Photo by Flickr user Tony Webster (Diversey)
I was out of town for a family wedding, & as a result, I was unable to quickly post information about three local shootings.
The first happened Friday afternoon, around 3-3:30pm. It happened in the 600 block of Morris Street (across from Ludlow-Taylor Elementary School). Some students heard the shots, but did not witness the shooting.
At approximately 3:00 p.m. today, First District Officers responded for the sounds of gunshots in the 600 Block of Morris Pl., N.E. Upon arriving on the scene, officers discovered an adult male suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. The victim was transported by ambulance to an area hospital where he was later pronounced.
More details from the Washington Post.
Here's the press release on the arrest:
Arrest Made in Homicide: 600 Block of Morris Place, Northeast
(Washington, DC) – Detectives from the Metropolitan Police Department’s Homicide Branch have announced that an arrest has been made in the homicide which occurred in the 600 block of Morris Place, Northeast.
On Friday April 25, 2014, at approximately 3:35 pm, police officers from the First District responded to a call for the sounds of gunshots. Upon arrival, they located an adult male suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. DC Fire and Emergency Medical Services personnel responded to the scene and transported the victim to a local hospital where he succumbed to his injuries.
The decedent has been identified as 29-year-old Andre Pierce Joyner of Fort Washington, MD.
On Monday, April 28, 2014, at 12:00 pm, 29-year-ol[d] James Walter Yates III, of Southeast, Washington, DC, was arrested by members of the Capital Area Regional Fugitive Task Force, pursuant to a District of Columbia Superior Court arrest warrant charging him with Murder II While Armed in the homicide of Andre Pierce Joyner.
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The second shooting happened early in the morning of the 27th (Sunday).
From MPD:
At approximately 2:48 am, MPD received a call for the sounds of gunshots in that area. Members responded and found evidence of a possible shooting. There were no victims located at that location. The First district detectives are actively working the case.
Here's a later update:
To add to this post, a victim arrived at Washington Hospital Center at a later time with a gunshot wound to the arm/shoulder area. The victim indicated they were shot while at 12th & G St NE and was transported to the hospital later.
A vehicle with a bullet hole in the door area was also located at 12th & G St NE.
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I don't have as much info on the last incident that took place a little after 9pm on the 27th.
MPD alert:
5073 CONFIRMED A Shooting_2106 hrs._700 21st. St. NE_No Lookout DO NOT TAKE ACTION CALL 911 W/EVENT #I20140208788
Sent on: 04/27 21:21
I believe this is the same incident referenced in a later email from MPD:
Hello Community,
The Fifth District is currently investigating a shooting that occurred in the area of the 2000 block of H Street, NE.
There was also a stabbing Saturday:
5071 CONFIRMED A Stabbing_1418 Hours_1700 Block of H Street NE_No Look out DO NOT TAKE ACTION CALL 911 W/EVENT #I20140205971
Sent on: 04/26 16:03
30 comments:
i am going to take a wild guess that James Walter Yates, III isn't British. i'll also take a wild guess that all the other suspects in the aforementioned crimes aren't British either. gee i wonder what kind of people are consistently responsible for violent crime in our neighborhood?
I don't get how there is so much gun violence when DC is a gun free zone. So strange...
The Morris shooting occurred in front of a house that has been a source of criminal activity for years. It, along with another one around the corner are well known to MPD, but there is little incentive to do anything about the occupants since the judicial system doesn't aggressively prosecute crimes less serious than murder - probably due to misplaced liberal anxiety about contributing to the "inherent racism" in our criminal justice system. As a nearby resident, its extremely aggravating when judges who live in the suburbs and don't deal with the problems these criminals create, just let them off the hook again and again and again.
I know I'll probably get flamed (and hence the anonymous id), but these are my observations based on direct experience.
"i am going to take a wild guess that James Walter Yates, III isn't British."
I am going to take a wild guess and say that you're a racist.
Because only a racist would care whether or not the shooter in that incident was a particular ethnicity, when a human being is dead and an entire elementary school full of children were nearby and could be traumatized.
@ 12:21 AM
I would say the poor and uneducated.
I'd blame you for that, but you belong to at least the second group and need a lot of help yourself.
then tell me who IS responsible for the violent crime in our area? why is it racist when statistical evidence supports the claim that most violent crime in our little slice of heaven is committed by BMs. In our neighborhood...in our city, race IS a factor when determining where/when/if violent crimes will be committed. Here are DC's most wanted violent
criminals:
http://doc.dc.gov/service/docs-most-wanted
Being poor and uneducated is no excuse for gunning down another person in front of an elementary school. There are plenty of decent and honest poor and uneducated people that have to put up with the crap dolled out by these assholes. I look like the people on this list and that pisses me off. Regardless, in this city, the statistics do not lie. Do the math...
To Anon 12:21 - I sincerely wonder why you made that post. Would you care to explain?
I doubt that you consider yourself a racist.
