What’s Causing Teen Riots in DC? | 8.1.26

Summary

Morning Wire (August 1, 2026): What’s Causing Teen Riots in DC?

Episode Overview

This episode of Morning Wire investigates the ongoing phenomenon of "teen takeovers" in Washington, D.C., which have escalated into violent riots involving shots fired and attacks on National Guard members. The episode centers on Daily Wire contributor Leona Salinas’ firsthand experience at a recent event and uncovers the surprising involvement of the city’s Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) in organizing these gatherings. Through interviews and on-the-ground reporting, the hosts and Salinas explore why these events turn violent, the role of city officials, and the contentious racial dynamics at play.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Firsthand Account of the Riot

• Leona Salinas recounts witnessing a “teen takeover” while heading home from dinner, describing the chaos and violence of the event (00:55–04:46).
  • Large groups of predominantly African American teens, many masked, running through the streets.
  • Fights, robberies, and eventually gunfire erupt as law enforcement tries to contain the situation.
  • Salinas interviews an attendee, Michaela, who details how these events are regularly coordinated via messages on Instagram.

Notable Quote

"I just see hundreds, nearly thousands of teenagers, all African American, urban youth essentially. ... I stuck with this one very sensible young lady. Her name was Michaela... and we just had to keep running from alley to alley because fights kept breaking out, people were jumping each other."
—Leona Salinas (01:55–03:30)

2. The Role of D.C.'s Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR)

• These events, dubbed “hype nights,” are explicitly organized by the city’s DPR, often intended only for black youth (09:39–11:42).
  • DPR communicates event details via Instagram, explicitly invites only black youth.
  • Salinas notes that every attendee she interviews describes routine violence at every event.
  • DPR staff is exclusively non-white; they have not commented despite multiple requests.

Notable Quote

"Every single one that I've gone to, someone jumps another, someone gets robbed, someone gets shot."
—Michaela, as shared by Leona Salinas (03:40)

"It's very interesting that DPR is putting this on because after looking at their staff, they have no white staffers at all… we reached out for comment… No comment whatsoever at all."
—Leona Salinas (10:20–10:50)

3. Racial Dynamics and Attendee Perspectives

• Salinas observes racial exclusivity at these gatherings: “You can't go if you're not [black].”
  • Attendees are masked, fearing arrest, and cite police as racist without specifics (07:12–09:39).
  • Salinas notes a paradox: protestors call black police and National Guardsmen “racist” as well.

Notable Quote

"They immediately were denying being there at all... So many of them just kept repeating the sentiment that cops were racist. And I just asked why. Very simple question, not trying to portray any bias. And they just said they just are. They just don't like black kids, that's all."
—Leona Salinas (08:10–08:50)

4. Law Enforcement & Public Safety Response

• Salinas provides her footage to police, who then deploy crowd control measures due to ongoing violence (07:12–09:00).
  • National Guard is present, facing verbal and physical harassment amid the chaos.

Notable Moment

"They needed to use pepper balls to fire off into the crowd because it was just getting so rowdy."
—Leona Salinas (08:45)

5. Organizational and Policy Critique

• Event logistics: Hype nights often conflict with curfew laws; events sometimes run from 8:00pm to 11:30pm, directly leading into curfew hours (12:36).
  • The repeated violence and size of these events (regularly over 1,000 attendees) raise questions about city policy and oversight.

Notable Quote

"They are fully aware that they're releasing mass amounts of young teenagers into the streets right before the curfew is supposed to be cut off. That seems slightly treasonous to me."
—Leona Salinas (12:56)

---

Timestamps of Important Segments

| Timestamp | Segment Description | |------------|--------------------------------------------------------| | 00:39 | Introduction of Leona Salinas and setup of the story | | 01:55–04:46| Firsthand account of the teen riot | | 07:12–09:39| Aftermath, attendee reactions, police involvement | | 09:39–12:11| Investigation into DPR and event organization | | 12:36–13:19| Discussion of event scheduling, curfew, and impact |

