Weekend Perp Caught – Tunnel Fine Wines Open

Actually — I would encourage MPD and Tommy Wells office to start providing more police protection NOW. We do not have enough police protection for the residents in the downtown area that live here today. When the others arrive, we will be in crisis mode. HELP!!!!

agreed. A walk around those few blocks is an example of the consequences- good and bad- of gentrification. I clutch my Fendi close to the hip (and I’m not being sarcastic). There is a huge disparity between most residents in the area, who frequent stores like Tunnel, and the folks that wander the streets by Tunnel.

I live in the area as well. But I want to absolutely correct a huge misconception. Not all of us are RICH!!!! I own my condo but I am a hard working middle-class person. I do not own a Fendi bag. And I have sacrificed ALOT to own my condo — I am very house rich and cash poor. I think that perpetuating the have and have-not myth only keeps the divisions going.

People who rob are criminals and fools.

I try never to venture on foot north of H Street or east of Sixth Street. Today’s District Extra in the Post reports (at p. 13) a car-jacking with gun at 6 & H at 6 pm on Dec 10 and muggings at Fifth & K around 7 pm on Dec 13, at Seventh & Rhode Island at 4:50 pm on Dec 12, and at Seventh & G at 12:52 am on Dec 10. Keep in mind that reported crimes are usually a small fraction of actual crimes.
I agree – we need more police protection now.

7 and G is in front of Verizon Center, which puts that in a heavy traffic area, not to mention the location of the Christmas market.

This is a city and as in all cities, we have our share of crime.

Even though some of you are “mortgage poor”, the actual poor don’t know this or much less care. They need money and perceive many of the new residents as having plenty. I am sure that they feel that we have invaded their neighborhood.

It doesn’t condone what they do, but there is certainly more than one way of looking at the problem.

As neighbors, new and old to the area, we need to find a way to close the boundaries that separate these views and attitudes.

Anon – you are right… we should leave the neighborhood the way it used to be… it was a much better place before the “mortgage poor” showed up. It seems like the District will take the increased tax revenue we bring them by relocating here… yet they dont want to pay the money necessary to increase police patrols… which oh by the way… is funded by our tax dollars.

And for all of those MPD defenders, perhaps you can explain why DC had 29.6 murders per 100,000 residents in 2006 while NYC had 7.3 which will be even lower for 2007. While Fenty has done a lot in his short time as Mayor, he and the City have a long way to go and the fact remains that we are not getting anywhere near the services we should for the taxes we pay.

If the Supreme Court would hurry up and affirm the D.C. Circuit’s gun ban ruling, this problem would quickly solve itself.

I know I will not be the only one lining up for my concealed handgun permit the day after the Court announces the correct ruling.

Speaking of frequenting neighborhood businesses. Try Bistro D’OC’s winebar.

Terrible about the crime spike, but again this must be expected in a city. I think we all need to be aware of where we are, who is around us and be careful.

David, our taxes are so high because so many DC residents still pay taxes in their home state and never bother changing. That leaves fewer earners to cover the services needed.

Also, feel free to correct me if I am wrong but I believe MPD’s budget comes from federal funding rather than local revenue.

Finally, my own pet peeve, if they allowed direct shipping of wine to DC we would not need the liquor store. (That is a joke for everyone who gets worked up over things posted on this blog)

Problem Solved, I agree 100%. I plan to be in line.

But that side, DC has a terrible crime problem. A lot of that rests from the lack of any enforcement of any Petty Crime. If you don’t enforce petty crime, that developes into bigger crimes which developes into assaulted and shot at wine store owners which results in murder. NY got it right, Philly is getting it right, DC is not interested in doing anything about the problem. It saddens me that a place with such a small population, with such intelligent, hard working people can be such a mess.

It is great the perpetrator was caught. I think patrols need to be improved around the 4th and 5th and H area. A week doesn’t go by living in the area where there is a mugging or a burglary of someone in my building. Kind of sad when the FOP and police headquarters are mere blocks away. The buildings in our neighborhood are such an easy target.

I stopped by and spoke with the owner tonight and found him happy to talk of the neighborhood’s support and his on-going recovery from the shooting. I was surprised that he was already back at work but he was determined to open up as soon as possible and I applaud him for this! Even if you don’t necessarily need to buy anything, please stop by and give him some words of support so that he knows how much the neighborhood is glad to have him here.

You can tell that I’m not rich. I thought that the Fendi #2 was clutching close to the hip was a gun.

#5 completely misunderstands the issues here. These are not “the poor” who are committing these crimes. They’re criminals and drug addicts. Being poor does not inherently make you a criminal. This kind of logic leads to the opposite conclusion that rich people don’t commit crimes since they have a lot of money.

Anyone who has lived downtown for a while knows that Chief Lanier has pulled officers out of here for other parts of the city. It’s easy to be a victim of a crime here in broad daylight or when many people are around, because the police aren’t here. So nobody should get too comfortable walking around the neighborhood. It’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better, if at all.

