WASHINGTON — On April 13, 54-year-old Derrick Jones was back in handcuffs once again, surrounded by at least a half dozen DC Police officers. The Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) accused Jones of sexually abusing a 5-year-old girl hours earlier by allegedly exposing himself and committing lewd, indecent, and obscene acts in front of her in Mount Pleasant.
Judy Clayton, part of a group of neighbors who had been reporting Jones' alleged actions to MPD, looked on with tears in her eyes.
“Because this has been three-and-a-half years of trying to get this man off the street,” Clayton explained.
DC Police first arrested Jones for exposing himself in 2018. In that case, committing sex acts in front of four children, between the ages of 11 and 14, at a D.C. public library.
D.C.’s 122-year-old criminal code classifies lewd, indecent, or obscene acts as a misdemeanor. It also prohibits judges from detaining defendants on misdemeanor charges alone.
So, Jones was released. Then he never showed up for court.
In 2021, Jones was arrested again. This time it was for exposing himself and committing lewd acts on the Metro at the Columbia Heights station. A judge found Jones guilty, but suspended his 30-day prison sentence and put him on supervised probation instead.
Jones returned to his Mount Pleasant neighborhood where neighbors tell WUSA9 he continued to repeatedly expose himself while committing lewd acts. It was so brazen, neighbors recorded cell phone video of him doing it just steps away from Bancroft Elementary School.
“That schoolhouse has hundreds and hundreds of kids who come through here every Monday through Friday,” said Bob Davis, vice president of the tenant’s association in the apartment complex where Jones was living. “Come through there every Monday through Friday. And every Monday through Friday he’s doing his thing. So, the parents are disgusted.”
DCPS said Bancroft Elementary Principal Jessica Morales reported Jones to police, too. Neighbors, including Kari Elwood, started sharing warnings and sightings of the sex offender on the message board Nextdoor.
“And many started changing the routes that they took and where they went,” Elwood said.
None of it stopped Jones. In 2022, MPD detectives once again arrested him on that misdemeanor charge of committing lewd, indecent, or obscene acts. This time, Jones was at a bus stop in Mount Pleasant.
“My children witnessing a man touching himself while he’s watching them is absolutely not a misdemeanor to me,” Elwood said.
Because Jones had violated the terms of his probation from his previous arrests, this time the judge was able to keep him in jail before trial. Jones ultimately pleaded guilty.
But since committing lewd, indecent, and obscene acts can only be a misdemeanor according to DC Criminal Code, even for repeat offenders, the maximum the judge could give Jones was 90 days in jail.
Jones' attorney in his most-recent case, Raymond R. Jones, said it’s not the length of the sentence that’s the problem here.
“What services are we providing?” Raymond Jones told WUSA9. “The recidivism? How are we stopping people from coming back [to jail] again?”
“And we can say, well, 'let's lock them up, that's the key,'” Raymond Jones said. “But the person has to get out. And we can't lock up a misdemeanor person for 25 years, right?”
The judge tried to put on Jones on supervised probation once he was released, but couldn’t since she already sentenced him to the maximum amount of jail time allowed by law. Elwood said neighbors had one reaction when Jones returned to the area.
“Fear.”
After Jones ignored a judge’s order to register with DC Police as a class C sex offender, D.C.’s probation office wrote in a report to the courts that Jones “poses a risk to the community” and his “inappropriate deviant sexual behaviors...appears to be exacerbating.”
That’s what allegedly happened April 7, when Jones was arrested for threating to kill a couple living across the street after they caught him exposing himself. Jones was charged two more counts of misdemeanor committing lewd, indecent, and obscene acts. He was once again processed and released by D.C.’s justice system.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office wrote in a statement to WUSA9:
Under D.C. law, there is a presumption that defendants will be released pending trial. Even when someone is on release and is charged with a new offense, unless that new charge is a violent or dangerous crime as defined by D.C. law, a defendant can only be detained briefly in the new case and cannot be detained until trial in the new case.
Back in his Mount Pleasant neighborhood, it took Jones 10 days to reoffend.
This time accused of committing lewd, indecent, and obscene acts in front of a 5-year-old girl and her father. He also threatened to blow up his building before being taken into custody.
“Our system fails,” Clayton said as she watched Jones be put into an MPD transport van. “It’s not protecting our children.”
Ward 1 DC Councilmember Brianne Nadeau told WUSA9 she has “worked to support both the victims and the process for law enforcement and prosecution” but added any changes to the way crimes are prosecuted in the District would be subject to Congressional approval. In March, the Senate overwhelmingly voted to block sweeping reforms to city’s century old criminal code passed by DC Council.
“Our federal government does not care about our residents,” Nadeau told WUSA9. “And most days of the week, we don't have to think about that. But when it comes to our criminal justice system, and when it comes to justice for our residents and our victims, and in this case what you're investigating, it very much matters that the federal government does not care about the people of the District of Columbia.”
Jones now faces nine new criminal charges, including misdemeanor sexual abuse of a child for exposing himself and committing sex acts in front of the 5-year-old girl. In fact, all nine new charges are misdemeanors.
The US Attorney’s Office said in court more criminal charges are coming because more victims have now come forward.
When Jones is released from jail the judge barred him from ever returning to that block in Mount Pleasant next to Bancroft Elementary School.