A Glance At Crime In PQ, Year To Date

Assuming that you gathered the data on a public website, could you edit the post to include a link to the source? Thanks!

That’s great some instances of crime are decreasing but those numbers are still depressing to me.

How on earth is there a robbery with a gun on H between 6th and 7th? That area is always crowded, even late at night.

Tom: Yes, MPD has an excellent crime mapping application.

Anon: One of those robberies was probably when someone robbed the BB&T bank early this year. I believe the person displayed a gun to the teller, however no shots were fired.

Anon: If you’re feeling depressed, take a look at Arlington, VA’s crime reports.

Unfortunately, the crime statistics do not include drug possession, DUI and drug selling arrests. I have probably personally witnessed 30 drug arrests this month around 5th and 6th Streets NW. I can honestly tell you that me and my Penn Quarter/Mt. Vernon Triangle neighbors up on Mass. Ave NW do NOT feel safer. The gang and drug selling activity has absolutely spiked in this area. If you don’t agree, ask the owner of Subway Liquor who got shot last week and who will be paralyzed the rest of his life if he survives.

#7: that activity will probably lessen when CityVista opens for business. Right now, the only patrons of Subway Liquor (at 5th & K St NW) are drug addicts and construction workers (wearing their hard hats as they go in and out of the store).

This is how sad it has gotten on 5th street between Mass and K Street. During our Board of Directors meeting we had 2 officers come and tell us about the shooting at the liquor store and just how rampant and prevalent the drug trade is on that block. When asked why they don’t do anything about it we heard 1 excuse after another. They’re suggestion was for the existing building owners to purchase a vacant unit from the developer that could be used for 24 hour camera surveillance of the activities on 5th. That makes sense to me… purchase a $600K condo to hand over to the MPD who are too scared or don’t care enough to get out of their cars. As if my condo fee isn’t high enough already.

It has come to the point I am now afraid to walk in that vicinity. I thought all the high end condos were going to make the crime situation better???

Those statistics are all we’ve got, but they’re garbage.

Purchase a unit so that the MPD can have camera surveillance so that they can watch this more safely from a distance? Like they need a camera, right? It’s basically an open market, and has been all along, so what would “surveillance” provide?

If the MPD can’t stop what they see right under their noses in person, what more can surveillance provide?

We pay very steep taxes and fees for the privilege of living downtown, so the thought of the MPD shaking us down for a condo is offensive.

Cmd. Groomes, are you reading this? Do you care?

With all due respect gpliving, you must not live next to the crime wave on 5th Street. Beyond having rampant gang activity, drug dealing and prostitution, we now have guys that are armed. The guys who are using the neighborhood to base their operations are openly aggressive to the residents. The new developments are not going to open until next year. We could get a resident killed or injured during that time. Is this the Wild West or downtown DC?

I thought all the high end condos were going to make the crime situation better???

Why? Because criminals are afraid of tall buildings full of people with money?

Check out the O Street/Mount Vernon Square/Rhode Island Avenue blogs. Criminal activity is all around you, if you know where to look.

I’d also argue with the statement about Subway Liquor’s patrons only being drug addicts and construction workers. I and many other residents at 555 Mass patronize that store. We have been working with John (the owner who got shot) to upgrade the inventory to support the changing neighborhood demographic. He is a sweetheart and we feel absolutely horrible about what has happened to him (the shooting and paralysis). And the customer that was shot could have easily been one of my neighbors. It is naive to minimize what is happening in this neighborhood. People have been sold on moving into an open air drug market with the promise of support from the city. Unless DC gets aggressive, more tragedies will occur.

Monkey: More development “should” bring a larger police presence, greater community watch and a less attractive environment for drug dealers and other criminals to do business. Oh yeah, we’re in DC — let’s fund programs to help the criminals instead.

I think its great and all that Fenty is such a huge fan of Bloomberg and is using the New York model to revamp the Board of Education in DC, but I think he needs to take a page from New York’s Police Department. Being a native New Yorker, having grown up in Brooklyn, its amazing to me how different cops in New York are from DC. Cops in New York don’t tolerate homeless people walking with and harassing residents while in DC the cops I see are too lazy to even get out of their cars. I finally noticed an MPD van at the corner of 5th and K where the liquor store is but its sad that it took a man basically losing his life to get them here. This may not be the most PC thing to say but it wouldn’t hurt for an officer or 2 to show these thugs (through force, if necessary) that this is no longer their neighborhood and that people who care and paid good money to have the city life will not accept their derelict, criminal behavior. I hope one of Fenty’s staffers combs this blog.

I’m sure that the development of CityVista, Madrigal, Sonata and Yale will bring a wave of residents who will not put up with the situation as it currently stands. I’m contemplating a purchase at one of those buildings but a quick drive by in the area reveals the risk. the project sales reps will always try to minimize the risks of living there because they want the sale. like it or not, current tenants in that area are on the development frontier and uncertainty and risk is part of the deal. that’s why the equivalent condo in Georgetown is $600-700/ft2 instead of $500/ft2. long swaths of 14th Street used to be like what 5th and K is now but that changed over time (years). the potential reward is that a decade from now, your condo may go up in value at a higher rate than those staid Georgetown condos. and, it’ll be newer and closer to the subway.

however, it doesn’t excuse MPD from not clamping down on incidents when residents point out what’s going on. the biggest irony for me is that the police station is practically on top of 5th and Mass. they could practically walk (run?) over there.