---

Memorable Quotes

• Leona Salinas:
  • "I saw the person who shot the weapon. Yes. And so I hesitated, made sure that my hand was decently steady so I could get good footage. And then immediately after that, continued to run with the crowd." (04:37)
  • "I want to absolutely continue doing this report. They have multiple events that are going on this week and next week that I absolutely want to pursue as well." (13:26)
• Michaela (Attendee): (as paraphrased by Salinas)
  • "We're supposed to just share a sense of community." (03:20)
  • "Every single one that I've gone to, someone jumps another, someone gets robbed, someone gets shot." (03:40)
• John Bickley:
  • "We're very glad you are safe and thank you so much for coming on and reporting for us." (13:19)

---

Tone & Takeaways

The episode is investigative, skeptical, and critical. Hosts emphasize the pattern of violence, racial exclusivity, and lack of official accountability. Leona Salinas exhibits determination and a sense of journalistic duty, even in dangerous situations.

For listeners:
This episode offers an in-depth look at a controversial issue unraveling in the nation’s capital—where youth violence, official responsibility, and social tensions collide. It provides exclusive on-the-ground reporting and raises questions about how, and why, such city-sponsored events persist despite their violent outcomes.

Transcript

[Ryan Reynolds]

Hey, it's Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile. Now, I was looking for fun ways to tell you that Mint's offer of unlimited Premium Wireless for $15 a month is back. So I thought it would be fun if we made $15 bills, but it turns out that's very illegal. So there goes my big idea for the commercial. Give it a [e-mail] Switch upfront payment

[Commercial Narrator]

of $45 for three months, $90 for six months or $180 for a 12 month plan. Required $15 per month equivalent taxes and fees. Extra initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabytes. Me slow when network.

[Leona Salinas]

Did you see what happened? Did someone get shot?

[Commercial Narrator]

Yeah.

[Leona Salinas]

Yeah. No, that's what I saw. I saw it too.

[John Bickley]

That was Daily Wire contributor Leona Salinas reporting on her firsthand experience in a so called teen takeover in Washington, D.C. that erupted into violence, including shots fired and attacks on National Guardsmen.

[Georgia Howe]

While the trend of these teen riots is becoming a regular occurrence in many big cities, what Salinas learned has sparked a Daily Wire investigation. The teen takeover she experienced grew out of a hype night event put on by DC's Department of Parks and Recreation. And participants say every one of these racially charged events put on by the department has likewise devolved into violence.

[John Bickley]

In this episode, Salinas joins us to give her firsthand account of the riots she found herself swept up in and the troubling details she's learned about its origins. I'm Daily Wire executive editor John Bickley with Georgia Howe. This is a weekend edition of MORNING wire. Joining us now is reporter and Daily Wire contributor Leona Salinas. Great to have you on the show.

[Leona Salinas]

Thank you so much. It's an honor to be here.

[John Bickley]

So we read with interest your report on this teen takeover, which is the euphemism used for these events that you experienced firsthand in dc. And we'd like you to just tell us what happened. What did you experience that night? When did this happen? What did you see?

[Leona Salinas]

So it happened last week and I was just leaving a dinner with a couple friends and I was on the way back to my apartment. I was heading to the Metro station and all of a sudden I just see hundreds, nearly thousands of teenagers, all African American, urban youth essentially. And what happened was, is I just saw them running, screaming, and most of them were wearing masks and holding signs that were somewhat intelligible. And so immediately I just went up there and started recording. And I said, why are you here today? What is this for? And they just started yelling obscenities at me and kept running down the streets. And all of a sudden, there were cop cars on my left and right, sirens blaring. And I just decided that, you know, it would be a good idea to probably follow them for a story. So I let a few people know where I was and where I was going, just in case, you know, there was any safety issues. And I followed them. And I immediately went to the end of the very, very long line of teens. And I stuck with this one very sensible young lady. Her name was Michaela. She was 18 years old. And I started asking her, why are you here? What is this for? And I started interviewing her and a couple of her colleagues and trailing her. And we just had to keep running from alley to alley because fights kept breaking out, people were jumping each other. And I started asking her, how many of these have you been to? What happens? Why are you here? Who coordinated this? And immediately she said, dpr. I said, what is dpr? She said, I actually don't know, but they send us text messages on Instagram and tell us where to meet, when and why. And I said, well, why? And she goes, I don't exactly know, but we're supposed to just share a sense of community. I said, what community is that? And she said, black youth. I said, all right, that works. I said, how often does this end up in violence? She said, every single one that I've gone to, someone jumps another, someone gets robbed, someone gets shot. She said she's seen multiple individuals be shot. And as I was walking, we started to run from alley to alley. As I aforementioned. Then we went to this one alley, and a bunch of teenagers started running towards us. There were cop cars cutting us off on either side. Then I saw a bigger fight, breakout. So, you know, working for the Daily Wire, I thought right now, oh, this is. This is great to clip this. You know, my boss would love this. So I started inching closer as much as I possibly could, and then all of a sudden, just, bam, There was a gunshot. And I saw the person who shot the weapon. Yes. And so I hesitated, made sure that my hand was decently steady so I could get good footage. And then immediately after that, continued to run with the crowd.

