Updated Forecast: In Excess of 8" of Snow, Plus Wind
And Now, 10-20 Inches
Federal Govt. Closed Tuesday
Snowmaggedon 1.0 in Time Lapse
Morning Roundup: After the Snowfall Edition
The front door at 1433 Columbia Rd. NW remained broken this morning, but city leaders vowed that they would fix up the building.
"There is no indication that this is gang related," Lanier said, though she subsequently did acknowledge that the suspect is a known associate of MS-13.
The chief briefly outlined how the shooting occurred as the police now understand it. The suspect had attempted at least a couple of robberies in the nearby area prior to trying to rob members of the Fuentes family as they walked back to their apartment in the 1400 block of Columbia Rd. NW on Saturday night, Lanier said. Oscar's aunts managed to make it inside the building and close the door of their apartment, but thanks to the front door of the building being broken, the suspect managed to follow them inside, and allegedly fired a shot through the apartment door, striking and killing Oscar.
Lanier declined to comment on any evidence that led to the arrest of Pena, but said he is known to police and has been known to frequent the area where the shooting took place. Pena was arrested at 5:50 a.m. this morning in Hyattsville, Md.
The city plans to begin work upgrading the safety of the apartment building, located at 1433 Columbia Rd. NW, and bill the landlord, Fenty said. Following the shooting, city inspectors discovered over 100 housing code violations, the worst of which were unsecured front and back doors and an unsecured roof door.
"This is a landlord who didn't have enough concern for his tenants," Fenty said, while acknowledging that buildings in similar condition are too commonplace inside the District.
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebook
I'd be interested in knowing how many times DCRA cleared this property of any violations.
Every time, apparently.
Okay. So a known member of MS-13 engages in criminal activity and a 9-year-old dies, but the death is not "gang related?" Was he robbing/shooting people in his spare time?
I think by "gang-related" they mean that the shooting stemmed from a the gang's beef with another gang or something along those lines. Just because he was associated with MS-13 does not mean that MS-13 was sending him out to shoot nine-year-old kids.
Yep, what Martin said.
But you don't just hand in your gang badge when you turn in for the night. "Gang-related" activity isn't limited to just members shooting eachother is all I'm saying. To me this reads like they're rushing to say, "Whew! Good thing gangs aren't involved in this murder! Otherwise we might be in for a turf war bloodbath." Which, in itself, says a lot about certain parts of Columbia Heights. Semantic bitchiness, I know, but I've learned to pay lots of attention to what's not being said at mayoral press conferences.
Agreed, but I'm happy they didn't use his gang affiliation as an excuse to launch another one of the city's wars on gangs. That means that they're smartly viewing this as an isolated criminal incident, which is what it seems it was.
Now if evidence comes out that this guy was out robbing so he could give money to the gang for their activities, well then it becomes gang-related.
A bit early to declare victory in the War on the War on Gangs, isn't it, Herr Austermuhle? Sure, they smashed the Swampoodle white slavery rings and hophouses, but all that's accomplished is move all the ruffian-related violence over to Trinidad. Speaking of which, where's DC's "Gang Czar?" Does it even have one?
Why would a war on gangs be a bad thing? Gangs rape, gangs beat people, gangs sell crack, gangs rob stores. MPD lets off gangs all the time as merely "groups of friends on the block" when I know for a fact that these are gangs who commit petty crime in my neighborhood because I've called the police on some members a dozen times or more.
Neener, aren't you being a bit shortsighted? We can't just have all these independent drug dealers with no accountability! Think of the children!
Oh, the problem is an evil landlord who failed to fix the lock.
Phew! For a second, I thought their might be profound, intractable social problems underlying this crime. Glad it can just be attributed to one easily demonized target and then ignored.
God forbid we examine our public policy or anything. Just fix the door lock and our growing permanent criminal underclass becomes a non-problem.
Once the door on 1433 Columbia is fixed, I'll be totally safe walking down that street.
This is what happens when you transfer Banita Jacks' caseworker to the Building Inspector's office.
Yeah, blaming this on a non-locking door is just ridiculous. Non-residents get into apartment buildings all the time-- my cousin and I had some creepy guys follow us into her building and then try to get into her apartment. Of course, this happened in Arlington, and crimes never happen there, so I suppose we were perfectly safe.
I don't know the details here, as I've never been to that lovely building, but it's pretty common for residents in large lower-income apartment buildings to disable the exterior locks on the buildings. A lot of landlords just give up after replacing the locks repeatedly. It's one of the most common tenant 'improvements'.
But, hey, as long as we've got someone we can all hate on, why let real world possibilities intrude?
"That lovely building," FYI, is a dump and an eyesore. And before you ask, no, the other buildings housing low-income people on and near that block -- both public and privately owned -- don't look like that. This place sticks out like a sore thumb. I assume you, Hillman, take the effort to ensure that the property you own is kept in some semblance of pleasant appearance? But never mind, how dare I even ask. And how dare we in the neighborhood question why a particular landlord VISIBLY has no interest in keeping her property looking decent!
My property is in fact lovely - a Jane Austen-like wet dream. I paint only with golden paint chips. My hallways are littered with diamonds. My AC units emit air tinged with the farts of angels.
But even with all that I've had tenants repeatedly leave common space doors open, even after asking that they not.
And I've talked to enough landlords to know that disabling common space locks is, well, common. Particularly in lower income buildings. Particularly those with a lot of teenagers.
Again, not saying this happened in this instance, but it wouldn't surprise me if it did.
Incidentally, hyperventilate much? It's a lovely day out. Try to go out and get some air.