I too hope that Fenty’s staffers monitor nieghborhood blogs as they provide the real, no nonsense street level news.

pq: that police station at 5th & NY Ave is not really a station. I think they deal with social serivces or something like that. The locations for District 1 are 415 4th St SW and 500 E St SE.

indeed, you’re right gp. the MPDC website lists it as the MPD’s Command-Control Center.

The problem in the neighborhood is a systemic breakdown. I promise you that the police have been actively making as many arrests as their resources and directives have allowed. And the most effective deterrants are the bike police. Penn Quarter and Mt. Vernon only have two per shift and they are often pulled away to do other work.

But we have to start with the fact that the whole 900 block of 5th Street NW begins with the park and vacant lot that are used as open air drug markets continues to the crack house that is Fun Fair Video in the middle and ends with a low class strip club that has had enough violations to cause the police to go after their liquor license.

The irony of all this is that DCRA could shut the Fun Fair crack house down right now and hasn’t done it. Each of these properties is a problem that could be solved if DC Government would make that commitment. As long as they allow the businesses and buildings in the neighborhood that actively participate in the crack and prostitution business, the gangs, users, dealers, johns, pimps and prostitutes will try to make this area their territory. There are too many $$$$$$$ at stake.

Solutions —

1. Walking and bike patrols EVERY day in the hot spots. We need a continued police presence.

2. Enforce the cease and desist order and revoke Fun Fairs CO.

3. Revoke the liquor license of Louis Rogue Strip Club if it is also contributing to the problem.

4. Neighbors — report, report, report regardless of the awful 911 response. We have to have a record of the problems in the neighborhood.

5. 555 Mass Ave — maybe the police can use your roof as a place to observe the criminals in order to make arrests (as opposed to a condo).

6. Washington Post — why haven’t you reported on the status of the social experiment that is development in an open air drug market.

7. Where is the City Council and ANC in all this. I know they have been contacted but the residents have not heard a thing.

#20, Anon, suggestions on who to report this to? Is there an email address or website where we can complain? Thanks.

Start with:

mayor@dc.gov for Mayor Fenty’s staff

Continue with linda.argo@dc.gov — she is the head of DCRA and should be working to close down some of these nuisance businesses

robertg.fulton@dc.gov — Lieutenant over this area. He is fully aware of the problems but if you have additional information or solutions, please send it to him. Advocate with Commander Groomes to have more bike patrols in the area and vice working at night when the activity is much worse.

And contact City Councilmember Tommy Wells at Phone: 202-724-8072 — although he has never once responded to me — where is he????? And where is the ANC????

Call 911 every time you see drug dealing, active prostitution, etc… no matter how frustrating it is.

The only way to make progress is to be NOISY.

For those readers living east of H Street, please vocally support residents around the 5th/K Street area. There is clearly a vacuum of community leadership right now in those areas. Once a larger concentration of residents have moved in I hope to see this problem gone (some sort of tipping point). We need a unified neighborhood to work with the bureaucracy and force the city to fill in this vacuum. We will also need to make sure these kinds of problems (drugs deals, gun violence, prostitution, etc..) are eradicated from the city rather than forced to find other areas to continue.

There is a Washington Post article detailing how the Mount Vernon Triangle Community Improvement District has begun paying DC police officers overtime pay to increase patrols to the Mount Vernon Triangle are during weekends. The officers can’t be redeployed to other areas during these shifts.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/24/AR2007082402109.html

My favorite quote from the article is:

>>A small group of people had gathered on the corner by 7 p.m. They wore short-sleeved hooded shirts, oversized sunglasses and ragged wigs. Hoban gave them fliers for a transgender job fair.<< I've never heard of transgender job fairs but if it keeps the streets clear then I'm all for it.

The extra security comes none too soon. Despite the fact that the media barely reported the shooting and declared it “non-life threatening injuries,” the owner of Subway Liquor died Friday as a result of his injuries from the shooting. Thank you PQ Living for paying attention to the Mount Vernon Triangle. It is a neighborhood despite the fact that the WaPo treats it merely as a development story.

Anybody else see the sentences handed down to those involved in the Senitt killing last year (i.e., the throat slashing in Georgetown)? One of the juveniles inovlved will be out in 7 years and not one of the “adults” got life.

By the way, 5th Street has had dramatically less criminal activity in the past week. Police cars have been actively patrolling as have bike police. Thanks Commander Groomes and District 1. We need you more than ever!!!

There’s a “contact us page” on Tommy Wells’s website.
http://www.tommywells.org
The news items and the “blog” seem to be updated pretty frequently.

Oh yeah right. You use that and get a staffer who sends you to DCRA or some other agency who don’t return any calls or e-mails. An unproductive circle.