Man Stops Traffic at 17th and K to Demand $200 Million
Morning Roundup: Goodbye, Abe Edition
Judge Throws Out WTU Suit Over Teacher Layoffs
Vegetate to Close at the End of the Month
Morning Roundup: Rain Won't Go Away Edition
The Georgetown Hoya reported on an armed sexual assault in LXR Hall over the weekend that has the university community up in arms over lax security measures in the dorm. At 3:40 a.m. on Saturday morning, an assailant described as a black male between 17 and 20 years old allegedly attacked a female student, forcing her off a public balcony and into a common room, where he threatened her with a gun and sexually assaulted her.
The university's Department of Public Safety put together a meeting with LXR residents and has since been scrambling to make safety improvements to the dorm:
Many students at the meeting raised concerns about a lax policy of checking GOCards [the school's ID card system], as well as a broken GOCard machine in the LXR lobby and three doors to the courtyard that do not lock properly. In response to multiple reports of guards falling asleep during the night, DelMonaco said this is “simply and utterly unacceptable” and said that the GOCard swiping machine would be “fixed by Monday.”Scary stuff for students at the school, and especially those living in the dorm. Also scary: some of the incredibly racist comments left on the Hoya story. Hats off to the Hoya's seemingly robust online community for doing their best to regulate the hate in that thread during a tense time.As of yesterday, the GOCard machine was replaced and at least one of the doors was fixed.
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebook
That's quite the comments board the Hoya has. G'Town has some serious dorm security issues.
Although many of the offensive posts have been removed from the Hoya comments board and there's lots of hyperbole on the emotional topic of race, one of the posters made me laugh when he/she suggested that what G'Town students needed was a sociology class on racial/ethnic tolerance. Because that's what's gonna stop future instances of violent crime on the campus: having students be tolerant of people of other races/ethnicities. No doubt criminals will feel much better about committing crimes against students who won't be intolerant about the criminal's racial or ethnic background.
*sigh*
the best part about that comment board was when one student said they were surprised because they thought Georgetown would be more progressive, hah!
oh, and what does "digitally penetrated" mean?
WTF? - I thought guns were illegal in DC.
While it's horrible that it had to be come in this manner, the students have hopefully learned an important lesson. The way the article is worded, it sounds like everyone knew about the broken doors, sleeping guards, and broken machines, but didn't bother to alert the University. This is in no way a 'blame the victim' comment (or a call for vigilantism), and certainly the maintenance and security departments at the University have responsibility here.. but responsibility, vigilance and security all start with yourself. The quicker that these young adults learn that, the better. It's become cliche due to the war or terror, but "see something, say something" can save lives in every day situations. You can't expect problems to be fixed if the fixers don't know there's a problem. Sadly our culture has accepted "not my problem" and "stop snitchin" as the proper attitudes.
Unfortunately, based on the linked comments, it seems like many do not understand this, and simply expect the powers-that-be to magically make everything better.
Digits are fingers.
I love it when college kids try to quantify meaningless violence using abstract terminology. I'm surpised no deconstructionists have talked about the "rapeness" of the rape "in quotes."
Commissioner Gordon needs to light the LNS signal.
@skaterboy
He used a joystick.
At least the gtown hoya reveals the race of suspects. Compare and contrast to wapo, who hide such all-important details behind a veil of political correctness and limp-wristed liberalism.
Absolutely apalling. I actually lived in this dorm back in 2004 and we had te same problems -- no one checking IDs, broken doors, broken card swipers. This is one of the many reasons people don't want to live in this dorm. But I can't believe that 4 years later, no one has addressed the issue, especially since I remember a good deal of discussion on it when I was there.
First the identity theft, now this. Georgetown really has to step up their game.
Incredibly racist comments? This is LateNightShots University we're talking about.
