February 26, 2008
Brazen Daytime Robbery at Maggie Moo's on U Street
Two men robbed the Maggie Moo's ice cream parlor on U Street at gunpoint yesterday -- and they did it at 12:15 p.m., right in the middle of the day. DCist's Lynne Venart snapped the photo above of some of the aftermath of the crime scene.
According to WJLA, the armed suspects wore masks and physically attacked a 23-year-old employee of the store when she had trouble opening the safe. The gunmen only made off with $300 in cash, and left behind the masks they wore, which police hope will help lead to their arrests.
It's clear the store was targeted because there is only one employee working there at that time of day, but it's startling that something like this happened in the middle of the day on a busy commercial corridor like U Street. The neighborhood may have more commonly been the scene of crimes like these a decade ago, but so much has changed on that stretch of U Street since then -- the appearance of chain stores like Maggie Moo's at the retail level of a giant condo development like the Ellington as a prime example.
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Of all the different neighborhoods that have experienced gentrification over the last decade or so, U Street is still the sketchiest, by far.
"The neighborhood may have more commonly been the scene of crimes like these a decade ago, but so much has changed on that stretch of U Street since then"
In other words, I thought the scary poor people left.
U Street by far? Logan Circle, the part not directly touching Dupont, is dark and almost completely empty after dark. It is by far the gentrified neighborhood I feel least safe.
Robbing an ice cream store in the middle of winter. Some criminal masterminds there. Crime has always been in these areas and still is. You just don't hear about it through the usual media chains as its so pervasive and constant. Try getting on your local police district mailing list for more info.
Saying U Street is "sketchy" for a gentrified neighborhood is just uninformed. Get out of Fairfax and open your eyes a smidge.
This sucks, but it really doesn't mean anything in particular. Crime like this happens everywhere in the city from time to time. Remember Starbucks in Glover Park?
The gentrified neighborhood I fear the most is Mt. Pleasant. That place is scary dead after dark, probably because there's not a hell of a lot to walk to around there.
Robbing an ice cream store in the middle of winter. Some criminal masterminds there.
Wow... good point. What idiotards.
Sweet. More violence means less gentrification. Keep up the good work, U Street.
Damn, that's cold!
As a U street resident who is also young and female and working in the housing sector I take offense to the comment above about U street and its "sketchiness." I have never felt threatened or unsafe during my time in the U street neighborhood. In fact when I was living in Dupont circle i was much more regularly menaced and harassed and was attacked once on busy CT. Ave.
There are certainly other neighborhoods in DC that are currently experiencing the changes of gentrification (condo boom, retail revival etc) but continue to suffer from both violent and property crimes more so than the U street corridor. Petworth and Shaw come to mind for me.
But I think the more important thing to think about is why people still feel the need to deride certain areas of a city with derrogatory adjectives such as "sketchy" without any sort of evidence like specific examples of crime statistics or personal anecdotes of times you felt unsafe or threatened.
I mean HCE have you ever spent any time on U street aside from a saturday night getting hammered at bar nun? We have a friendly and diverse community with a rich history that is making great strides, and I wouldn't trade it to go back to the secure, boring and single faceted foggy bottom of my college days for anything.
Sheesh, they really need to get the guns, and the criminals who use them, off the streets.
Did they ever catch the equally brazen individuals who strolled into Wonderland and robbed them and their patrons at gunpoint last year?
Am I wrong to think that there seems to have been a small upsurge in daytime muggings/robberies in the 3rd Police District? I was mugged in Mount Pleasant a few weeks back at 11:30 am on a Sunday and I've heard of a few more during daylight hours. Did someone devise a new playbook for robbers in muggers around there?
BTW, the Ellington is an apartment, not a condo. I am not surprised. I remember when I lived on U Street, I think it was last Spring, a guy was shot at like 4pm in the afternoon on a weekday in front of the 7-11 at 12th and U.
I work alone in a U Street shop during weekdays, and nearly every shop on my block has been robbed at some point during the last year, and always in broad daylight. There is now a police officer who has a footbeat in the area, but he doesn't go on duty until late afternoon, and nearly all of the recent robberies have been before 2pm. It's a start, but I wouldn't be surprised if we heard many more stories like this one.
Check the local crime reports. Businesses along U Street get broken in to on a regular basis. They're always getting fax machines and goods stolen.
Guess these guys didn't get the memo. Crime's supposed to be in a perpetual state of decline downtown.
