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Caps Briefing: Getting the Message
Police Third District Inspector Edward Delgado sent this message out to Columbia Heights residents this morning via the 3D email list:
I find it to be my responsibility to alert you of a new trend (Home Invasion) within the Washington region that could pose a threat to the Columbia Heights Neighborhood. The common method of operation is that someone unexpectedly either knocks or bangs on your door. Upon opening the door to ascertain what the emergency is, they rush in and announce a robbery. I ask that if your front door is not equipped with a peep hole or similar device that you have one installed. If you feel uncomfortable with a person at your door please call 911 and advise them you have someone at your door and that they are trying to get in.
Also, with the cold weather upon us and there are many fraudulent methods that people use to get into your residence. Most of these criminals will engage you in a conversation about you utilities and ask to come into your home for a no fee inspection. Once inside they steal items from your residence without your knowledge. I urge everyone do not let anyone inside of your residence; just advise them that you are not interested. If you are please schedule an appointment with the main office and have them come out at your request. If they persist please call the police 911.
Pass this info on to your neighbors and be sure to call the police to report any suspicious behavior.
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If these home invaders are tieing their victims up with duct tape, I certainly hope they bought it at a small locally owned hardware store instead of Target. Gotta keep that money in the neighborhood.
I think i'll go out and buy a gun...wait!
Sounds familiar... did the attackers dress in white and use phrases like "real horrorshow" and "my droogies"?
Look at what the pandas are now reduced to do in order to get some food. Gentrification, at work again.
"Most of these criminals will engage you in a conversation about you utilities and ask to come into your home for a no fee inspection. Once inside they steal items from your residence without your knowledge."
Like, for real, for real? The notion that people can be that stupid is just further evidence that I am a beacon of sanity amongst a confederacy of dunces.
This was bound to happen. It's happening all over the region. Time to lock the doors and use the old peephole.
Trust no one. Find or get a legal weapon. Damn DC gun laws.
Get off my lawn.
What good would a gun do? Do you always have the gun in your hand when you answer the door? Or you could just take the more sensible advice others noted and just not open the door.
Who said I answer the door with a gun? I said weapon.A legal weapon like a hand weight or a small heavy item. Something hidden, set aside, just in case. In times like these, it is best to know you can protect yourself. Sometimes you just have to open the door. The smart man survives. The pacifist dies or gets beaten. Once you cross a man's doorway, you are in their domain. That man's law. If you are OK. It's all gravy. If you are not OK, then it's SHOWTIME! I've lived in the projects and there were bad people all over. You learn how to protect yourself. Never leave your home unprotected.
Cue music: "Welcome to the Jungle"
"via the 3D email list...
Email. Now available in 3D. Awesome.
I find it amazing how willing people are to open their front doors to perfect strangers. My mom taught us to never open the door for people who we do not know and are not expecting. She also taught us to keep the doors locked. I have carried that with me through life.
I am sorry, but if someone shows up at your front door, out of the blue, saying they need to dig around your home, you are an absolute idiot if you let them in without calling the utility company first to verify.
am sorry, but if someone shows up at your front door, out of the blue, saying they need to dig around your home, you are an absolute idiot if you let them in
More than likely, this is a trick that targets the elderly and/or non-english speaking. Have a little more sensitivity.
welles: go away.
3D = 3rd District, which includes Columbia Heights.
I know, thanks. It was supposed to be a joke.
Columbia Frights is the ghetto. A black wasteland. Sure you can move in a Target and a Best Buy, but black criminals still abound. Horrible place.
"black" wasteland, eh? i'm sure you weren't purposely throwing in that descriptor for any racial reasons were you, welles.
(and yeah, i'm hounding you on this. but i have a legitimate reason.)
Welles,
You have consistently demonstrated that you enjoy posting hostile, racist comments on DCist. I have to field complaints about you on a regular basis.
I'd like you to know that you are incredibly close to being banned. We've only ever banned two other commenters in the history of DCist, so you would be joining a select group.
At this point, you have two choices:
1) Stop commenting here altogether.
2) Only contribute comments that are not filled with expletives, hate and racism. If you post one more such comment, I will ban you.
OK? Consider this your final warning.
Uh, Sommer? Have you lived in Columbia Heights? Is it a NOT horrible place? Do black criminals NOT abound? (Living for three years in that hole, the only non-black criminal I saw was that white crackhead/hooker who hangs around the corner of Spring and Holmead).
Discouraging people from speaking the truth about an ugly blight on the city, real nice, Sommer.
Sorry, guess we should pretend Columbia Heights is "up-and-coming," right? Please.
Dude or dudette! Not every crime is committed by a black person. There are white and or hispanic people doing dirty things too. There is no need to blame it all on black people. There is no place safe on Earth. Some places are safer than others.
I live a block from that crackhead's former nest. Walk 14th from Columbia to Spring. Yes, there's crime, sometimes, especially if crime is defined by "standing being black." But there's great vitality. People mix. There are people on the street. There are businesses owned by locals: the panam grocery, cooper's hardware, the red derby bar. There are two bakeries opening north of Otis.
Ahh, yes, it's a hipster-bar-attending, bakery-opening, rapidly-gentrifying, community-meeting-attending, blight. With bonus Washington Sports Club! Unlike the Georgetown club, this has a pool! Blighty!
TOS here reserves the right, as a private website, to delete comments and exclude readers who make offensive comments. Offensive, like, Monkeyerotica's funny, David Duke's not. Sommer hardly said, "don't say neighborhoods have high crime." She said, stop saying that "having black people around" is the equivalent of "being a hellhole". That sort of claim is offensive -- to me, at the very least.
And I think she and DCist should be commended for requesting a change of behavior, politely, rather than simply banning this guy. Never seen that before.
Before more people go off on this confederacy of dunces we live in, or what idiots people must be if they don't make a phone call first (how long before Darwin gets invoked?), take a step back and realize, hopefully with as much humility as you can muster, that not everyone is as smart or socially savvy as you.
I hear these stories and my first thought is, "Who would open the door??" Then my second thought is, "My grandmother, an immigrant to this country, whose first language is not English, and who is not confident about questioning authority. That's who."
So STFU.
OK, so when that hot UPS guy gives me that "come hither" look, is because he wants to come in and steal my watch and loose change.
I just say, "Can you wait while I complete my 5 hour training course ($150), drive to Maryland to purchase a gun, arrange to get it transferred to an FFL holder in DC($125), Go to MPD to get fingerprinted ($35), get background checked, go the the FFL holder, get background checked again, collect my gun, bring it back to MPD, and wait until they do a ballistics test on it ($12)?"
I think the best strategy is to not answer/unlock the door, while also making it clear that someone is inside the house. One evening a shady looking guy knocked on my door and left when I didn't answer. It wasn't worth calling the police about, but I still felt uncomfortable so I quickly left and spent the night at my cousin's. It turned out the guy was trolling the neighborhood to see who was home, and when he assumed I wasn't there he went to get his buddy and some tools to break in. I'm glad I wasn't there when they did break in, but they probably wouldn't have tried if they thought someone was there.
Have you all seen Johnny Cash in the movie Door-to-Door Maniac? It's a real hoot! He gets to shoot little Ron Howard.
I know columbia heights has its issues with crime, but give me a break. This seems rather misleading to me (and apparently a few other people commenting here). Not once does it say that this is actually something that happened in CH. Rather it said it has happened in the "Washington region" and that it "could effect" columbia heights. The title is probably the most misleading, tainting the rest of the article to seem as though this has already happened here. I dont have a problem with reporting on crime in the neighborhood, but do we need to make it up before it happens?