[John Bickley]

We appreciate you being bold like this. I'm not going to recommend this going forward, but. So you actually saw the person shooting the gun?

[Leona Salinas]

Yes. Yes, sir.

[John Bickley]

Okay. And then more chaos breaks out. What happens next?

[Ryan Reynolds]

I want to tell you about my friends at Alliance Defending Freedom. ADF is dedicated to protecting free speech, religious freedom, the sanctity of life, parental rights and gods designed for males and females. They've scored huge legal victories like helping to topple Roe versus Wade and securing a landmark free speech win at the Supreme Court just a few months ago on behalf of Christian counselor Kaylee Chiles. And they're fighting some of our culture's most pressing issues, from creating model legislation to protect women's sports to efforts to dismantle mail order schemes for abortion drugs. ADF relies on the generous support of people like you to defend every person's God given rights, working in the courtroom to make a difference in the culture. For a limited time, every dollar you give to ADF will be matched. That means $25 becomes 50, 50 becomes 100, but only while matching funds last. Go to joinadf.com wired or text wired to 83848 to have your gift to ADF doubled. That's joinadf.com wired or Text wired to 83848 to double your impact for freedom

[Commercial Narrator]

if you've been paying attention to the news lately, you've probably noticed that food seems to make the headlines almost as often as politics. One week it's a recall, the next it's concerns about contaminated produce, then another report telling you something that you've been eating isn't as healthy as you thought. At a certain point, taking care of yourself can start to feel unnecessarily complicated. That's one reason that we've been talking about balance of nature around the office. Balance of nature's whole health system is made from real fruits, vegetables, spices and fiber, making it an easy addition to your daily routine even as summer winds down and schedules start filling up again. We're also big fans of the freeze dried snacks. They're perfect to keep at your desk, toss in a work bag or grab on a busy morning when you're heading out the door. The news changes every day. Taking care of yourself shouldn't have to go to balanceofnature.com and subscribe to the whole health system or any of their subscriptions and get an additional 10% off your subscription with Promo Code Wire. That's Balance of Nature Promo Code Wire.

[Leona Salinas]

So essentially I run to the next alley over. I don't want to run away from the crime scene because I still want to continue my report. So I end up calling Mary Margaret and telling her what happened and she goes, why are you there? You need to leave. And you know, it's it's so great that she was trying to keep me safe, but I respectfully was saying I'm not going to leave. This is the type of field that I'm interested in. Someday I want to be a foreign correspondent and report from war zones. So I was thinking, oh, this is perfect for me. So I stayed back for a couple minutes, and then I ended up calling Michaela, the girl that I was initially with, and she said she was safe and she was in a different alley. So we decided to both meet back up where the shooting initially occurred. And so I went there, took some more footage because there were still people running around. And then we ended up getting kicked out by the National Guard because they were putting up yellow tape everywhere. And after that, I just started interviewing more attendees and asking why they were masked, asking if they saw it. I recognized some of the faces of the attendees already as they were there. And they immediately were denying being there at all. They were saying, I didn't see anything. I said, why are you masked? They said, they're going to arrest us. And so many of them just kept repeating the sentiment that cops were racist. And I just asked why. Very simple question, not trying to portray any bias. And they just said they just are. They just don't like black kids, that's all. And so I. So I ended up talking to the police, and I was the only one, at least at the time, that I know of, who had any footage of the incident. And so they ended up taking a witness statement. And I gave them all of the footage that I had acquired from that night. And I stuck around for a little bit and I heard them say that they needed to use pepper balls to fire off into the crowd because it was just getting so rowdy. I even saw the National Guard just standing there, and the teenagers, the youth were throwing things at them, screaming, cursing, getting into fights again, right in front of them as the National Guard were just standing there idle, not even saying a word. And it was very interesting to me because they were calling all of the National Guardsmen and cops racist while most of them were actually black.

