We had another shooting last night. That's the second shooting in Trinidad in a little over 24 hours. The night before a 19 year old man shot & injured a cop, before being fatally shot himself.
Here's the police alert:
Police Alert- 5D Shooting
5D Shooting_0009 hours_Holbrook Street & Levis Street, NE _No lookout DO NOT TAKE ACTION CALL 911 W/EVENT #I20130625464
Sent on: 12/05 00:33
27 comments:
Actually, it was on the corner of 16th and Levis. Probably about 20 shots. Cops came within 2 mins and eventually their presence swelled to a dozen+, along with detectives. Saw 1 guy loaded into an ambulance. This is actually the 3rd shooting in Trinidad this week. Monday night a man was shot in the leg on the same corner (Levis and 16th).
According to this article by the Washington Post, it's actually the third shooting incident (four people shot) in less than 72 hours in Trinidad: one on Monday night, one on Tuesday night (involving a perp and a cop), and one last night.
Way to go, Trinidad! Making the rest of DC proud. Good for you.
such a vicious and violent culture....
I am not surprised by the location of the activity. I actually started riding my bike a different route because every time I rode through the stretch around 16th St there were way more people just standing around the street corners than anyone should be comfortable with as a resident.
I actually listened to guys yell up the street "heads up" before a cop passed when riding through the last time. Amazing what a few bad actors can do to an area.
After hearing shots on Monday, I assumed no one had been hurt because there was no ambulance called and barely any police response (they drove up and down the alleys with their lights on. Big show of force.) After Tuesday's shooting, all of Queen was blocked off by cruisers and draped in police tape the next morning. Another shooting last night and there was no tape and no patrol cars there this morning. Guess as long as a cop doesn't get shot, the MPD doesn't feel the need to exert themselves too much.
It is time to be honest. There are parts of the neighborhood that are worse than others. There are people in those parts that are good, and work towards improving the neighborhood as a whole and their blocks in particular. I was once one of them, but I can not ignore the reality that Trinidad is far from safe at some stretches.
It is a bit of civic pride and delusional hubris to not admit otherwise. I've been guilty of that, but as someone followed me/cased me yesterday walking home I sort of felt uncomfortable in my neighborhood. I began to wonder if this was even really home.
It is a bit of civic pride and delusional hubris to not admit otherwise. I've been guilty of that, but as someone followed me/cased me yesterday walking home I sort of felt uncomfortable in my neighborhood. I began to wonder if this was even really home.
That's about the most honest assessment I have read in some time. And it perplexes me when I read perspectives that are the exact opposite.
Can't wait until they tear Trinidad down!
By that logic, let's just tear down every neighborhood where crime occurs, oh wait...wouldn't be much of DC left. Expecting to live in a neighborhood that is completely insulated from crime is not only naive, it reveals a classic privileged, yuppie gentrifier mentality.
I just don't want people loitering out on corners. Is that a lot to ask?
"By that logic, let's just tear down every neighborhood where crime occurs, oh wait...wouldn't be much of DC left."
There's a difference between tearing down a neighborhood "where crime occurs" (which I agree is the entire city) and tearing down a neighborhood that has entrenched crime. These are not hoodrats rolling over from Clay Terrace to conduct retribution killing.
"It reveals a classic privileged, yuppie gentrifier mentality."
Yes, something I wholeheartedly embrace (though I do not come from privilege). But seeing as you are intent on keeping your property value stagnant and the neighborhood a shithole, perhaps you should move to the bowels of Southeast!
"I just don't want people loitering out on corners. Is that a lot to ask?"
Unfortunately DC does not/cannot have an anti-loitering law ("loitering with intent"). And our police department is too weak/apathetic/lawsuit adverse to use creative ways of imposing such a concept.
11:48,
It was a highly
abnormal three day spasm of violence. If you can so easily say who is/is not responsible for these shootings, you really ought to tell the cops. I'm sure they'd be spellbound. ;)
11:48,
but seriously, by your definition of entrenched crime, H Street, Trinidad, Rosedale, Columbia Heights, Shaw, and many more areas of DC would no longer exist.
There's nothing inherently harmful about people hanging out on a street corner. Besides, anti-loitering laws disproportionately target minorities.
I don't own in Trinidad, I rent, so property values only concern me to the extent that they remain low enough to allow long-term residents to continue living in the neighborhood if they choose to. Granted, as a middle class white person, I acknowledge that my presence in the neighborhood, even as a renter, is a signal to other middle class white people that the neighborhood is "changing." So I'm not suggesting I don't contribute to some of the very trends that bother me, but I'm also not going to malign an entire neighborhood because of occasional violence or a culture of congregating in the street.
As someone who moved back to the H Street neighborhood after 5 years next to Eastern Market, I must say the front porch (actually know your neighbors) culture is something I missed. But, the friendliness of it tends to be different depending on the generation.
