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The mother of a congressional intern killed in a Washington D.C. drive-by delivered a heartbreaking plea on Thursday, condemning the city’s crime surge while sharing the pain her family continues to endure.
“Our lives will never be the same, and my husband says he wished it was him who took the bullets for his son. This is how bad it is,” said Tamara Tarpinian-Jachym, whose 21-year-old son Eric was shot multiple times on June 30 and died at a hospital the following day.
“My husband says he wishes it was him who took the bullets for his son. That’s how bad it is.”
In a gut-wrenching interview with “Fox & Friends First,” Tamara described the moment she heard the news and her world shattered.
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“You don’t expect to find out that your son gets brutally murdered, not with one gunshot wound, but riddled with them. And my son was a good boy, and he didn’t deserve this. Nobody does. No innocent victim deserves what we’re going through, and there’s a lot of us out there,” she said tearfully.
Eric was in Washington, D.C., serving as an intern for Rep. Ron Estes, R-Kan., at the time of the incident.
The shooting, which authorities say didn’t target Eric, also left a 16-year-old male and an adult female injured.
Tamara told Fox News’ Carley Shimkus that no suspects have yet been apprehended to her knowledge and that the 16-year-old male was allegedly the target.
She called on city officials to stop “coddl[ing]” criminals and adopt tough-on-crime policies that will prioritize the best interests of D.C.’s constituents, visitors and workers.
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President Donald Trump has threatened to address leadership lapses via a federal takeover of the nation’s capital unless something changes.
Tamara, reacting to that prospect, said something needs to change for the better.
“Until this [D.C.] council can get their act together, which… maybe it will never happen, I don’t know — but I believe that it should happen and they should work. And they should not put contingencies on any of this – the council. The crime needs to go away. These gangs need to go, and people will just keep getting assaulted and murdered…
“This is our nation’s capital,” she continued. “It should be the safest in the country and then everybody else, all the other states, should be following suit on how to make their city safe. It’s really scary in America.”
President Trump also sent a letter to the Tarpinian-Jachym family after the incident. Tamara said the gesture “meant a lot” to her, and that Rep. Estes’ office has also been kind in the aftermath of the shooting.
Tamara described her son as an “old soul” who was “highly intelligent,” “articulate” and “humble.”
She broke down in tears while describing how much he meant to her and her husband.
“[Eric] liked to talk to older people. He’d help them. He liked to fish. That was his thing. He loved his father so much. Those two were inseparable. He was my baby. I had him late in life. He was a gift from God, and his brother and sister miss him. They helped raise him. My husband is so distraught. Our lives will never be the same.”
Fox News’ Adam Sabes contributed to this report.
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