Thugs are thugs. Dumb is dumb.
Who buys a fax machine off the back of a truck? Come to think of it, who even has one any more?
This is clearly a case of two thugs who are dumb as rocks.
Also, and on a separate, "gentrification" note, let's not forget the voluminous projects still located in and around U. We well-off, educated folk aren't going to feel safe until the poor move to the suburbs. D.C. for the middle and upper class!! Suburbs for dummies! Say it with me now!
Price them out, I say -- my salary is going to keep going up and so is yours! Seriously, I worked hard, got a graduate degree, let ME live by the cool bars, museums, shops, and monuments. I'm the one paying for all of them anyway AND I don't steal shit, hurt people, or graffiti buildings. Who needs the poor in D.C.? Not me. What little slice of heaven would D.C. be if you could send your kids to public schools? Riddle me that, oh, advocate-for-the downtrodden...
D.C. for the middle and upper class!! Suburbs for dummies!
And then there's you, proving that "upper and middle class" and "dummies" are not mutually exclusive.
Douchebag.
Cute, qbert. Try a substantive response next time, though. That means, "use your words."
Here's a starting point: do you prefer to live with or without the daily threat of crime (recognizing, as context, that the poor are more likely to (a) commit crimes and (b) do so around where they live)?
You two never should've gotten married.
I'm with Coro. I won't feel safe until I can buy a lampshade made from a poor person's skin, candles made from their rendered fat, and we finally address "the Jewish question."
Praise the Baby Jesus and Allah both.
Finally, our favorite topic is back.
Let the bloodbath begin.
Oh, wait, the actual bloodbath still exists on many DC streets. In real life.
Let's go ahead and stipulate one thing.... being poor is not the same thing as being a thug. Plenty of poor people do not steal, whack others over the head, etc. Let's please not confuse the two.
But can we also go ahead and admit something else? That the vast majority of crime in DC (except of course white collar crime) comes from public housing complexes / mentalities and a thug street culture that excuses and even glorifies violence?
Oooh, let's hit one more canard. Gun control. I got three words for those that think ending gun control in DC will end violence: Richmond and New Orleans...... gun loving hubs both, both with violence similar to and sometimes worse than DC....
As for the topic at hand specifically..... a quickie scan of the crime stats for pretty much any stretch of U Street can raise your blood pressure pretty quickly. But, then, you could say that about most of DC still.
Anyone that thinks crime in DC is a thing of the past is fooling themselves.
In other words, I thought the scary poor people left.
Damn those scary poor people with their crime-ridden ways!
Monkey, I was with you until the last part. That's just not funny.
Come on, though, doesn't anyone value a safe neighborhood? Or do we like D.C. because its kinda sketchy and we can all go back home when we're done living here and brag about suriving the mean streets?
Sure, education is an answer, gun control might be one (though I'm from Texas and my fingers started burning when I typed that), and having 500 more MPD officers on the street would help, but I don't see changes coming in these areas anytime soon. What are we going to do?
The basic point here is simple: we all tend to think of U Street as a pretty safe area and are scared that someone could have a gun pushed in her face---next time it could be me (surely some of you hope so) or you. And, sure, I recognize poor does not equal criminal and probably does not equal thug, so with apologies for the hyperbole, I still wonder what anyone really hopes to do. Richmond, New Orleans, Houston, Detroit...keep 'em coming. Hillman is right in a lot of ways.
U St gentrification is sketchy? Logan Effening Circle?! Try H St NE for a truly sketchy time.
I'm with Coro. I won't feel safe until I can buy a lampshade made from a poor person's skin, candles made from their rendered fat, and we finally address "the Jewish question."
Tongue in cheek ... I get it, but c'mon -- is this really necessary?
Dude, you're the one talking about putting poor people in concentration camps. And by "concentration camps" I mean "Fairlington" and "Arlandria."
I'm with Coro. I won't feel safe until I can buy a lampshade made from a poor person's skin, candles made from their rendered fat, and we finally address "the Jewish question."
Tongue in cheek ... I get it, but c'mon -- is this really necessary?
Bar Nun is now known as Pure, fyi
Try H St NE for a truly sketchy time.
Oh hell to the yeah! Between the Belgian frites place and the children's pedicure day spa, I'm lucky if I don't get raped on the way to the bus shelter.
Too many spinsters in Fairlington for that to work.
