Results tagged “crime”

Yusuf Acar, the former D.C. computer security official who was arrested and charged in March for his part in a bribery scheme that allegedly funneled phony contracts and pay checks through the District's Office of the Chief Technology Officer, is expected to plead guilty, the Examiner reports.

Like, literally. Our sister site Londonist brings news of London Mayor Boris Johnson, who on Tuesday night jumped off of his bike to save a woman from an aggressive gang of teen girls. The victim of the attack, who actually voted for opponent Ken Livingstone in last year's mayoral election, called Johnson "my knight on a shining bicycle" in comments to The Guardian.

An armed robber wearing a creepy skeleton mask got away with a bag of cash on Tuesday morning from the SunTrust bank branch located at 8510 Connecticut Ave., in Chevy Chase. Montgomery County police say the suspect fled in a white sedan driven by another person, and that the two later switched to a black Mercedes Benz.

The Georgetown University Department of Public Safety has the details on the second bias-related assault in the last few days near the school. Early this morning, a Georgetown student was attacked by an unknown male near 36th and N Streets NW. According to the public safety alert:

D.C. Police say they are investigating two fatal shootings that happened overnight in Northeast.

A Georgetown student says she was attacked on Tuesday night because she was wearing a gay rights T-shirt, WJLA is reporting.

Police say it happened Tuesday night near the school’s entrance on Canal Road. The female student says two men started insulting her with derogatory comments based on her perceived sexual orientation. Then, officers say, the men took her book bag, pushed her to the ground, and then struck her with the bag.

Continue reading "Anti-Gay Assault Reported in Georgetown"

D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier and Mayor Adrian Fenty announced Wednesday that they have doubled the reward money, to $50,000, for anyone with information leading to the arrest and conviction of the two gunmen who shot and killed 17-year-old Kenyetta Nicholson-Stanley on Oct. 8. Nicholson-Stanley was shot while standing in a playground in the 500 block of Edgewood Street NE, and was merely a bystander. The suspects are believed to have been targeting a security guard who worked in the Edgewood Terrace apartments.

Nick Cho, former owner of Murky Coffee, has been charged with 82 counts of tax fraud, according to the D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue. Cho formally turned himself in this morning after being charged by the Attorney General's office in connection with his failure to file monthly sales tax returns for his Capitol Hill coffeeshop during the period of December 20, 2004, to January 31, 2008, in addition to failing to file unincorporated franchise taxes for tax years 2006 and 2007.

The Post's Matt Zapotosky is reporting that a woman was held at gunpoint in her home in Oxon Hill this morning during a home-invasion robbery perpetrated by three men. The men, at least one wearing a mask and two said to be armed with guns, broke into the woman's apartment in the 1400 block of Southern Ave., just across the street from the District border, at about 8 a.m. this morning. The report notes that the suspects are believed to have fled in a gray or blue Dodge Magnum.

The story of Pepin Tuma, the local lawyer who back in July was arrested by a D.C. police officer after singing the words "I hate the police" while walking down U Street, has made its way in front of the D.C. Council, leading to serious talk about revising the District's disorderly conduct laws. The Legal Times blog and Huffington Post both covered Friday's hearing, during which Tuma testified about his experience while flanked by pro bono counsel from his former firm, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. And it looks like Tuma's message got through to Committee on Public Safety and the Judiciary chairman Phil Mendelson. From the BLT: 'During the hearing, Mendelson made it clear he thought it was time for changes in the law, pointing out that parts of it were more than a century old, and that it had been criticized by Gerald Ford’s President’s Commission On Crime in the District of Columbia.' Unsurprisingly, D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier and D.C. Attorney General Peter Nickles have expressed their opposition to changing the law, which currently allows officers latitude in making arrests for what they deem to be disorderly conduct. The officer in this case, however, is being investigated by both the police department's Internal Affairs Bureau and the independent Office of Police Complaints, according to Huffington Post.

