Ballou HS Rocks the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade
Photo of the Day: November 27, 2009
Morning Roundup: Black Friday Edition
Caps Thankful for Varly in 2-0 Win
Car Pushed Into Anacostia River By Train
Before we get to the bad news, we'll butter you up with the weather — isn't it beautiful outside! It's going to be sunny and quite warm today, with highs reaching 85 degrees, so get some use out of those short-sleeves while you still can. There, you see, aren't you excited to be starting your day now? Well never fear, DCist is here to ruin all that for you. Yes children, we're afraid it might be true. The Examnier's Yeas and Neas column this morning suggests that Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes may have purchased a house in Upperville, Va. after their recent visit to the D.C. area. Now, we love our city, so we can certainly understand how visitors from California could come here and fall in love with the area. But if TomKat makes this new house anything more than a sometimes-vacation home, we think it's fair to say we can all hold Redskins owner Dan Snyder personally responsible for the downward trajectory of DCist coverage that will inevitably follow. How could we reasonably stop ourselves from putting posts up everytime these two pop their heads into a Starbucks? We're really, really sorry in advance everyone. But these sorts of things are out of our control.
Fenty Proposes Crime Bill Compromise: You'll recall that presumptive mayor Adrian Fentry was the only D.C. City Councilmember to vote against the emergency crime legislation enacted over the summer, and we applauded him for it. Today we read in the WaPo that Fenty is pushing for a substitute set of measures to be adopted now, which would include pushing back youth curfews and eliminating the especially controversial rule which currently allows police officers to have immediate access to confidential juvenile records. Fenty's proposal would keep the neighborhood surveillance cameras, however, despite his previous statements that they were an intrusion on people's civil rights. It makes sense that Fenty would attack the previous crime bill now, in an early display of the kind of weight he can carry after winning the Democratic primary by a near-landslide. But we would still like to hear more about what the future mayor plans to do about crime instead. "Aggressive policing" is all well and good, but can we expect to see any crime prevention policies out of a Fenty administration? Especially since, as NBC4 is reporting this morning, the rate of violent crime appears to be inching back up again.
Poll Workers Needed in Md. Counties: Election trouble in Maryland doesn't look to be going away quickly, as the WaPo reports this morning. Both Montgomery and PG Counties say they need to hire hundreds more poll workers for the Nov. 7 general election if they hope to avoid many of the problems voters faced in last month's primaries, which, if you'll recall, included having to turn away voters because of missing authorization cards required to allow electronic voting to begin. Any Maryland resident in these two counties who'd like to avoid having their elections again be a national laughing stock is encouraged to apply for one of the 1,000 election judge positions currently open.
Briefly Noted: Steele, Cardin meet in first debate for Md. Senate seat ... McLean High students protest and win ... Capitol Hill police officer helps deliver baby ... No progress on Md.-Va. Ferry ... Apt. building in SE evacuated due to structural collapse ... Exodus from top city jobs continues.
This Day in DCist: In 2005 we took a first look at Busboys and Poets and in 2004 we noted the record number of voters registered to vote in that year's election.
Photo by Grundlepuck.
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I disagree with Fenty's desire to keep juvenile records away from the police. I'd very much like police to know if the kid they are dealing with is just a typical kid or if he's got a rap sheet for mugging people and stealing cars. Screw the 'privacy rights' of the kid. Once you start treating your fellow citizens like crap you lose your right to not have people know about it.
Access to juvenile records by police is a very useful tool. It's sortof astounding that this is even a debate. Police need to know who they are dealing with. It's common sense. And DC has quite a few little thugs, with stunningly long rap sheets. When it comes to weighing the 'rights' of little thugs to not have police know about their actions against the rights of the rest of us to be reasonably safe, the thugs should lose.
mcclean?
the idea of protecting juvenile records is an outdated concept, especially in the district. Maybe it makes sense when the crimes are truly just ``youthful indiscretions'' such as stealing candy from a store, spraying graffiti or even a schoolyard fight, but as the Post pointed out this summer many of these kids are hardcore habitual offenders arrested repeatedly for crimes involving guns and drugs, yet they are shielded from harsher penalties simply because of their age. The one thing I would like Fenty to focus on is to truly elevate the rights of the law abiding taxpayers to at least be on par with the rights we seem to give these hoodlums.
As far the prevention comment goes. That can and will come with aggressive policing. A lot of the crime here is directly tied to the lack of consequence. Criminals know there is little likelihood they will get caught. The police show up to crime scenes 20 minutes after the fact when the robber/murderer has already high tailed it back to Maryland or wherever, the detectives can barely close half their cases and there is inconsistent enforcement of the quality of life laws that are usually the first step to keeping the peace.
And I will personally run Fenty out of town if he takes down the cameras. Since the 1 went up in my neighborhood, it's been the most peaceful 2 weeks that block has probably ever seen. They are a deterrent!
Upperville? There actually is a place in Virginia called Upperville? I guess that's as in "I'd better take some uppers so I can stay awake for my entire commute to downtown DC."
It's been documented that local narcotics traffickers explicitly recruit low-level drug runners under age 18 since it's highly unlikely they're receive anything like prison time if caught.
Upperville is some serious horse country. I doubt anyone is commuting in to DC from there. And if they are, it's probably via corporate helicopter.
Ahem, ahem--it's McLean, not McClean. It's spelled like the McDonald's burger that was 40 percent soy, not a golden arches' janitorial program.
GO HIGHLANDERS!
Upperville is down the road from Middleburg which always left me wondering about where to find Lowtown...
More importantly, what's up with using yesterday's POD again? It's a nice pic and all, but were there no other photos to choose from?
Agreed with above comments on Juvi records. Maybe there should also be some kind of rolling expunge provision based on severity of crime and time passed, too. Kids only 11-13 can amass quite a history.
Sorry about using the same photo twice y'all, I've been having a ton of trouble with my Internet connection for the past three days and just picked something in a hurry without looking.
I'd like to note that, in the "Briefly Noted" section, Kevin Zeese was also a full participant in last night's debate, despite the almost complete lack of mention of his name by any of of the major news outlets. He had equal floor time with both Steele and Cardin, and answered to the same moderators and questions. He received many rousing applause from the audience as well, interrupted by such at least as many times as the other candidates, even from Steele and Cardin supporters.
In short, it was a three-way debate. The hacks at the Post should be embarassed by such deliberately exclusionary reporting.
Brian, what about Midlowthian?