Tag: crime

The Help came over for dinner, helping me put a dent in the amount of chicken dishes I made over the weekend. As a part of our date I suggested the overly romantic idea of popping into the 5C01 SMD meeting around the block [sarcasm]. Surprisingly he thought it was a great idea, and after dinner we stopped over to the meeting that was already in progress. If you say you didn’t see us, we were in the back, and we didn’t stay long. We stayed long enough to hear about the parking situation and the Catch-22 the car owning residents of Richardson Pl. are in, and interesting things about liquor licensing. Did you know the city limits the number of A & B licenses for the whole city?
Anyway, we left and got to talking about changes in the neighborhood, particularly the drug dealing on the corner. The Help has known me since before I bought the house, and has seen the neighborhood change. Since he knows me and I pledged to be honest with him I gave him my answer and I’ll share that with you. But I don’t think it varies from what I’ve said before.
There is no one thing that I believe has reduced the dealing on the corner, but rather a whole ingredient list of things. First, I think we got better policing and policing got better. The Internet has helped a lot in getting information to the public, as opposed to the few people who show up to community police meetings. It also helped to have more police patrol cars going up and down the streets. Second, politics and city services. This neighborhood is on the ass end of Ward 5 and we were ignored by then Councilman Orange. With more people involved in local level politics, demanding and engaging more of the elected representatives, who then put pressure on city officials to tackle the crime environment. Also city services and servicing got better. Third, and you know I was going to get to it, demographic changes. There are a whole bunch of things wrapped up in that. The drug dealers need an environment and support structure and when there are fewer people who would add to it, it is undermined. There are fewer neighborhood kids to recruit. Fewer people willing to feed and house dealers. Fewer houses and businesses dealers can stand in front of or visit when they need to duck the cops. Fewer walk up customers. More people complaining and calling the cops. More disapproving eyes on the street. More dog walkers. More joggers. More homeowners. Fewer absentee landlords not caring who they put into a house. Fewer vacant houses. Fewer stores to buy MD 20/20 and a 40oz (remember the old Bates Market?). And lastly, time. All things change with time.

People, if you own an iPhone, you have a portable little device that sells for about $200 on EBay broken. Not jailbroken. Cracked screen broken. So imagine if a thief manages to grab it from you fully functional.
On the green line one afternoon, after work I noticed a young woman standing near the door, one hand on the handle of a suitcase burdened down with other bags and one hand, outstretched playing with her iPhone. Her body language just screamed, “Hey steal my iPhone!” She was conveniently near the door, for a quick getaway. The number of bags she had, made it unlikely that she’d go running after my imagined thief. And since everyone else on the train was in their own little worlds, the likelihood that someone would chase after this imagined thief, small. The distance she held it out from her body made it easy to knock it out from her hands.
She wasn’t the only young woman holding her precious iPhone a foot from her body, making it easy to grab. I saw another walking down 7th Street in Penn Quarter. She might as well have been holding it out another 6 inches further saying, “Here, here, take my phone.”
So my advice is when you’re out in public. Public being outside of your office, your dorm, house, your own private vehicle, hold your iPhone out no more than 6 inches from your body. Also it doesn’t matter what neighborhood you’re in because even Georgetown is experiencing iPhone theft.

I just came from a unrewarding task. While putting my trash can away I noticed not 1, not 2, but about 4 home security issues of concern that could result in a break in or theft from a home or yard. Now if it was just one house, I would go to that person’s house and knock on their door and point out that their back gate latch is unlatched, their rear security door (iron door) is wide open or any of the other concerns I noticed. But with 4, screw it. I’m just doing one and that one, the person wasn’t at home. I left a note.
I’m not repeating it with 3 more houses.
So folks I know the snow probably kept you out of your back yard and away from your alley access. Well the alleys are mostly walkable now and wood warps (why your back fence gate is open), so check your rear.

There is a workshop for folks interesting in becoming block captains on March 11 from 7-9PM at the 5th District police headquarters. I gather the goal is to improve the safety of the community. If interested please contact Jim Berry at jamojam at msn periodthingy com. Ask about the car pool.