They(criminals in the area) get away with their crimes
because they know they CAN, without much worry MPD will be around. Just like when McD’s closes, I can see the gang hangout moving into the center area of Gallery Place near the little stands..

No, the MPD is not funded by the federal government. It is part of DC’s budget. The federal government does give DC an annual payment to compensate for DC not being able to collect tax on all the federally owned office buildings, embassy buildings, having to provide support for many of the federal events, etc., but that money doesn’t go directly to the MPD. Budgeting for the MPD is the District’s responsibility, and getting more money for Police, paying for overtime, raising the Chief’s salary, etc. has to go before the Council and in the budget. Of course, then the budget has to go before Congress, but that is because of how Home Rule works, not because MPD is directly funded by the feds. However, there are a number of federal grants from the feds for things like home security, but other cities such as NYC get those as well.

I agree that the MPD needs to start enforcing more petty crimes to cut down on the perception the criminals have of having a really good chance of getting away with most anything (which appears true). Many people have been asking for that in the last several years in many neighborhoods, but the MPD doesn’t seem supportive, and neither do a lot of Council members, like Schwartz. In her visit to the DNA, she seemed to say that is because we are a “liberal” city. Unfortunately, when the MPD gets pressured to provide a higher level of enforcement, they appear to try to target only the people asking for the enforcement to punish them for asking, and to keep enforcement at the current level, like in this story. That is one example, but it certainly isn’t the first time that kind of thing happened.

I personally think 3 main things could help change this:
1) Making the officers’ paperwork and processing of crimes more like it is in surrounding jurisdictions. Our officers have to fill out much more paperwork and spend a lot more of their own time on processing than officers in other jurisdictions, which causes them to just not take reports in many cases (which causes are crime rates to be under reported in some areas). I think we actually continue to lose good officers to surrounding jurisdictions partially because of this, while we appear to hire officers from other areas that need the job, maybe because they didn’t make the cut somewhere else, which also has us going to places like Puerto Rico to get officers. I know we have good officers, but we have far more than our share of challenged officers as well.

2) Setting expectations with given neighborhoods around what the MPD is willing to enforce (or not enforce), and at what level. This is especially helpful in areas where the laws are not well understood or are not often enforced in many areas (like early morning construction or trash pickup). I think this would allow the residents, MPD and Council/ANCs to identify exactly where there are gaps either in a given law or the expectation of the residents vs. the MPD. Then everyone is in a better position to address the gaps through a variety of methods. Unfortunately, from what i have seen, the MPD’s leaders don’t seem to want to engage in that type of discussion. When they say they want community support, they want you to tell them who shot somebody, not ways to do their job better (which is how they perceive it).

3) I have changed my view over the years, and I am not sure that counting officers per 1000 residents (or whatever the number), and then comparing to NYC makes sense. I mostly believe this because NYC is far more densely populated than DC, and I think that makes a huge difference in how many officers there are to cover a given area. I think if we look at officers per square mile, then we have less coverage than NYC (meaning we need more officers to get the kind of coverage NYC has). If you want to see officers on the street, that comparison would seem to make more sense. Of course many people think more officers won’t make a difference (I believe this applies to Fenty). I am starting to believe that to a point (and I don’t know how many officers that point is), more officers would make a difference because there would be more officer visibility, and they wouldn’t be pulling officers from X neighborhood (Penn Quarter) to cover Y neighborhood (BTW, other neighborhoods, like Shaw, are told the exact same thing about officers having been pulled to cover another area). Of course it only makes a difference if each officer is doing good work as well.

The MPD also continues to resist aligning the PSA boundaries with ANC boundaries, which would allow residents and community groups to work more efficiently and effectively with Police, not to mention the Council members and ANC leaders. I have never heard a good reason why they resist it, except that they don’t want to answer to politicians, so they continue with divide and conquer. The answer I got from an Asst. Chief that last time they changed the PSA boundaries to match the OP’s SNAP boundaries, was that I was underestimating Council members’ abilities to split MPD Districts and PSAs (which I thought was missing the point entirely, which or course didn’t surprise me at all).

The MPD also continues to refuse to release internal investigation reports in many cases, such as the case where over 150 officers were supposedly punished for racist behavior. They said they had to keep it secret, even from Council members who serve in MPD oversight capacities, to protect the officers who were punished. That doesn’t hold water since I hear a lot of other stories where they mention officers names who broke policy, not to mention that when a Judge ordered the Pershing Park report release, it was apparent that Chief Ramsey had lied about why they kept it secret (or someone under him gave him bad info, I’m sure). Not releasing these reports really keeps the public and the Council from evaluating how the MPD is performing and dealing with problems. Nice that they can avoid responsibility, but we end up not seeing improvement.

