As many as three men armed with guns held up a dozen people during Monday morning’s commute in a series of robberies in the Capitol Hill area, D.C. police said, in one case targeting a congressional staffer from Texas near Stanton Park as he walked to work. Police suspect the group in seven attacks committed between 6 a.m. and 7:45 a.m. on residential streets spanning eastward from the Union Station area through the heart of Capitol Hill to Hill East, near the old RFK Stadium. No arrests had been made as of early Wednesday afternoon.

Brayden Woods, 26, the legislative director for Rep. Beth Van Duyne (R-Texas), is one of several staffers and members of Congress targeted in robberies or attacks in the District since early last year, when violent crime was spiking.

It has since receded, but the assaults have drawn the focus of congressional Republicans and the former and future president, Donald Trump, who has repeatedly asserted that crime is out of control in the nation’s capital.

Reached Wednesday, Woods agreed to comment publicly about the attack. In a statement, he said he thought he lived in a safe neighborhood “due to the proximity of the Capitol” and “never imagined I could become a victim of violent crime.”

Woods thanked the police who responded to the attack but said “it’s clear that their hands are tied,” adding that he believes criminals are treated “too leniently” in D.C., ultimately leaving “victims to fend for themselves.”

He faulted city leaders for their handling of criminal justice issues and said he understood why many of his friends “have chosen to leave the District and move to Virginia.”

In a statement, Van Duyne said she is “outraged by Democrats’ soft-on-crime policies that continue to embolden criminals and endanger our communities.” She called the attack a “painful reminder” of the harm inflicted by leftists who believe violent criminals are the real victims.”

Representatives from D.C. police did not immediately comment.

The office of Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) referred a reporter to remarks she made at a signing ceremony for a recent package of public safety legislation, where she said “people who are using guns in our city, robbing or carjacking, or stealing from stores, bringing drugs or violence into our neighborhoods - we want the message to be very clear: If you are participating in those activities, we will hold you accountable.”

Confronted last year with an urgent fear of rising crime among a generational spike in violence, Bowser and the D.C. Council shifted away from more liberal criminal justice strategies, embracing measures that promoted more aggressive policing, prosecutions and detentions.

They also faced bipartisan pressure from Congress - galvanized in some cases by personal experiences - that fueled a successful effort to block the D.C. Council’s revisions to the criminal code, marking the first time in 30 years that federal lawmakers overturned local legislation.

In October 2023, Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) was robbed of his SUV at gunpoint in the Navy Yard area of Southeast Washington, not far from the U.S. Capitol. In March 2023, a staffer with the office of Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) was critically stabbed while picking up food on a busy commercial street in Northeast. A month earlier, Rep. Angie Craig (D-Minnesota) was assaulted in the elevator of her apartment in the Union Station area of Northeast Washington. In November of last year, an off-duty FBI agent was carjacked in an agency vehicle on Capitol Hill. Arrests have been made in all the cases but the one involving Cuellar.

Police say violent crime is down 35 percent in D.C. compared with 2023, with significant declines in robberies and carjackings as well as homicides, which are down nearly 30 percent.

D.C. police said detectives linked the crimes through surveillance video, descriptions of the gunmen and their vehicle, and the similarities of the robberies. Monday’s robberies in the Capitol Hill area began before daybreak, when three people, all armed with dark-colored handguns, robbed three victims as they tried to enter their car along the H Street corridor in Northeast. A police report says the robbers got a purse with $200.

The robberies, some minutes apart, continued for the next hour and 45 minutes near Lincoln Park on Capitol Hill, on streets near Union Station, and in Hill East. In one robbery on East Capitol Street in Southeast, police said a man and woman were held up from behind at gunpoint in front of a church. One man pointed the gun at the man’s head and demanded, “Give us your stuff!” according to the police report, and patted down the victims while taking two Apple iPhones.

In another robbery near Union Station, police said a man leaving his apartment was attacked and put in a chokehold, then punched and kicked in the head. Police said his wallet and phone were taken by men who ran to a red vehicle double parked a block away.

Police said Woods, the congressional staffer, is believed to be the last victim in the series of robberies. A police report says he was walking west along the 600 block of Constitution Avenue NE, when a man armed with a black semiautomatic handgun got out of a red four-door sedan with Maryland license plates and confronted him.

“Give me everything,” he said, according to the police report, taking a wallet, tablet and MacBook computer. Woods said most of the items were found by police using tracking devices and that his iPad was found by a random bystander. His MacBook remains missing.