An aide to Republican Rep. Mike Collins (Ga.) is the latest victim of a crime in the upscale D.C. Navy Yard neighborhood, just steps from the U.S. Capitol.
Octavian Miller said he and a friend were walking through the Navy Yard over the weekend when “two masked individuals” emerged from a car and both pointed guns at their torsos.
“One of them asked for my watch, which I wouldn’t die for,” Miller told Fox News in an interview with his boss, detailing how another friend was able to get punched before fleeing.
“This could have ended very differently,” Miller continued. “Fortunately, these two individuals were not seeking murder charges.”
Rep. Collins backed his staffer, calling DC a “war zone.”
Hill staffer Octavian Miller (left) was joined by boss Rep. Mike Collins (R-Ga.) to talk about being robbed at gunpoint this weekend in a neighborhood just a few blocks from the Capitol
A stone’s throw from the U.S. Capitol, many staffers and lawmakers are moving into expensive, luxury apartment buildings in D.C.’s Navy Yard neighborhood, which is also home to the Nationals Baseball stadium and some government buildings such as the Department of Transportation.
Less than a year ago, and just a few miles from where Miller was stopped, an aide to Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) was stabbed multiple times in the head and chest, suffered a brain hemorrhage and a punctured lung.
Rep. Henry Cueller (D-Texas) is also among those who have fallen victim to a recent crime after he was carjacked at gunpoint by three young men in ski masks — two of whom were wielding firearms — in October. Cueller escaped unharmed.
Despite massive efforts to reform the Navy Yard, there has been a dramatic spike in violent crimes such as shootings, stabbings, armed robberies and carjackings in recent years, after Mayor Muriel Bowser implemented much more lax crime laws in the District of Columbia.
“It’s gotten very out of hand,” Collins said of the crime. “And we say a war zone, all you have to do is ask the people around here and they’ve been continuously surveying the citizens that live here in DC and no one feels safe.”
He continued: “We must return to a nation of law and order. We’ve come so far from that. We don’t prosecute people and in D.C. we don’t even prosecute them.”
On the same day Miller opened up about the recent crime committed against him, a man was shot and killed just steps away from where the staffer was targeted.
At least three bullet holes were found in the nearby apartment building, shattering windows and bending metal details.
The Navy Yard district is located just half a mile from the U.S. Capitol and is home to many members of Congress and their staffers. Crime is rampant in the Navy Yard, with series of shootings, stabbings, armed carjackings and robberies
“You worry, you never think that you would be the one in the headline of the next story,” Miller said, saying he was well aware of the rising crime before he became a victim himself.
“It’s a shame that we live in a city where it feels like you have to take care of yourself.”
So far in 2024, there have been 471 assaults with a dangerous weapon, 885 robberies, and 2,150 motor vehicle thefts in DC – and it’s only halfway through the year.
“My message to DC leadership is: please take care of your constituents,” Miller said. “We should… be able to walk around freely and not have to worry about our lives.”
Representative Collins deplored the crime against his employee at X.
“Our nation’s capital has become a war zone because of the DC government’s pro-criminal policies,” he wrote.