then it's these guys.

[00:25:20]We're going to roll with them. They're going to They're going to look after us for the evening, are you? We're going to try to take care of you. 10-4 with two civilian ride-alongs.

[00:25:28]>> [laughter] [music] >> Immediately after leaving the station, we enter an area of Washington that feels very different.

[00:25:38]Donal's driving through a neighborhood [music] called Trinidad. It's a run-down inner-city area of Washington, but [music] the monuments up in Capitol Hill and the White House are only a mile away.

[00:25:49]Despite the short distance from the White House, it seems like a totally different city.

[00:25:55]So, what are the neighborhoods that give you the most trouble?

[00:25:58]Well, the neighborhood that we're driving through right now is um Trinidad and it typically was one of our busiest um neighborhoods in the city in the whole city. There were times during the summer where it was extremely violent with multiple homicides.

[00:26:16]Trinidad has one of the highest crime rates in the city.

[00:26:19]The neighborhood is afflicted by gun violence.

[00:26:23]Drive-by shootings plague the area.

[00:26:26]Earlier in the year, military-style checkpoints were set up to stop and search all vehicles entering Trinidad in an attempt to curb the crime epidemic.

[00:26:38]For the residents, it made returning home feel like entering a war zone.

[00:26:42]Trinidad should not be treated like Baghdad.

[00:26:47]We cannot have that here uh here in Washington DC.

[00:26:54]It was a desperate attempt to curb the murder rate, but the killings continued.

[00:26:59]And who's killing who?

[00:27:01]It's everybody killing everybody.

[00:27:03]And and it's kind of ridiculous. You could have a crew of guys that live on this street beefing with a crew of guys that live on this street.

[00:27:16]They'll go back and forth between the neighborhoods shooting each other.

[00:27:21]Gang-related murder in DC is one [music] of the highest in the USA.

[00:27:27]And like everywhere [music] else in America, it's nearly always related to drugs and the fight to control the market.

[00:27:41]Donal's riding with the patrol [music] when a call comes in from the dispatcher.

[00:27:45]>> [snorts] >> What's that location, ma'am, and who who is attempting to execute a search warrant?

[00:27:51]FBI.

[00:27:54]1805 West Virginia Avenue. The FBI has requested assistance to arrest a violent gang member who is wanted in relation to a triple shooting.

[00:28:02]>> [music] >> All units in the area are ordered to meet at a nearby secret location.

[00:28:07]>> [music] >> And if a measure of how serious they're taking this, the FBI have brought maybe 15 20 heavily armed guys and the local police force here have brought um six, now seven patrol cars with more on the way.

[00:28:26]It's quite a lot of firepower here for one guy. Remember always, you always want to go there outgunning that your opposition.

[00:28:32]You always want to be in a superior protective posture compared to what they're in, so that's what we're going for.

[00:28:40]>> [music] >> A call comes through to say the FBI are making their move.

[00:28:46]The suspect, [music] a notorious gang leader, has been positively identified working in a takeaway pizza joint just a few blocks away.

[00:28:55]With the suspect's violent [music] history, the police units are here to back up the FBI in case something goes wrong.

[00:29:08]Okay, the undercover officer has gone in, has identified at the presence [music] of the man on warrant.

[00:29:15]Uh the fugitive is wanted for a triple shooting.

[00:29:21]And the officers of the FBI are about to pounce.

[00:29:27]You don't draw this much heat unless you're a seriously dangerous individual and there's a very real chance that the suspect could be armed.

[00:29:37]They haven't gone in yet. You can see them all standing, heavily armed.

[00:29:47]But the suspect soon realizes he's outgunned and surrenders.

[00:29:53]The guy who alleged gang member, he's on the floor.

[00:29:57]He's been taken by surprise. [music] It was pretty safe job all round.

[00:30:02]The The individuals in custody Without a single shot fired and they're man [music] in custody, this has been a successful raid for the FBI.

[00:30:16]So there's a whole bunch of people coming up for a pizza and just confronted with, you know, a half a platoon of uh of Glocks and AK-47s and semi-automatics and the FBI and they just took a guy down who's wanted for a triple shooting gang related earlier this summer and he's working in a pizza parlor.

[00:30:39]Guns are such a big problem in this city that the police have a dedicated gun recovery unit who are tasked with retrieving as many illegal firearms as they can find on the street.

[00:30:50]It's run by Sergeant Sloan who has invited us to witness a search of the premises of a suspected drug dealer.

[00:30:57]We're searching and we have found what we consider a good quantity of narcotics and a firearm and a large quantity of cash. If you bring your film camera over toward me I don't know if you can see the large quantity of cocaine there.

