Monday, February 27, 2006

DCist: Robberies Near Gallaudet

DCist featured this (slightly histrionic, I think) post on robberies of college students surrounding Gallaudet.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The author is an idiot. I suggest others join me in telling him so and defending our area.

For a web-site that alleges to cover all of DC it seems to be afraid to go outside upper NW.

inked said...

The author writes for DeafDC.com (he's not a regular DCist writer). I also don't think he's a current DC resident. I don't know about the friends or family of Gallaudet students, but I can say that the last time I remember hearing about a Gallaudet student (or students) being murdered, the killer was another Gallaudet student, and the killings occurred on campus (at least one took place in a dorm).
http://deafness.about.com/library/blmesa.htm

Richard Layman said...

Not to sugar coat this but all college campuses have crime issues, especially in cities, when students are at their young and dumb ages. If you read THE TOWER, the Catholic U student paper, you would see a lot of coverage of students being robbed.

It's probably a double perception issue given the communication difficulties.

Rapes and murders (other than the ones Elise mentioned) are probably pretty rare. In fact, I've always been surprised that in a community where people are quick to take advantage of those that are weaker, that for the most part the students are left alone.

However, note that from the beginning the campus was created to be apart from the surrounding area (not that there was much there when it was first created) and an "oasis" but separate from the hearing world.

Had the neighborhood not been changing, Gallaudet would probably have to take the Penn tack, which is of massive investment in the area outside of the campus, to improve the area and maintain the ability to attract students.