This is all to say that I think the MPD has plenty of improvements that can be made that could have high impact on residents concerns. I had higher hopes in Chief Lanier making some sizable basic changes by now, but I remain far more impressed by Rhee than Lanier. Lanier does seem to want more Police by using this very expensive “All hands on deck” tactic, but I would like to see us increase the size of the force instead. Of course that’s hard when officers don’t want to work here because of our other issues. I also thought I saw that she was trying to improve the incident reporting paper work/processing for officers, but I don’t think anything is actually changed yet. In the future please email your council member and the at-large council members asking for changes in the MPD however you see fit, because it really does make a difference. The council members focus on the things given neighborhoods complain about.

Sorry for the book, but this issue is near and dear to my heart.

Thanks to #13 for the interesting thoughts and comments.

Some of the comments posted here make me wonder if people have lived in cities for very long. This sort of thing is not unique, and the fear-mongering and ‘no go zone’ attitude that some people seem to have is counterproductive at best.

No doubt, crime is a problem in our neighborhood. It requires a multi-tiered approach that has probably been elaborated upon more times than people can count but is still worth listing out:

– Personal responsibility: Don’t listen to music or talk on your cell phone, especially at night, because it cuts down on awareness. Stay alert to your surroundings. Try to walk where it is well lit, if possible. Try to walk with at least one other person, again if possible. Look behind you every now and then. It’s not paranoia, it’s safety.

– Civic responsibility: Inform the people that can make changes about the problems. Saying ‘oh they never listen’ or ‘oh things never change’ its pointless. Step up or shut up. If you think you could do a better job, then run for office rather than complaining on a message board anonymously.

– Neighborly responsibility: Keep your eye out for the safety of others, support local businesses, and be an ambassador for our neighborhood. Telling your friends the area is dangerous or ‘I don’t go north of H street’ is ridiculous and damages the area’s image and improvement, which we all want to be bettered.

Sorry if this seems like a rant, but I find it wild that people won’t walk east of such and such street or north of such and such because of a couple of ancidotal stories that are published with scant details on the situation that led to the crime. I live at 5th and H, so I guess I’m in the red zone according to some, but things are never going to change if we bust out the barbed wire and cordon ourselves into a DC version of the Green Zone.

Perhaps we do need more police officers. However, I am not interested in paying for more until the ones we have do their jobs and then we see if we still have a problem. Our police force is more of a jobs program than an actual citizen protection service. Most police officers are unwilling to risk injury or their lives to protect those that pay their salaries, even though they understood that was what they were signing up for when they went to school and signed up to become police officers. They should be dealing with theft, muggings, drugs, prostitution, robberies, etc. instead of making us wearour seat belts, or ticketing us for an accidental right turn on red when not allowed, etc. DC Schools, problem #1. Police Department, problem #2. A spike in crime as large as our recent spike would be acceptable if it was because we didn’t have any police officers because we had fired all of them and were taking the time to interview and re-hire only the ones worth having. A spike just because? Not acceptable. Wonder if it is the good ole’ boys not doing their jobs so their female boss looks bad. Hate to say I can believe it. And what about those cops that ticketed residents for not having their wheels turned toward the curb ON FLAT STREETS! Why do those officers still have their jobs? They should have been fired, not investigated! I would support paying for DC housing for police officers as I think they need to live in DC – maybe they would care more if they actually lived in the city and were the residents that were supposed to be receiving protection. To summarize my rant….DC MPD SUCKS.

#15 – Nice rant, but most hard-core criminals are caught for violating the simpler traffic laws. It sounds like you’ve had one too many parking tickets and are disgruntled. Also, parking tickets are doled out by DPW, not MPD (except in special cases).

I prefer that MPD focus on *both* petty crimes and serious crimes.

Damn, those details (DPW vs. MPD!) :). Not one too many parking tickets – tired of hearing about the crimes that many are victims of for no good reason………

I’ve lived in a city all of my life – NYC, then here. If you think you can go anywhere here in DC & not be a crime victim, then just go to the Anacostia metro station & walk home, or just walk east & see how far you get. Setting boundaries is important, as well as the other steps suggested above [i.e., stash the iPod etc.]
Cities do not equal crime. Poorly run cities have high crime rates; well run cities have low crime rates. Putting up with high crime rates is not a necessary part of city life.

Thanks Joe. I also don’t understand folks that think we are naive because we know that we could do better in this town. I’ve lived in larger cities my whole life and have never been confronted with the frequency of lawlessness that I witness. I have to look out my window every day to see where the drug dealers are before I walk my dog. It is shameful.

Forget about dark alleys, I think twice about walking down 7th Street in the broad daylight these days. On 7th, I continue to see an increasing number of delinquents and thugs staring at me with hatred- and spite-filled eyes. I often see the same eyes, just a bit more weathered, from many of the cops sitting in their cars in our neighborhood who are supposed to protect us. I hear you about reducing usage of cell phones and ipods but what’s next, only wearing Old Navy sweatsuits and Casio digital watches. Give me a break.