Probably the single thing DC could do immediately to combat crime is to reform our juvenile justice system. It's no secret that a lot of this crime is done by people under 18. Why? Because they know the 'real rules' don't start until you are an adult. As it is now, you can pretty much do anything in DC short of kill or seriously hurt someone famous/political and you get very little punishment in DC.
Yes, I know it's because we're supposed to be protecting these sweet young things' permanent records.
But the system is being blatantly abused. Everybody knows it. And no one is willing to do anything about it.
We should revise the juvenile justice system so that after your first offense you start getting treated like an adult. No more chances to steal 20 cars before we prosecute you as an adult. No more allowing you to rob and mug as much as you'd like without being tried as an adult.
These 15 year olds out here are pretty damn mature. And they aren't stupid. They know they have a free ride until 18. So they have years to ply their trade (while of course refusing to go to school or otherwise prepare themselves for a legit career).
By the time they've turned 18 it's too late. They've had years of street thuggery to their credit by then.
It's an easy step that DC could take literally within a month. Word would get out in the young thug world, and a lot of this crap would stop.
"Come on, though, doesn't anyone value a safe neighborhood?"
Sure we do. That's why they are expensive. All us gentrifiers and whatnot just can't afford one in DC and don't want to live in Springfield. And poor does not equal criminal, but there's a very strong correlation between the amount of crime in a neighborhood and the average income.
Wow, this thread is really taking on a high asshole-to-posts ratio.
Arlandria? Sure it looks sketchy, but they're all too busy working so they can move up and get out. No time to waste on half-brained crime schemes, the American dream awaits. It's a sleepy subdivision compared to much of DC, and I'm not sure where your Fairlington comment comes from.
And of course longer term 'touchy-feely' solutions will help as well. Such as better education, etc. But if anyone is waiting for the DC education system to be a stunning success in cutting crime they are, well, stupid.
Anyone that thinks it's because these people can't get jobs and therefore they 'must' go criminal is naive. I guarantee you I can find you construction work and other types of work all over the DC area. It will just require sobriety, an actual effort to work, and a dropping of the entitlement attitude.
But the real social problem at work here is primarily the lack of a responsible father figure, combined with an entitlement mentality that says it's acceptable to live off of others, whether it's accepting welfare for five generations or taking things that don't belong to you by force.
Until more of those in the black urban community start to address that then the longstanding problems we have with crime and generations of poverty/dependency/laziness/street-thuggery in DC will remain unsolved. True, some have been working this issue for a long time, with some success (and I applaud their efforts), but far more are more concerned with their victim status and with getting free shit from the rest of society.
Alright, I was out of line with the "Jewish question" crack. I'd like to replace that unfortunate term with the more sensitive "economic cleansing," as in, "Historically, affluent people, black and now white, have gravitated to and economically cleansed U Street." Clearly, poor people have no business being there anymore. They're not buying tapas, they're not buying $9 Belgian ales, and they certainly can't afford tickets to Wilco. Now, can we work on relocating them via Metro? Because Vienna waits for you.
...we all tend to think of U Street as a pretty safe area and are scared that someone could have a gun pushed in her face.
If you don't feel safe where you live perhaps you should move someplace that you do.
Maybe police should use Ben's halfsmokes loaded into airguns as nonlethal weapons. With some quality stadium-style toilets nearby, that could help keep the ruffians off the streets.
Either that or maybe the entertainment industry will stop glorifying the thug life...MTV, BET, WKYS, and WPGC could just now and then play something by non-thug rappers like Pigeon John, Murs, Aceyalone, Del, etc. Not only do they skip the whole gangsta vibe, but they actually rhyme better than shitheads like MIMS and Jeezy. Lupe Fiasco just scratches the surface of what decent, conscious rap can be. But those rappers with strong character could use a little push onto the airwaves from the media moguls. It's time to get past the whole idea that slangin', ballin', and violence make you a good person.
Forget having a gun pushed in your face. You're still more likely to get a rock thrown at your head or one chucked at your bike. And that's not even counting the out-of-town bands getting harrassed. I won't feel safe until I can play my theremin in front of the Tropicana carryout.
Come to think of it, I kinda wonder what happened to the rock chuckers. Jail? Dead? Forget it, Jake. It's Columbia Heights.
This envelope was hermetically sealed and kept in a mayonnaise jar on Funk and Wagnalls' porch since noon today.
(holding envelope to turban)
What is an explanation for stupidity and an explanation for assholery?
Rrrrippp.
I'm from Texas and my fingers started burning when I typed that