@politburo: My sense in reading the story and comments was that the University was aware of the dorm's security issues, but either didn't make any changes or any repairs it did were quickly negated. I'm not too shocked that the security guard was asleep at the desk late at night (not like there's that much excitement). But it does seem odd that there's not much camera security. And it's totally ridiculous that the card readers at the entrance were broken.
This can all be remedied via a mandatory class on tolerance.
@dchoya: Holy shit, I also lived in LXR in 2004-05. But yeah, it was well known back then that the doors leading to the courtyard were all broken, and that on weekend nights, the guards let anyone in who said that they were going to a party. I was never concerned for my safety because, y'know, I'm kinda gross looking, but these have been long standing issues that the University has consistently ignored.
@HCE: In my time at Gtown, I only knew of two people who were on LNS. I always thought that LNS was full of DC transplants, no?
I blame Ira Glass. I mean, just look at that smug jerk on the banner ad. It's like, I appreciate what he's doing, but do I have to actually see the guy? Same thing with Joe Jackson: why does he have to appear in his videos?
welles: can you give me a break-down of the etymology of the "limp-wristed liberal" epithet? i mean, i'm a dyed-in-the-wool liberal, and you'll get one hell of a firm handshake from me, no weak fish crap here.
Yes.
Not mentioning that a suspect is black for fear of offending or casting aspersions on a race, for one.
Y'know, until Welles said so, I never knew easterners had their cone photoreceptors in their wrists. I just assumed that they were in their eyes, just like they are with us midwesterners.
But with that in mind, I guess the "limp-wristed" epithet makes sense. Naturally, if you've got an unhealthy pair of wrists, your photoreceptors won't be at their peak, giving you poor color vision.
Come to think of it, this also explains why everyone here keeps running red lights. Red-green colorblindness caused by carpal tunnel syndrome!
There is no winning with people like Welles. If the media doesn't report the race of a suspect, they cry PC foul. If the media does report the race of a suspect, they use that as an excuse to dish out some bigotry, like the comments on the Hoya story. Best to just ignore them.
monkey: Commissioner Gordon needs to light the LNS signal.
Actually the situation is far more dire.. Gon-dorm is besieged.. Gandalf needs to light the warning beacons of LNS:
Ride now!... Ride now!... Ride! Ride to ruin and the bar's closing!
This is the standard complaint on neighborhood listservs whenever there's a violent crime. Whenever the cops just say "teenage male" the residents want to know the race. When they give the race, others complain the cops are being racist. Really, how useful is it to describe the perp's race in this town? It's like releasing an all points bulletin that the suspect is hatless. Repeat: hatless.
Unless the guy was an albino Swede with a duelling scar from his days at Heidelberg, saying the perp was a Black male doesn't really narrow down the suspects by that much.
@ PoBoy 321: small world :) But I agree, as much as people might have appreciated the lax security when going to a party, obviously it's dangerous.
To be fair, there are some people at Georgetown who are elitist, and some who are on LNS. But don't paint us all with the same brush -- I know just as many smart, sweet, humble people who are out there trying to do some good in the world.
I guess the worst of it had been edited off the Hoya discussion thread, 'cause it didn't look like anyone got too crazy to me. And we all know how sensitive I am about race shit.
The Hoya discussion board is good about removing out-of-line posts, which is then reliably followed-up with complaints that people's right to free expression is being trampled upon by dissent-squelching Hoya editors. You can't win...
Do they still have student guards? If not, they might be giving up the familiarity that used to go along with the job. When I worked a semester of late-night security in LXR, I generally had a good idea of the people coming in and out. Sure, there were always new people and folks going to parties, but those are the ones I paid the most attention to. It was fairly easy to distinguish between the regulars and anyone else.
The biggest problem with LXR is the large number of entrances. People can enter at so many locations.
Give me a break politiburo. Not reporting the race of a suspect is actually borderline racist simply because then everyone assumes the suspect is of a certain race.
And 9 out of 10 times they would be right with that assumption.
9 out of 10?!?!? if it's violent crime and it's in DC 10 out of 10 times you'd be right with that assumption.