Are you trying to get people to acknowledge the racial makeup of violent criminals in the neighborhoods? I don't think anyone reading this is unaware of that. If so, why do you think it is helpful for that to be a topic of discussion?
Or do you just enjoy annoying people?
I guess I am just tired...I have been living her all of my adult life, some 35 years, and nothing has changed. I don't give a rat's ass what some one's color is, but I am just tired of pretending that there is no correlation in our neighborhood just to be pc. The other poster was making a point, albeit not very eloquently, and he was denounced as being a racist. His point, however shrouded in poor humor, was based in fact. Obviously assholes and criminals come in all colors in this country of ours, but in dc...again, do the math.
I will refrain from reading or posting on this site in the future. I was not trying to be controversial or provocative. I just thought this was an opportunity for discussion. My bad.
@10:27 AM
The same statistics say that it's the poor and uneducated. Other statistics show that the racial makeup of the poor and uneducated happens to be african american in our community. Where are your statistics showing that rich, educated african americans are more likely to commit crime than rich white americans? how many black bankers are going to jail on wall street?
We aren't excusing the violence caused by these people, but if you do a better job with education and quality of life, they probably won't resort to the type of criminal enterprise that causes these types of situations.
Its a pretty simple thing, really.
If you really want to get into it, these poor uneducated folks are less likely to have proper representation for themselves (either because they cannot afford good representation, or are not smart enough to realize they need it), and end up in jail for things that you would normally have a lawyer get you off for.
Once you are in jail, you are subjected to institutionalized racism (mostly just for your own protection), and treated like an animal. It's a pretty shitty cycle once you get stuck in it, whether you feel it is deserved or not. It makes you really reduce the value you place on your own humanity, and those around you. Once you get out of that environment, you're more likely to treat other people like an animal as well.
the bummer for you is, aside from being a racist, is that none of this is likely to change drastically in the near term.
I'm going to take a wild guess from the name "James Walter Yates, III" that the assailant doesn't have ovaries. I'm also going take a wild guess that all the other suspects in the aforementioned crimes don't have ovaries either. In fact, I'm going to go out on a limb and state that most if not all of the crimes and terrible comments on this blog are committed by those in the community with penii.
@1141: blame it on the lawyer. classic!
i would characterize your viewpoint not so much as "simple", but "simplistic". do you really believe that these crimes can be traced back to a lawyer's inability to "get you off for" infractions of the law?
i wonder if the subpar lawyer caused the guy yesterday to, unprovoked, yell at me "you better move along you ugly fucking asshole"...pretty satsifying though to watch him shit his pants and squirm when i didnt "move along" and instead he had a 230 pounder a couple of inches from his useless black face :)
damn. this is getting ugly. can't we all just get along.
do what you want with them, just don't put them on the instagram...
good for you anon 2:03! i would have loved to see that. and if that rude piece of trash brought some of his buddies into the mix (that's what these criminals usually do cause they're too chicken to act on their own), i would have gotten your back.
@2:03 PM
If out of all of that, you got that I am blaming the lawyers, then I don't really have anything else to add. If anything, I was advocating that they need good lawyers, you know, the kind that money can afford you.
Really glad you avoided all the other points so you could tell your story about how confronted someone who was probably a drug abusing homeless person with mental problems. Big win. Why don't you go ahead and extrapolate that experience to a whole race of people.
the entire "cycle" you described is triggered not by the actions of criminals but by the quality of their lawyers; how else are we to interpret that.
it will soon be 60 years since Brown vs. Board was decided. since then, numerous social programs have been implemented to help the disadvantaged: welfare, affirmative action, Head Start, integration etc. How long are we going to keep on saying education and low quality of life are responsible for some of the actions of African American criminals. those same programs are availble to other minority citizens, and African Americans are still lagging behind every other minority group. shit, look at what asians are doing.
maybe it was the system in the past, but we have a black president now. and you don't need to be a high school graduate to know: that shooting someone is wrong; that spray painting buildings that don't belong to you is wrong; that getting a groupd of friends and attacking homosexuals after the H street festival is wrong; throwing stuff at pedestrians is wrong; hitting people on the X2 is wrong; that threatening to kill your elder neighbors of your own race because those neighbors called the police because there was a massive group fight is wrong, that shooting store owners who work hard is wrong; that talking in the movie theater is wrong when I paid $12 to get in $13 for popcorn and drink
^ especially apt since we are getting 2 cinemas
If you want a real quick handy lesson on what makes DC different from all other cities in the U.S. it is this. Not all black folks in DC are poor and uneducated, but all poor and uneducated folks within the borders of DC are black. Look at the latest DC statistics, and you'll see that we have the highest concentration of wealth, and the highest illiteracy rate at the same time. It's just how it is. In other big cities there are white poor people that commit the kinds of crimes that we're talking about here, and that do heinous shit. But here in DC, it's not the case. That is why the division in our town is so stark, and that is reflected in the crime statistics. I'm not being racial here, I'm just pointing out what's up.