There had already been too much violent crime in residential Northwest neighborhoods when we posted about it yesterday; sadly, there was even more of it to report from last night. First, according to MPD, a woman was shot in the leg on the 1300 block of Euclid Street NW around 6 p.m. yesterday evening. Police say there was no known motive. Assistant Chief Diane Groomes also confirmed that there were shots fired in the 200 block of W Street NW last night. In this particular gunfight, two adult males suffered one gunshot wound each. Police are still investigating both incidents. Anyone with information about either of these crimes, or the multiple shootings yesterday, should call MPD at 202 727-9099 or 1-888-919-CRIME.

WUSA9 is reporting that a police officer shot and killed a man at approximately 10:30 this morning on the 800 block of Upshur Street NW in Petworth. After authorities responded to a report of a person tampering with a vehicle, the suspect fled the scene. A scuffle ensued and shots were then fired. You can count on plenty of police investigating the area today.

WTTG/FOX 5's John Henrehan says that Metro Transit Police are bracing themselves for a winter crime season populated by thieves who steal people's expensive coats, especially ones made by The North Face.

The assistant chief of the agency, Jeff Telinski, told the transit agency's board of directors on Thursday that rail systems on the West Coast are reporting an increase in coat robberies. Coats manufactured by North Face are popular targets.

If you've been following the large-scale FBI investigation into attempts to bribe public officials associated with the D.C. taxicab industry, you've got to read Jason Cherkis's cover story this week in the Washington City Paper. Cherkis spent some time with a few of the 30+ men named in the indictment, and found that federal prosecutors may well be overreaching in their attempts to prosecute some of these guys.

WTTG/FOX 5's got some video of an argument that broke out about 10 a.m. on Monday morning at the McDonald's on Good Hope Road in Southeast. The surveillance video shows two men getting into a disagreement while waiting in line to pay, then later they can be seen fighting over the tops of tables and on the floor of the fast food restaurant. Eventually, the suspect wearing the black hat pulled out a gun and actually fired it, though thankfully he didn't hit anyone.

D.C. police say that two of their officers fatally shot a 19-year-old man at about 5 a.m. this morning in the 900 block of 21st Street NE. The Post first reported word of the shooting earlier today, but the AP has more details now: Police say the two officers, who still have not been named, responded to a call for an unwanted guest at a home in that block early this morning, and subsequently shot and killed James Broadus Miller, 19. According to police, Miller confronted the officers with a gun before he was shot. No other injuries were reported.

That's the word from U.S. District Court this afternoon, where the Washington Post's Del Quentin Wilber was on hand for a brief hearing to set a trial date for Loza, the Jim Graham staffer accused of accepting cash and other gifts from a taxicab lobbyist. Writes Wilber: "Assistant U.S. Attorney John Crabb disclosed the existence of the plea offer during the hearing and said it would expire in two weeks. He declined to comment as he left the courtroom." Loza's attorney said he still needed to review the offer.

As if the drive-by shooting Tuesday at the Clay Terrace housing projects, which left two teens dead and three others wounded, wasn't tragic enough, the Washington Post is citing police sources today who indicate that one of the slain victims, 15-year-old Davonta Artis, was an innocent bystander. Preliminary word from D.C. police is that the drive-by resulted from a dispute between two rival crews, from 37th Place SE and Clay Terrace, over a set of stolen handguns. Artis, according to the Post, appears to have just been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The tortured case of the beating death of gay Maryland man Tony Hunter has at last drawn to a close, as D.C. Superior Court Judge Rafael Diaz sentenced defendant Robert Hannah, 19, to 180 days in jail on Wednesday, the Washington Blade reports. The sentence represents the maximum jail time allowable for Hannah's conviction on a misdemeanor assault charge. Hannah will also get credit for time served, the Blade says, which is about two months already. Hunter's mother told the paper she was "not pleased" with the outcome. There has been much public outcry on the reduced charges to which Hannah eventually was allowed to plead guilty, but ultimately a grand jury did not find sufficient evidence to pursue a manslaughter charge. Friends of the victim have maintained that Hunter was beaten in an unprovoked attack that may have been an anti-gay incident.

