Asiyah Timimi does not sleep well at night, and she is often worried about the rising crime across the nation.
"I'm scared to stop at a stop sign or stop light for fear that somebody is going to block me off and carjack me or shoot me," Mrs. Timimi tells Fox News.
She is not alone. Six percent of registered voters consider crime the most serious issue facing the country, according to the recent Fox News poll.
Asiyah, who was born and raised in the nation’s capital, knows the pain caused by the skyrocketing crime all too well.
"I have three sons. All of them have been victims of gun violence in D.C," she said.
Two of Asiyah’s sons have mostly recovered from their injuries, but the youngest remains paralyzed from the waist down. Khalin was shot eight times when someone tried to rob him. Asiyah Timimi’s tragic story is not that unusual in the nation’s capital.
According to data from D.C. Metropolitan Police, violent crime has increased 39% over the past year. In just over seven months, the city has exceeded the total number of killings that took place in all of 2018 and is on track for the deadliest year in two decades.
VIOLENCE SOARS AMID DC POLICE CRISIS AS 5 KILLED IN JUST 1 DAY
These recent crime stats hit too close to home for people like Mrs. Timimi. Every time Asiyah’s sons walk out of the door, she is worried about whether they will make it back alive.
"Prayer is something I am constantly doing." Mrs. Timmi tells Fox News. Unfortunately, it is too late for her husband, who was stabbed to death after intervening when an elderly man was attacked in his presence.
After all she’s seen, Asiyah has a warning for the suburbs, "If it's not handled here, eventually it's going to fester there. This is the results of it. It's not . . . an issue just in our inner city. This is now all over."
A June PEW Research Poll showed that 64% of Republicans and 52% of Democrats think violent crime is a very big problem. While politicians and presidential contenders debate who is to blame for the rising crime, Asiyah wants them to stand by her side at a crime scene to see firsthand the devastation plaguing communities. "They need to come out and console some of those parents and experience what we're experiencing, to know that we are living in a war zone."