"but seriously, by your definition of entrenched crime, H Street, Trinidad, Rosedale, Columbia Heights, Shaw, and many more areas of DC would no longer exist."
Shaw basically +has+ been torn down. All those properties Shiloh owned on 9th Street? Gone/sold. 70% of the Section 8 (Lincoln Westmoreland II is next)? Gone. Giant? O Street Market? Convention Center?
For me the issue with Trinidad is not just entrenched crime, it's also poor housing stock. Not a lot of turreted foyers and double parlors. Occasional gems. So sorry.
There is definitely something inherently wrong when a person is loitering, the police try to talk to him/frisk him, he runs and shoots at them and then gets decimated in front of his grandmother's house. I couldn't care less about the disproportionality of this and that and all your other logic - if he hadn't been loitering there, I venture to say none of the nonsense on Tuesday night would have taken place. People who are loitering on corners in Trinidad are generally up to varying degrees of no good.
So standing on a street corner is reason enough to be accosted by a cop? All the details of Tuesday's shooting haven't even come to light so it's rather premature to suggest that "if he hadn't been loitering there, none of the nonsense of Tuesday night would have taken place." I could just as easily say that if cops didn't go around fucking with every minority on a corner, nothing would have taken place.
ah yes, poor Darius - just when he is about to turn his life around by hanging out on the corner late at night strapped with a gun, here come the police and ruin everything for him. The only escape from this cruel reality is to shoot at them. I bet his criminal record would be clean too, if it wasn't for the constant police harassment....
I saw the aftermath of all this the other night and the police alert is wrong, as someone else also commented it was actually on 16th not Levis.
As it see it though this is a self resolving issue. I mean eventually all these little wanna-be gangsters who are involved in this dispute will kill successfully each other off.
I am kinda curious what petty nonsense started it though. If anyone knows these guys and knows who stepped on who's sneakers or whatever, speak up.
There is too much of a judgement call for ordinary loitering laws to be equitable or even very effective. If I run into a neighbor walking down the street or going in or out of a store, and we stop to chat, am I loitering? By most legal definitions, yes. Same goes if I wait for a friend to pick me up on the corner near my house. Meanwhile, real problems, like people dealing out of their home, are not touched by this. The "lookouts" are generally on private property, and people do not congregate in public under these circumstances (trust me, we know our neighbors deal, and while people congregate, it's not on public property).
What would be helpful is some enforcement of existing laws, which I have noticed growing more lax over the last handful of years. Public intoxication, panhandling, open container, noise ordinance violations, etc. used to be pretty well enforced around my hood (and really slowed these folks roll), now trying to get the police out requires numerous calls or actual violence (fortunately, fortunately, fortunately exclusively fist fights with this location). I'm not sure what gives, but it's incredibly frustrating. I know the problem has gone from several residences down to one over that time, but that one is spoiling the whole bushel with the number of people coming and going and begging and causing a ruckus ticking back up, and we can no longer get a reliable, efficient response. If the police don't think these folks know they're not under the microscope they once were, they're delusional.
"There is too much of a judgement call for ordinary loitering laws to be equitable or even very effective. If I run into a neighbor walking down the street or going in or out of a store, and we stop to chat, am I loitering?"
Agree that the ambiguity makes it extremely difficult to apply uniformly, which is an important aspect of our legal system.
That being said, there are circumstances under which application could be considered reasonable/reliable. One that comes to mind are the crowds constantly amassed outside Big Ben Liquors (New York Avenue at North Capital). All hours, all days. Nothing but drug dealing.
ownLoitering on public property is not necessary. The loiterers should hang out on THEIR property NOT on the public sidewalk or in the street. I often find that the people hanging out on our corner are neither neighbors nor friends of neighbors but rather people from Maryland that have some previous link to our neighborhood.
and when I see five young healthy adult males during the weekday hanging out on the corner, my first instinct is to wonder:
1. what are they doing just standing there...why aren't they at work or looking for work?
2. why do they have to use the MF word SO frequently despite seeing small kids walking past them on their way home from school?
3. why do they feel the need to address every woman who walks past as "baby"??!! Do we LOOK like babies??!!!
Anon @9:58...that's exactly what I'm talking about when I say that I've seen enforcement wane. If a group is conducting obvious illegal activities, there's another basis to put a stop to it. We already have laws against dealing drugs (and open container, which I'd wager those folks are also doing), and they just need to be enforced. It's almost like MPD has clapped their hands and said "mission accomplished," because I'm just not seeing the enforcement I used to. I hate to break it to them, though, the mission is far from accomplished. I see marked improvement, but this ain't Mayberry just yet. Maybe they're frustrated that the hardest nuts are, well, hard to crack (like our remaining drug house), but that is also a poor excuse to quit trying.
hey all of this is awesome as long as we're not disproportionally targeting minorities..
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