View Barrage of Gunfire in Shaw in a larger map

When D.C. voting rights advocacy organization DC Vote launched its "I Am DC" ad campaign earlier this summer, it placed posters featuring the faces and stories of 10 D.C. residents (including our own Martin Austermuhle) on Metrobuses and other visible spots around the city. But recently we noticed that images of the posters available for download on the DC Vote web site now number only nine. Who was on that 10th poster? It was embattled Jim Graham chief of staff Ted Loza.

UPDATE 9:20 p.m. We can now confirm that the second victim has in fact died. The Post has also updated its story.

For those of you following yesterday's broad daylight double shooting in Southwest, one of the victims is now reported to have died. From the Post's Paul Duggan: "The slaying victim was identified as Chicquelo Abeny of Southwest Washington. Police did not identify the second victim because he survived the shooting and is considered a witness." Police are still not offering any ideas as to a motive in the shootings, but Ward 6's Tommy Wells is already tweeting up a storm about setting up a community meeting "to determine if they are retalitory [sic] shootings or unrelated incidences."

An uptick in crime during a holiday weekend is hardly shocking, but an unsolved violent crime so close to a center of activity on a busy Friday night is still slightly unnerving. We first got word of a shooting near the intersection of 13th Street and W Street NW from Mike DeBonis' twitter feed; Loose Lips reported that two Hispanic males had been shot, and that three suspects were on the run, heading west on W Street.

D.C. police today released a pair of photos and a composite sketch of a man they believe to be responsible for a bevy of crimes across the city in the last month. Among the crimes police are attributing to this one guy are the robberies and/or car jackings of six different taxi cab drivers in the month of September alone, plus the Sept. 22 armed robbery of the Lowest Price Gas Station in the 2800 block of 12th Street NE.

A creepy new development today in the ongoing federal investigation into allegations of widespread bribery attempts inside the D.C. taxicab industry, courtesy the Post's Del Quentin Wilber: court documents released today detail how one of the 39 men charged in the bribery ring, Yitbarek Syume, allegedly threatened to murder FBI informant Abdulaziz Kamus when his name surfaced in media reports shortly after the investigation became public.

The papers reveal that Yitbarek Syume met with an undercover FBI agent and an informant on the day after the top staffer of a prominent D.C. Council member was arrested on bribery charges. The three men discussed the high-profile arrest and how to avoid detection of their scheme, which funneled more than $300,000 to a D.C. government official, prosecutors wrote in court papers, citing a surreptitious recording of the meeting.

One of the biggest crime problems in the Metro system has long been thefts from autos parked in the lots at the end of the different rail lines. Thieves know that Metro's large, outer parking lots are filled with cars whose owners won't return until the end of the day, so they prowl them like kids in a candy store.

A 30-year-old Maryland man was found shot Thursday evening in the 1600 block of K Street NE, on the edge of the Trinidad neighborhood. He was discovered at about 5:45 p.m. after police officers responded to a Shotspotter alert, the Post reports. The victim, Andre Pate, later died from his injuries at a local hospital. D.C. police had no more information available today on the shooting.

More than two dozen people have been indicted in the rapidly expanding federal bribery investigation into the D.C. taxi industry, the Post's Del Quentin Wilber is reporting. That's a whole lotta people. So who, besides Ted Loza, are they? They're "cab drivers or others with financial ties to the industry," most of whom will probably be arrested today, according to anonymous sources. Keep your eye out for handcuffed cab drivers this afternoon!

If you're concerned about average D.C. street crime (and who isn't), you really need to be reading Borderstan on a regular basis. The blog has been doing a consistently great job of warning residents about the everyday muggings and burglaries that mostly go unreported by larger media outlets, and this week has been no exception. Note this report of a 9 a.m. mugging bank robbery on K Street: D.C. police were searching for a suit-wearing, briefcase-carrying robbery suspect on Monday who successfully mugged some unsuspecting pedestrian. "And you have to love the irony of mugger in a suit on K Street." Indeed. (Hat tip City Desk). UPDATE: As noted in comments, this particular crime appears to have been a bank robbery and not a mugging. My praise of Borderstan's general vigilance about street crime still stands, though.