[00:31:14]There's a handgun right here.

[00:31:27]From October 30th, '07 to October 30th, '08, just this gun unit recovered 505 guns from the streets of Washington, D.C. So, you figure that's more than one a day. So, it's with great regularity that we encounter firearms.

[00:31:45]It's been a successful night for the gun recovery unit.

[00:31:49]They have arrested a known drug dealer and taken one more weapon off the streets of D.C.

[00:32:01]Violent [music] gang related crime is increasing in areas like Trinidad and the police are locked in a constant [music] fight against them.

[00:32:10]Donal has witnessed the effects that guns have in poor neighborhoods and experienced first hand the fear that is felt on these streets.

[00:32:20]But on occasion, that fear can spread across the entire city as in the case of [music] the notorious Washington sniper.

[00:32:29]>> [music] >> In the autumn of 2002, Washington became a city overrun with terror and paranoia.

[00:32:45]Over a period [music] of 3 weeks, 10 people were murdered in the Washington area. Most of them killed by a single bullet from a sniper's rifle. The killings were random and without an obvious motive.

[00:32:57]A man was shot outside his house while mowing his lawn. Another was killed at a petrol station. A child was shot outside his school. It was clear that anyone was a potential target.

[00:33:09]It was true terror in this in this region for a number of weeks. I remember literally walking across Connecticut Avenue and zigzagging across the street so as not to become a target.

[00:33:22]Anytime of day, anywhere you were, you could get plugged.

[00:33:32]>> [music] >> Two men were eventually arrested for the killings.

[00:33:37]John Allen Muhammad, an ex-soldier, >> [music] >> and Lee Boyd Malvo who was just 17 years old.

[00:33:45]I think from that perspective [music] Washingtonians were relieved that it was just two lone gunmen.

[00:33:54]But there was no kind of resolution of gee whiz, [music] why did this happen?

[00:33:58]And to this day I'm not even sure that I could explain to [music] you or anyone can explain to you why these two men were actually just shooting people from their car.

[00:34:18]The United States has always held a liberal view on gun possession.

[00:34:22]But the gun violence in Washington has been so severe that for many years the city had its own unique gun policy.

[00:34:29]Handguns were outlawed in 1975 and it became illegal to buy one here.

[00:34:35]In 2007, this law was controversially revoked as it was deemed unconstitutional for Americans not to have the right to bear arms [music] to defend themselves.

[00:34:52]I'm about to go to one of the few places uh in the outskirts of Washington, D.C.

[00:34:57]where you can actually buy a gun. And that's because until very recently when the Supreme Court overturned the ruling, simply you couldn't buy or be carry a gun within the precincts of Washington, D.C. But that now all is about to change and I suspect business for the Blue Ridge Arsenal gun shop is about to go up.

[00:35:20]This shop sells an astonishing variety of weapons from small handguns to fully automatic machine guns.

[00:35:30]>> [music] >> Despite the 32-year ban, Washington was still the murder capital [music] of the USA during the 1990s crack epidemic.

[00:35:43]>> [music] >> But now that handguns have been legalized, >> [music] >> the worry is that the murder rate will once again rise.

[00:35:53]>> [music] >> D.C. is probably one of the most highly highest crime cities in the in the nation anyway. Yeah. Even with the gun ban.

[00:36:02]So, it's made no difference. Yes. So, what can I buy now? Everything is clean.

[00:36:07]You can walk out with the gun same day. Same day. Yes.

[00:36:12]>> [music] >> It's AK-47. Nice one.

[00:36:26]It's great gun, though. I need to get with a gun like this, three forms of ID, is that correct?

[00:36:31]>> of ID. Virginia resident, I need to be have a clean record, no criminal record, and I need to have the money and that's it that's it and then it's mine. It's shocking that in a city working hard to curb its high rates of violent crime anyone [music] can walk into a shop like this and walk out with an AK-47.

[00:36:54]Washington, D.C., America's capital and also one of its most fractured cities.

[00:37:01]The gap between the rich and poor in Washington is growing wider.

[00:37:06]And when your options are limited, sometimes criminality seems like the only way out of the ghetto. It's everybody killing everybody. And in the inner city neighborhoods, gangs fight to control the market, drugs, guns, and prostitution.

[00:37:30]According to official figures, there are over 170 gangs in D.C. with an estimated 3,000 gang members, many of whom are second or third generation.

[00:37:43]Older members of the community, some ex-gang members themselves, are trying to help young people get out of the gangs [music] and provide them with alternatives to a life of crime.

