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.

TRUMP PENS LETTER TO GRIEVING MOTHER OF SLAIN CONGRESSIONAL INTERN: 'HELD IN MY HEART'
 

"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.

MOM OF CONGRESSIONAL INTERN MURDERED IN DC WARNS PARENTS IT COULD HAPPEN TO THEIR KIDS

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.

A federal appeals court upheld an Oklahoma law banning gender transition medical treatment for minors.

The law, Senate Bill 613, makes it a felony for health care workers to provide gender transition treatment such as puberty-blocking drugs and hormones to a minor.

The bill was passed by the state’s Republican-controlled legislature and signed into law by GOP Gov. Kevin Stitt in 2023.

Five families of transgender children and a physician challenged the state’s law, arguing it violated their constitutional rights.

ITALIAN LAW WOULD REGULATE GENDER TRANSITION TREATMENT FOR MINORS

The plaintiffs, represented by Lambda Legal, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the ACLU of Oklahoma, argued that lawmakers approved the law with discriminatory intent, pointing to a 2022 law that froze pandemic relief funding for the hospital system OU Health unless Oklahoma Children’s Hospital halted gender transition treatment for minors.

A federal judge declined to block the law from taking effect in 2023, writing that transgender medical care for children is "an area in which medical and policy debate is unfolding" and the state "can rationally take the side of caution before permitting irreversible medical treatments of its children."

The U.S. Supreme Court in June upheld a similar Tennessee ban on transgender-related treatment, a ruling relied upon when the 10th Circuit issued its ruling in Oklahoma on Wednesday, when a three-judge panel ruled unanimously that Oklahoma’s law is constitutional.

The laws in Tennessee and Oklahoma "are functionally indistinguishable," Circuit Judge Joel M. Carson, an appointee of President Donald Trump, wrote in the order.

The order says Oklahoma’s law does not violate the Constitution and was not intended to discriminate against transgender children.

"We recognize the importance of this issue to all involved," Carson wrote. "But this remains a novel issue with disagreement on how to assure children’s health and welfare. We will not usurp the legislature’s judgment when it engages in ‘earnest and profound debate about the morality, legality, and practicality’ of gender transition procedures for minors."

"While we respect that Plaintiffs disagree with the legislature’s assessment of such procedures’ risks, that alone does not invalidate a democratically enacted law on rational-basis grounds," the judge added.

Oklahoma's Republican Attorney General Gentner Drummond praised the court’s ruling in a post on social media.

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"For years, radical left activists pushed the lie of 'gender transition' procedures for minors. The truth is much simpler: there is no such thing," he wrote Thursday on X. "Today, here in Oklahoma, we celebrate a new decision from the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals that recognizes this truth and protects our children. I am proud to have fought this battle and won. This is a victory for our children, for our Constitution, and for common sense."

Attorneys for the plaintiffs, on the other hand, described Wednesday’s ruling as "a devastating outcome for transgender youth and their families across Oklahoma and another tragic result of the Supreme Court’s errant and harmful ruling" in the Tennessee case.

"Oklahoma’s ban is openly discriminatory and provably harmful to the transgender youth of this state, putting political dogma above parents, their children, and their family doctors," the attorneys said in a joint statement. "While we and our clients consider our next steps, we want all transgender people and their families across Oklahoma to know we will never stop fighting for the future they deserve and their freedom to be themselves."