Raed and Alli Jarrar admit they don’t fit the profile of what many people think of when someone says gun owner.
Both work for international human rights organizations that promote peace. The couple support gun control laws. Black Lives Matter banners hang at their home in D.C.’s Columbia Heights neighborhood, signaling their support in the fight against the shooting of unarmed Black people at the hands of law enforcement.
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Truthfully, they’ve never even liked firearms.
Yet, like many Americans anxious over social unrest and escalating political violence, they decided last year to arm themselves. Any doubts they might have had about owning a gun evaporated when white supremacists ventured into D.C. last December and ripped down a Black Lives Matter sign from a church.
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“We were having to consider a new reality,” Alli Jarrar said. “What does personal safety look like in this specific context?” Her husband, Raed, decided that it looked like a shotgun and a semiautomatic handgun.
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Less than a year later, however, they were having second thoughts.
“We were wondering, ‘Do we really need guns? Will there be another attempt at insurrection? Should we just hope not and sell the guns?’？” Alli Jarrar recalled.
The questions were answered for them when, on Oct. 3, burglars forcibly entered their home while they were out of town. They stole jewelry, power tools — and both guns.
Suddenly, the Jarrars had a new mission that went beyond their own personal safety.
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“I have to do whatever I can to make sure our guns are not used in a crime,” Raed Jarrar said.
The couple began an intense campaign to help police catch the burglars. Using video images from their home security camera, they posted fliers around their neighborhood, asking for help identifying the two Black men seen rummaging through their home.
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Alli Jarrar became concerned that the publicized manhunt would give neighbors the wrong impression of her. “I find mass incarceration unconscionable, and I don’t want people thinking, ‘Here’s this White privileged woman trying to get more Black men locked up,’？” said Alli Jarrar, who works for Amnesty International. “I am not some snowflake.”
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But they wanted their guns off the streets.
The day after putting up the posters, a neighbor spotted one of the suspects walking through the neighborhood. D.C. police were notified, and the man was arrested almost immediately. But because of covid-19 restrictions at the D.C. Jail, he was released without supervision. All he had to do was agree to return to court for a hearing in December.
Not long afterward, a neighbor saw the second suspect, who reportedly had been spotted carrying a crowbar. He was soon identified, and the Jarrars learned that he had spent years in prison for murder. He had also been arrested for several home burglaries since his release in 2017.
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Both of the burglary suspects were in their 60s and had criminal records dating back to the 1970s.
“They should be living a life of leisure in retirement, playing with their grandchildren,” Alli Jarrar said. “Is it their fault that they weren’t afforded the same advantages that we were, that maybe they weren’t able to start school until age 7 instead of 4, like ours?” She wanted the focus to remain on criminal justice reform — not simply punishment.
But there was the issue of the guns.
“If someone breaks in and steals a TV, that’s a different matter,” Raed Jarrar said. “But in this case, firearms are involved, and it is extremely serious.”
It should be noted that an estimated 380,000 guns are stolen from private owners each year, according to a 2017 study by researchers at Harvard and Northeastern University. And because there is no federal law requiring owners to report stolen guns, many simply do not.
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Raed Jarrar soon learned that an acquaintance from the neighborhood knew both of the suspects. When the man’s wife was sick not long ago, he’d ask Raed for financial help. He’d shown Raed a copy of his rental agreement, proof that he was a neighbor. When the burglary suspects were identified, their addresses turn out to be in the same apartment building as the acquaintance.
Raed said he didn’t believe the man had anything to do with the burglary. But he wanted the man to take a message to the suspects. He wanted them to know that he wasn’t interested in sending them to jail. He just wanted to get the guns back and turn them over to police.
He also let the man know more about who he was. Raed is an Iraqi American and had grown up in Baghdad. He works with an organization called Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), which was founded by slain Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.
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The break-in occurred on the weekend of the third anniversary of Khashoggi’s death. At first, he thought the break-in had been politically motivated.
He told the man that he loved him like a brother and would do anything he could to support him. He wanted him to let the suspected burglars know he had a deal for them. He would not press charges. They would work things out as neighbors, but the men would have to take responsibility for their actions. He called it restorative justice.
The man agreed and headed off to deliver the message. “No guarantees, but I’ll try,” he told Raed.
On Nov. 12, the burglary suspect who had served time for murder showed up for a hearing on a home burglary arrest that had occurred in July. And the judge released him again. But when he showed later that day for a hearing on the Jarrar home burglary, the judge decided enough was enough and kept him locked up.
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As far as Raed Jarrar could tell, his request for restorative justice had not been delivered. The whereabouts of his acquaintance, the other suspect and the guns remain unknown.
But Raed was pleased that he had made the effort. He and Alli wanted to live in a neighborhood where everyone felt welcomed, where problems were resolved and not allowed to fester and turn violent. He recalled how the man’s facial expression had soften when he said he cared about him. He felt that by talking, they had created more trust, more respect for one another.
And as frustrating as the experience had been, Raed had been reminded of an important lesson. Neighbors had helped identify the burglars. They had provided he and his wife with support.
“Getting to know your neighbors, looking out for one another — it may sound like a cliche, but it can bring a peacefulness that you can’t get from a gun,” he said.
To read previous columns, go to washingtonpost.com/milloy.
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