A 19-year-old who prosecutors said fired more than 20 rounds into a D.C. neighborhood got probation, prompting the White House to slam the city's crime policies.
EXCLUSIVE – A 19-year-old who authorities say fired more than 20 rounds into a Washington, D.C., neighborhood and wounded a boy playing basketball has been released on probation, prompting the White House to denounce the city’s sentencing policies as "insanity."
Prosecutors wanted Darius Drew behind bars for five years. Instead, a judge suspended a two-year prison sentence and ordered 18 months of supervised probation under the Youth Rehabilitation Act, a D.C. law U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro had previously urged lawmakers to overhaul.
"The case illustrates the insanity of Washington, D.C.’s soft-on-crime policies that allow adults to receive just a slap on the wrist for dangerous crimes like firing twenty rounds of ammunition into the community," White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis told Fox News Digital.
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"It is remarkable that even with these types of radical policies in place, President Trump’s Safe and Beautiful Task Force has been able to drive down violent crime in our nation’s capital," Bis added.
Superior Court Judge Jennifer Di Toro granted Drew sentencing treatment under the Youth Rehabilitation Act over the government’s objection, according to federal prosecutors. Drew pleaded guilty Aug. 10 to aggravated assault and carrying a pistol without a license.
He was released Friday after spending nearly six months in custody following his May 22 arrest. Prosecutors opposed his release as well as the use of the youth sentencing law.
The gunfire that put him there came from two locations in a Northwest Washington neighborhood, according to the government’s evidence.
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On May 11, Drew rode a Lime bike into an alley before surveillance video captured him firing at a parked car, prosecutors said. The ShotSpotter gunfire detection system registered 10 shots.
Seconds later, Drew fired toward a nearby house. A boy playing basketball at a recreation center was struck in the leg.
By the time the shooting stopped, Drew had fired more than 20 rounds into the community, prosecutors said. Investigators later found two firearms, ammunition and large amounts of suspected narcotics and marijuana at his home.
The probation ruling echoes a warning Pirro delivered to the D.C. Council more than a year earlier. In an Aug. 6, 2025, letter, she urged lawmakers to overhaul the Youth Rehabilitation Act, citing a separate case in which another 19-year-old received probation after shooting someone in the chest aboard a Metrobus.
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The law, which the D.C. Council expanded in 2018, allows eligible offenders who committed crimes before turning 25 to receive sentences below otherwise applicable mandatory minimums and potentially have their convictions set aside, Pirro wrote. Murder and the most serious sexual abuse offenses are excluded.
In that separate case described in the 2025 letter, the 19-year-old pleaded guilty to two offenses carrying five-year mandatory minimums but received probation after four months in jail awaiting trial, according to Pirro’s letter.
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"This sentence was a legal sentence only because he was sentenced under the YRA," she wrote.
Pirro argued the law needed changes to balance rehabilitation with accountability. Her office said 96% of defendants younger than 25 who received felony sentences in D.C. Superior Court from 2022 through 2024 were eligible for sentencing under the act.
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The White House pointed to Trump’s Safe and Beautiful Task Force as its response to crime in the capital, saying the operation has made more than 19,000 arrests, including those of murderers, sex offenders, drug traffickers and other violent criminals.
Fox News Digital reached out to the D.C. Council and Judge Di Toro’s office for comment.
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