[00:38:03]This is a group called Ceasefire which is run to try and keep young men out of gang activity and it's not run by other young men. It's actually run by the elders of the community. Guys who spent a lot of time on the streets and some of them a lot of time in jail and that's how they garner a bit of respect with the youth.

[00:38:30]Al Malik Farrakhan, a one-time bank robber and gang leader, started Ceasefire after spending 35 years in jail.

[00:38:38]He tells Donal that guns were an issue in D.C. even back when he was running the streets.

[00:38:45]Gun play started with us.

[00:38:48]It did start with us. It wasn't as readily, but we had many gun battles right out here.

[00:38:55]We always had gangs. Yeah. But we wasn't man, we was pop pop pop, getting it up. Excuse me.

[00:39:02]We get our man, but he had to do something so bad that he deserved to [ __ ] die. Today, they would kill you because you just looked at them.

[00:39:13]>> You don't know people like But it was while Malik was in prison that he decided that something had to change.

[00:39:19]Watching the young ones come in, they were lost, man. Not coming in the way we came in as men in the penal system and staying as men, but lost. They were snitching, they were telling. I mean, they killing one another. So, I said, "Wait a minute. I got to start something to give them self-esteem back. To teach a man that this Willie Lynch is a move to make you be enemies one another when he's really not your enemy, look just like you. He got nothing just like you ain't got. He's oppressed just like you.

[00:39:48]So, this was the birth of Ceasefire.

[00:39:51]Man, I got my head smacked out the wheelchair. I had a Uzi stuck in my mouth, but the one that smacked me out the wheelchair became a hell of a Ceasefire member.

[00:39:59]The one that stuck the Uzi in there became a hell of a Ceasefire member.

[00:40:06]>> [music] >> Malik has arranged for Donnell to meet some of the young gang members he's working with.

[00:40:12]These are the young brothers that nobody want to deal with, man. And they're not faking. They ain't just got them little masks on, right? They're not going to say nothing to incriminate, but they're going to be truthful with you.

[00:40:25]They are taking a big risk congregating in such a public setting, so Donnell only has a short time with them.

[00:40:31]These are the guys who can tell him what [music] it's like to live and die on the tough streets of DC.

[00:40:39]Now, what's the best way of making money on the streets?

[00:40:43]Hustling. Hustling. Okay, what are you hustling? Is [music] it Is it girls? Is it drugs?

[00:40:47]>> It could be anything. Anything anything anything You can hustle anything.

[00:40:52]>> Yeah, drugs.

[00:40:54]Anything to get money. You know.

[00:40:57]If you want to get an AK-47 or something, would that be difficult? That's That's easy, man. That's We can get that before we can get a job over here. Like, that's nothing. That That ain't nothing. You can get that now.

[00:41:10]Living by these rules is not a game. The average life expectancy of a gang member in America is just 19.

[00:41:19]And what What was the last funeral you guys went to? Last week. Last week.

[00:41:25]And what happened? Who died? A homeboy.

[00:41:28]Yeah, one of our close friends.

[00:41:30]He got got shot.

[00:41:33]You must feel that, you know, if if you one of your mates dies, that it could be You next. You next. Yeah, like we We sometimes we think, you know, might not make it a couple more years, you know, two three more years. Might have a feeling like I won't be here.

[00:41:46]Might be here for a couple more weeks or months.

[00:41:49]Some people feel that way.

[00:41:54]Some people say that DC has improved and it's you know, it's a different kind of DC.

[00:41:59]You know, and it's safer for everybody [music] in the streets now. But, is that true for you guys? Yeah, it is safer for like tourists and all that. Like, but where we from, where we live at, no, it ain't too safe. You got to look around your back every 5 seconds.

[00:42:12]>> [music] >> Look at every moving car to make sure nothing ain't happening. No, it ain't too safe. We have to worry about people shooting you, robbing you, snitches, all that stuff.

[00:42:23]>> [music] [music] >> When young guys like these regularly attend funerals for their friends, it brings home how tough life in Washington really is.

[00:42:43]And when they readily admit that they are doubtful about making it past [music] their teenage years, you have to wonder how much has changed in this city.

[00:42:54]The [music] fact that the communities most affected by poverty, violence, and crime live in the shadow of the nation's monuments to equality, freedom, and prosperity is startling.

[00:43:05]This proximity contributes to the rage and despair Donnell has uncovered on the streets of Washington.

[00:43:13]Barack Obama has moved into the White House, bringing with him the promise of change. Time will only tell whether for the people of Washington, DC, he can deliver on that promise.

[00:43:32]>> [music] [music]