@ 4:28:00PM
It is interesting how you quote all the programs, say they aren't working, then show how they ARE working for a number of people. I would suggest that the results would be much worse if the programs you mentioned did not exist.
So lets go with your premise. Somehow being Black is a genetic pre-disposition that causes you to want to be more violent to others and talk in movies. What are you suggesting is the fix now that you have isolated the problem to your key indicator?
Assuming you're not just trolling, which some obviously are, do you realize the follow through with your supposition aligns you very closely with viewpoints of folks like Stalin, Hitler, and Pol Pot?
So again, assuming that isn't the way you want to go (cue the 5 cutesy trolls to respond that it is), the only real answer is figuring out why your current approaches are not working. Yes, that probably includes issues with all the programs you mentioned, but to immediately throw out my claim that education and incarceration isn't a very large part of the equation is absurd.
In fact, your inherent fear and prejudice is also a very big part of the equation. Instead of focusing the instances mentioned in the article above, why don't you focus on the 100's of normal interactions you have with African Americans (in this neighborhood) each day.
I've been to plenty of theaters with folks ruining the movie, here's a hint: it has a lot more to do with teenagers without parental supervision than any other factor. The fact that you immediately jump to race shows that you're not really thinking about the problem.
blacks aren't the only group that are poor and uneducated in the city: latinos. yet in DC they're not the predominant group doing all the aforementioned things in this city. they're taking the buses from columbia heights to work in our neighborhood restaurants and keeping costs low for our meals, and they're doing a great job at it too.
look at asians. they're surpassing whites in income.
no, it is not only teenagers who are talking during the movies. it is adults, and guess what's their race? guess the race of the teens? i was at a shakespearean play last week, and guess who was talking to each other during the play?
unfortunately, it is beyond the scope of a blogger to find the solution to a problem, but it is easier to identify a problem than a solution. perhaps leaders in our community and of our nation that read this blog will come up with new solutions.
identifying that African Americans are the root cause of many problems in our community is in no way suggesting genocide.
how can you seriously blame education for the aforementioned crimes and movie talking? blacks had 60 years to get it together. look at the results. how can you blame the prison system when blacks who haven't been to prison are talking in movies? how can you blame the prison system when blacks who haven't been to prison are doing the aforementioned crimes? look at what they have done to each other before whites moved into this neighborhood, look at what they have been doing when whites moved into the neighborhood?
i don't know the solution. this country has tried to help blacks rise out of their unfortunate socio-economic status for 60 years. however, there has to be a point where society can do nothing more, and blacks have to be responsible for their own actions.
p.s. please don't ruin the new Spiderman movie for me
All non-trolls (i.e. rational people),
Don't feed the trolls. You don't need to accuse someone of trolling (sometimes those are legit comments). Just ignore him/her. Here' a good guideline to decide if someone is trolling:
-Is that person saying something extremely inflammatory?
-Does that person sound normal, and then say something crazy like "and this is why Blacks will always be the problem"?
-Does this person call members of another race worthless?
-Does this person allege they did something insane/had sex on the bar of a popular restaurant during dinner service/got gang raped on the X2 during rush hour? All of these are immediate tip offs!
-Does this person suggest that this neighborhood is inherently unsafe/anyone who raises children here is a selfish yuppie? Really, you live here, and you still think these things? I doubt it.
Everything above is a fair indicator that you might be dealing with a troll. Ignore that person, and engage with the people who are leaving legit comments. Trolls are not worth your time. Do not let them get a rise out of you.
This comment thread is really disappointing to read...I'm exhausted from the clear bigotry. You know what's really disappointing? None of these commenters are DC natives and understand the history of our city. I doubt that the commenter has "lived in the neighborhood for 35 years." Calling you out on your BS you Kentucky transplant.
Stories or sexual assault on the X2 are real. I hope that it never happens to you, but you wouldn't throw it around so causally or mock those victims if it did happen to you.
DC is not a gun free zone. You might want to look up the Heller case decided by the US Supreme Court. However, even prior to that, it was legal to possess certain firearms other than handguns.
From the MDP 1D listserve
There will be a meeting on Thursday May 1, 2014 at 6pm to discuss any concerns regarding the homicide that occurred on Morris Place last week. The meeting will be held at Ludlow Taylor Elementary School located at 659 G Street NE.
what is so bigoted about identifying the race of those who are doing all these crimes?
inserting a personal observation of the demographics as to who talks during movies probably needs more data, but it's not bigoted.
no, most of us have not lived in DC for 35 years and one month in order to appreciate the native culture. nor we do need any kind of history lessons or cultural lessons to know that violence is wrong.
if you think that being a DC native justifies the behavior of what DC natives have been doing in this neighborhood, there is something wrong with your culture.
*SURPRISE*!!!!
what is the big surprise 12:31?
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