[John Bickley]

Yeah. A trend we've seen again and again. Now, you mentioned a key part of this story. Michaela mentioned the dpr. And we have since looked into this, and this is a really shocking aspect of this story. Can you unpack that part of it for us?

[Leona Salinas]

Yes, of course. So basically, it seems, because I was looking at their website as well, that they've had these hype night events that have been going on for a very long time, months at least, and they have them at least once a week. And basically where it's just Black teens only get together and they make signs. What Michaela told me is they make signs to hone their graffiti skills and make them for their loved ones, as well as the fact that they just get together and watch movies and go swimming and do a bunch of trivial and at first innocent sounding things like that. But every single one of them, from what the attendees have told me, always end in some form of. Some form of very graphic violence. And it's very interesting that DPR is putting this on because after looking at their staff, they have no white staffers at all in their executive or normal staff. After looking there. And not only that, we reached out for comment immediately, the day the article was released and beforehand. No comment whatsoever at all. And if you look on their website at all, they recognize that each of these events amount to a thousand kids or more minimally, it says that on their bio. And I don't know how they don't correlate the two, especially with the government mandate of curfews in all of these neighborhoods. They run real. These events run really late. So it seems like they are actively trying to diminish the curfew that our government has instilled.

[John Bickley]

And to be clear, this is Washington D.C. 's official Department of Parks and Recreation.

[Leona Salinas]

Yes, it is their official government page. Yes.

[Georgia Howe]

When they send out their invitations, do they specify that this is for black youth or is it for everyone?

[Leona Salinas]

Oh, they say black youth explicitly. You can't, you can't go if you're not. So when I was there, I was the only person who wasn't black. There wasn't even actually. And if anything, I'm Hispanic, my family's from Mexico. But even still, I didn't even see any other race that wasn't black. It was very interesting how that was.

[John Bickley]

And again, firsthand accounts, every single one of these devolves into violence. Yet this department continues to put these on and encourage this action. Specifically, these night hype events.

[Leona Salinas]

Yes, they absolutely do condone it. And they condone it to be huge because like I said, on their website, it says they regularly accumulate over a thousand attendees at every single event that they host.

[Georgia Howe]

What time are they supposed to start at and what time is the curfew?

[Leona Salinas]

So they vary. But a lot of the curfews, which also vary depending on the neighborhood, they usually have all teenagers be home by around 11pm at night. But the hype nights also vary, but sometimes they go anywhere from 8:00pm to 11:30pm so they, they can break the curfew and they often do. And obviously it takes time for these teens to get home. So they are fully aware that they're releasing mass amounts of young teenagers into the streets right before the curfew is supposed to be cut off. That seems slightly treasonous to me.

[John Bickley]

Yeah. Fascinating. Well, we're very glad you are safe and thank you so much for coming on and reporting for us.

[Leona Salinas]

Of course, anytime I want to absolutely continue doing this report. They have multiple events that are going on this week and next week that I absolutely want to pursue as well.

[John Bickley]

Be safe.

[Leona Salinas]

Thank you so much.

[Georgia Howe]

That was Daily Wire contributor Leona Salinas. And this has been a weekend episode of Morning Wire.

[Commercial Narrator]

In the US there's a break in every 26 seconds. But when intruders step near Simplisafe, home security steps up.

[Leona Salinas]

Stop.

[John Bickley]

This is Simplisafe. Police are on the way.

[Commercial Narrator]

Using AI alerts, US Based live agents help deter break inside Simplisafe. No long term contracts. Save 50% on your new system with professional monitoring at Simplisafe. Com Spotify or with promo code Spotify

[John Bickley]

Outdoor Deterrence requires a Simplisafe Active guard

[Ryan Reynolds]

outdoor protection plan starting at 49 99amonth. Visit simplisafe.

[Leona Salinas]

Com Licenses for ALARM license information.

[John Bickley]

Tennessee2012.