You want to know what's DECENT? Driving through the neighborhood and seeing folks throw their effing trash out the car window, or walking down the street and throwing their crap onto the sidewalk or in the grass. Sure, this building may be an eyesore but if people are pigs and trashing their own neighborhoods then no amount of fresh paint, replaced hardware and new lightbulbs will last long. There's something called personal responsibility and while I'm not blaming the residents for the nine-year-old's death, I think it's ridiculous to point your finger at the landlord who had NOTHING to do with this shooting.
I'm with you on the litterers. Hate that. Says a lot about how much you care about your surroundings. And how you think it's someone else's job to clean up after you.
It's worth noting that the alleged shooter shot this poor kid THROUGH the locked apartment door.
Not sure how much good a locking exterior door would have done to begin with.
Again, not saying this property owner was a good property owner.
Just sharing what my experience in the field has shown me.
No use arguing; Hillman can always be counted on to stand up for landlords and generalize about low-income people, regardless of the facts at hand in any particular circumstance.
Having been a low income person for most of my life, I think I earned the right to 'generalize'.
Sort of like your 'generaliz'in' email.
And just curious. Could you point out some of my generalizations?
"This is a landlord who didn't have enough concern for his tenants," Fenty said
Um, what about the housing inspectors whose job it is to find the 100 code violations before someone gets murdered?
Housing inspectors must be invited to a property by the landlord or tenant in order to inspect it. Do we know if anyone living there asked DCRA to come out?
In order to gain access, I should have written. They could have done an exterior inspection.
The suspect had attempted at least a couple of robberies in the nearby area prior to trying to rob members of the Fuentes family
Wait, do they mean that same night, or on prior occasions? Did any of those people call the cops?
An MS-13 member from PG County kills a child in DC.
The inevitable consequence of the systematic emasculation of the PG County Police. I hope the ACLU, the storefront "ministers," and their friends are happy.
The city plans to begin work upgrading the safety of the apartment building
How bout they begin by loading all the MS13 members into skydiving aircraft and then dumping them over central america. When they pull their shoots.."uh oh, these aren't parachutes, it's the Fuentes family's laundry". Then the Fuentes family has a good laugh when they find the parachutes in the dryer.
And how, pray tell, will you go about identifying MS-13 members? It's not like they wear uniforms and carry ID cards.
Like I said before, I'm actually very happy the city didn't use this as an excuse to push a new anti-gang law of questionable merit.
Geez, I guess my idea wasn't as easy to execute as I thought. I'll return the Fuentes family laundry on the way to the grand opening of Chipotle.
And how, pray tell, will you go about identifying MS-13 members?
They're tattooed on the back of the neck.
'Ere! Is that rat tart? Disgusting.
At least they're not wearing tramp stamps.
Where I come from, a tattoo on the back of the neck of a Latino man is in fact a tramp stamp. Just a different, special tramp.
What particular problems do you have with anti-gang initiatives?
My problem with anti-gang initiatives is their questionable success rate. You throw millions of dollars at a problem in DC and a lot of odd characters show up to collect and sometimes drive the ambulance to a Dominican beach resort. That money would be better invested in providing gang members with more ammunition and proper firearms training with which to kill eachother at a faster rate.
I'd argue it starts earlier than that.
We taxpayers are actually funding the gangs, with our idiotically implemented public housing and welfare programs.
Who do we think is providing free housing for the parents of these losers, all the while not requiring anyone involved to work or show any individual responsibility?
And any time someone suggests that in return for a lifetime of free rent and food you submit to things like better public space surveillance, more police presence, etc., we allow the welfare advocacy groups to shame us into silence.
Who does this really hurt? The decent people out there that are temporarily stuck in these hellholes and whose daily lives are total shit because of the mess we've created.
We provide the funding for the gang environment at the front, then we spent jillions pretending to fight the inevitable violence.
Seems to me there's got to be a better way. If only from an investment and fiscal standpoint, since we are apparently fine with letting less-violent citizens suffer through these craptowns that we've created.
Hillman, because children are minors who are not legally responsible to find their own place to live if Mom is schizophrenic or borderline mentally retarded it is important for the US Government to support these kids.
However I see something very very wrong with not making Mom and Dad submit to drug tests, not forcing Mom and Dad to hold jobs at all times, etc. When I saw a drug dealer visiting a house I knew to be some kind of government-owned house I had cell phone pictures sent to DCRA, MPD, the Mayor, etc.
It's really important for people to acknowledge that allowing parents to be drug addicts, alcoholics, not gainfully employed, uneducated, etc is child abuse. By not forcing these parents to stay off of illegal drugs we as a society are committing child abuse. There is no argument any other way, but it's often twisted by pro-heroin and pro-cocaine lobbyists.
neener, exactly where are all the "help wanted" signs for jobs for mentally ill and borderline retarded parents? sure, it would be nice if they had jobs, but if they can't find or keep them, what do you think should happen to their kids...homelessness? taking them into foster care?
Palin/Prejean 2012 isn't going to staff itself.
Is there some way to discourage men from repeatedly impregnating DC's smokin hot schizophrenic, borderline mentally retarded moms? Or is that just a lost cause, like getting Peter Nickles to make sense?
Sadly, some of these thugs know that most immigrant families carry their cash on them. The wealthier immigrants are in the inner city so these robberies happen more than reported.
For what it's worth, I was at the press conference this morning and Chief Lanier stated very clearly that the suspect is "not a known gang member", but is known to "associate with MS-13". Evidently there's a difference. What difference it makes in this case, I don't know.
And, btw - it is quite easy to ID a real MS-13 member, they tend to use tattoos to very clearly identify themselves. And holmie, if you're wearing MS-13 ink and you're not legit and you get found out, well...
Where does a kid like this find the time to register his hand gun? Do you get a Gang Merit Badge after the training requirement of four hours of classroom instruction and one hour of range instruction?
there's only one person to blame here. the fucking animal
that pulled the trigger.
i agree. off with his head!