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Just like the public swimming pools open over Memorial Day, there's usually an unofficial kick-off to the summer crime season in the District. It's never on the same day and it's usually not just one event, but rather a series of incidents that invariably provoke a response from the police and politicians. This year, it looks like it's come a little earlier than usual, and the city is already grappling with ways to respond.
In July 2006, the brutal murder of British citizen Alan Senitt in Georgetown and 13 other homicides in the same number of days during the month provoked a series of extreme crime prevention measures from local politicians. Then Mayor Anthony Williams declared a "crime emergency" and the D.C. Council passed legislation imposing a beefed up curfew for minors and funding the installation of what would become the first of the city's surveillance cameras.
In 2007, a rash of robberies and other crimes saw new D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier introduce the "All Hands on Deck" initiative, flooding the city's streets with all available police officers designed to be a show of force to tamp down on crime -- at least briefly.
In 2008, a spike in killings in Trinidad led to the introduction of the "Neighborhood Safety Zone," a seemingly friendly name for what ended up being driver checkpoints on roads leading into the neighborhood. (The legality of such stops are still being debated in the courts.)
This year, the crime kick-off appears to have already happened. Last week, Ward 1 saw a number of shootings, including a brazen 11 p.m. killing in Columbia Heights on Friday and incidents in Adams Morgan and Mt. Pleasant. And just yesterday, four people were shot during rush hour along North Capitol Street in what police are calling a gang-related incident.
This sudden outbreak of shootings coincides with a crime bill that Mayor Adrian Fenty wants passed by the D.C. Council on an emergency basis by early June. The mayor's legislation would increase penalties for gun crimes and grant police more tools to crack down on gang activity. Council member Phil Mendelson (D-At Large), who chairs the Committee on Public Safety and the Judiciary, has scheduled a series of hearings to debate a number of the bill's more controversial positions, a move that has not pleased Fenty and Attorney General Peter Nickles. On Monday, Nickles made clear his impatience with Mendelson's hearings, saying, “I don’t want the record to have a lot of namby-pamby about this issue." Mendelson has fired back by saying that it's the mayor's fault that the debates have started this late and that the council has the prerogative to study and question bills submitted by the mayor.
If tradition continues, we're looking at several months of increased summer violence and subsequent reactions by city officials and police. It's not an easy position to be in - Fenty and Lanier are forced by public opinion to propose immediate solutions to criminal problems that have much deeper roots than a police checkpoint or surveillance camera could adequately address. That being said, these solutions — flooding the city with police, beefing up curfews, forcing the council to debate massive crime bills on short notice — are all too often imposed in fits of desperation and without adequate discussion as to their merits. We hope this could change, but recent years don't exactly provide a lot of hope on that score.
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And DCist totally fails to remember the first rule of fight club.
awe crap, I knew I had those rules written down somewhere... Has anybody seen my notepad?!?
Mandatory curfews @ 8pm for under 18 unless you are going to work/school. Maybe create a law that says kids under 18 aren't allowed to work after 8pm.
24 hour curfews if violence continues.
If you rely on police presence to prevent crime, you quickly reach a point of diminishing returns. If intensive policing could keep a lid on crime, prisons would be safe places to live.
The real crime prevention measure is to instill moral character in our children. Unfortunately, no corporation has worked up a profitable business plan for that yet.
I don't think prisons are meant to be "safe" places. They're intended to punish criminals while removing them from society until they can be rehabilitated. Not that we're really pursuing that latter goal, either, but that's not the point. It's really the proliferation of Abercombie & Fitch gear that's causing all these problems. Now get off my lawn, you skinny little abbed-up G'town international law junior. And take that denim-miniskirt-wearing hosebag with you!
You forgot to mention the homicide by the convention center. Nothing like a little early evening murder to scare off convention dollars.
If the city is really serious about this issue and education, why not consider year-round schooling, along with the pay for grades initiative? The longest break for each student would be 3 consecutive weeks in the summer. The school system would stagger the the summer breaks so not all kids are out at the same time. Additionally, trade schools should be made available to high school students with the added benefit of getting a job to have a full summer off from school. If these students quit, get fired, or get into trouble, they land their ass back in school for the remainder of the summer.
"...pay for grades initiative..."
Poking your finger in to a hornet's nest there.
Yeah, a touchy issue indeed. But if you implement a year-long school schedule, and there isn't $$$ involved, do you really expect the kids to stay in school? They'd just drop out to sling some drugs, do break-ins, lookouts, etc. to earn quick cash.
You know what's a crime? The fact that someone wants to open a diner in NE DC and DCRA's only response is "F**K YOU!"
See, this is why you can't have nice things.
So this happens like clockwork every summer going back to the Great Defenestration of the Irish in Swampoodle, yet it's still somehow an "emergency." That's like not having snowplows and salt in January. Wow. Who could have predicted that crime would go up in the summer?
I got no love for Mendelson, but he's right. F**k is up with Fenty showing up late to the game with a bunch of kneejerk legislation that he wants passed without debate. This ain't Coruscant, jack. And I know Senator Palpatine. Senator Palpatine was my friend. And you sir are no Senator Palpatine.
The education angle is paramount to save future generations and keep 13 year olds off of bikes at 11 p.m. on rainy Saturday nights but it does nothing for the perpetrators of the crimes. In the case of the Monroe Street shooting, the key players involved are 24 and up.
We need hard ass anti-crime bills and the cops should be able to haul in kids who are violating curfew. Where I grew up we had curfew and it worked for the most part. We also knew the cops and they knew us.
You have to start somewhere. I strongly doubt a curfew will apply to 24-year-olds. Also, with the kids in school longer, that will give the cops more free time to fight crime, rather than "babysit".
If only this city would deputized me and PIGMAN. We'd have those criminals running to their mama's and papa's after we're done trilling their fannies. Why, Gosh, we just got back from TOYS R US and have a full arsenal of toy water guns that we fill up with squirrel hormones and bacon scent. Once we squirt the thugs with this solution, there's no going back. Right now Admiral Filly is working on a SLUG Gun that shoots extra thick splooge that irritates the skin and subdues the subject right in their tracks. Babycakes Jones is still under observation so she won't be squashing any melons with us until she is released. So if this city wants to get serious with crime. They should ring up: The Inglorious Notorious Kinetic Men!
year round schooling means a higher drop out rate. The same people letting 'em out all hours of the night aren't going to make them go to school year round either.
Convert RFK into a coliseum and let them fight it out. Gang warfare won't be the same if they actually have to fight.
Battle Royale!
Nero says, Two thumbs up!!
Loitering....that's a paddlin. Dealing drugs....that's a paddlin. Mugging...that's a paddlin. Paddle someone to death...ooh you better believe that's a paddlin.
Council member Phil Mendelson (D-At Large), who chairs the Committee on Public Safety and the Judiciary, has scheduled a series of hearings to debate a number of the bill's more controversial positions
You could stick Mendelson's head in a toilet and he'd give you half of Europe. He's like a villain in a King of the Hill episode.
what this town needs is MORE guns. the city should REQUIRE every resident of voting age to qualify for a concealed carry permit. it's way past time to give thugs a legitimate reason to assume every potential victim on the street is armed. we've experimented with gun "control" for decades - how about a new experiment for comparison?