DC curfew Easter weekend; when your kids will need to be at home

After "concerning trends" among juveniles in Washington DC, the Metropolitan Police Department announced five areas of the city will have youth curfews this weekend.

Navy Yard, Chinatown, Waterfront, the U Street Corridor and the Bannaeker neighborhood will be under enhanced curfew from 8 to 11 p.m. beginning tonight, Friday, April 3, through the rest of Easter weekend.

In juvenile curfew zones, gatherings of nine or more kids "in any public place or on the premises of any establishment unless engaged in certain exempted activities" are prohibited, police said. Juveniles already have a citywide curfew that begins at 11 p.m. each night.

Anyone who violates the curfew may be ordered to perform community service of up to 25 hours. Exemptions include juveniles who are with a parent or guardian, traveling to or from work or participating in school or religious activities.

City leaders said the curfew zones are intended to prevent large gatherings before they escalate into violence.

Why does DC have a juvenile curfew?

The curfew zones come amid a rise of "teen takeovers" in DC, which have led to robberies, assaults and gunfire.

During one recent gathering in Navy Yard that included about 200 juveniles, multiple robberies took place and a 15-year-old fired a gun, police said.

“The behavior displayed last night in Navy Yard cannot be tolerated, and we are very thankful that no one was seriously injured,” interim Chief of Police Jeffery W. Carroll said at the time.

Earlier this week, the DC Council reportedly postponed a vote that would have extended the city’s emergency youth curfew, leaving it set to expire in mid-April unless the Council takes further action.

DC Mayor Muriel Bowser said she was "deeply disappointed" the Council let the curfew expire.

"The curfew zones have been an important and effective tool for responding swiftly and proactively to concerning trends and behaviors," she said in a post on X. "We have not had to use them often, but when we have, it has had a measurable impact in deterring dangerous and destructive behavior."

Some council members, however, raised concerns about curfews, arguing they could strain relationships between juveniles and police without addressing the root causes of teen violence.