Kenyan McDuffie Targets Janeese Lewis George Over Chipotle Teen Fight And Curfew Policy

In Washington, D.C., Kenyan McDuffie campaigned on cracking down after a viral video showed teenagers fighting inside a Chipotle in southeast Washington, D.C., and he framed the moment as a political opportunity in the mayoral race.

“BEAUNE By Jeannette Monarchi Published March 13, 2026 at 08:22 As part of the municipal election campaign, the editorial team of Info-Beaune”

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McDuffie argued that his opponent, City Council and Democratic Socialists of America member Janeese Lewis George, was “sitting on her hands and playing politics” by opposing a police-enforced curfew for minors.

Info-Beaune

The article says both candidates voted last summer in favor of broad emergency curfew powers that allowed Mayor Muriel Bowser to create targeted zones that youth could not enter after certain hours, enforced by local police.

It also says an update to the city’s permanent curfew law with new restrictions on enforcement is set to go into effect mid-July, as the candidates split on whether to extend the emergency and implement the new permanent law.

The neighborhood around the Chipotle was described by Alex Dodds as “designed as a space where people should come and gather,” even as critics said the incident failed to warrant curfew policies that would increase arrests and police harassment of teenagers.

The Intercept reports that Lewis George voted against both extending the emergency and implementing the new permanent law, while McDuffie said he supported both.

In a quote carried in the article, Jeanine Pirro, U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, said, “Teen takeovers … have terrorized our neighborhoods,” and warned that federal law enforcement officials would soon begin a “summer surge” targeting teenagers.

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Pirro also said her office would begin “aggressively prosecuting parents” whose children violated curfew laws, threatening them with up to six months in prison.

The article adds that McDuffie used teen gatherings in campaign advertisements and public comments to argue that strict curfew zones and a tough-on-crime mayoral candidate would help forestall more aggressive actions by the Trump administration.

It further reports that Dodds, campaign director for Free DC, said, “When Black children do that, they are seen as criminals,” and argued that he “don’t even understand what we want children to do.”

The Intercept says advocates for D.C. sovereignty and youth in the criminal justice system warned that McDuffie’s rhetoric would legitimize the administration’s efforts to incarcerate D.C. youth on a large scale, while also pointing to a lack of evidence that teen curfews reduce violent crime.

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Riya Saha Shah, chief executive officer of the Juvenile Law Center, is quoted saying, “Social science research has shown us that [curfews] are actually not effective at reducing crime or victimization,” and she added that it “could result in increased crime or displaced crime in different places or at different hours of the day.”

The article also cites 2015 research on juvenile curfews in D.C. that found they increased rates of gun violence among youth, with researchers theorizing that emptier streets could make “remaining offenders more comfortable opening fire.”

It reports that Trump personally weighed in on the race on Thursday, threatening to “take back Washington, run it on the federal basis,” if Lewis George were elected.

Against that backdrop, the article quotes Dodds saying, “Kenyan McDuffie is much more buying into the Trump administration’s playbook of lock-them-up and using fear to gain support,” and it frames the dispute over curfews as part of a broader fight over how D.C. youth are policed and prosecuted.