DC Crime Blog

Good evening, people.

The DC council smacked down the provision in Fenty’s crime bill designed to quell gang violence.

From CBS-9:

At-Large Councilmember Michael Brown said that he lives in Ward 3, near Tenley Circle and thinks that while police won’t be arresting large numbers of white youth standing on corners in his neighborhood, they might unfairly profile black youth in communities east of the river.

Unrelatedly, the Council also wants the Holocaust Museum shooting filed as a hate crime.

John Hinckley, who attempted to assinate Reagan almost 30 years ago and was since commited, has been granted more leave from the psychiatric hospital and even has permission to apply for a drivers license.  Seems like Dude’s been in there for almost three decades for a reason, you know?

Trio - Demarcus Brown - shot at 215 Newcomb St SE.  Unidentified 23-year old male 900 block of Division Avenue NE pronounced deat at hospital.  Bernard Leon Gayles, 39, arrested & charged in stabbing death of Nathaniel Wesley Hall.

$3.3 million awarded to the family of a pedestrian struck and killed by a MPD cruiser while in a Wisconsin-Avenue crosswalk.

A training backlog is taking DC police officers off the streets and into the classroom.

PG - how safe are PG County jails?

How do you prevent gang violence?  How about with a “Gang & Crew Prevention Commission”?

The big crime story this week in the District is obviously the tragic Holocaust Museum shooting.  Writers and journalists around the country are analyzing the driving force behind the shooting – hate – including in this article by USA9.  Freedom of speech, hate groups, and racism are all tied up in the horrifying events of this past Wednesday. 

The thirty two year old son of James von Brunn, the Holocaust Museum shooter, comments on his father’s actions.

Questions about museum security in the wake of the shooting:  “It may be time for the Holocaust [museum] to review exactly their security needs and the level of protection,” says Lou Cannon, national trustee for the Fraternal Order of Police in the District.

WTOP reports that retired District police officers drew their weapons on James von Brunn.

A missing ten year old Maryland boy found by DC police.

Gaithersburg drunk driver allegedly causes one, two, three crashes in a matter of minutes.

Video of alleged fratricide killer in VA. 

More video: PG PD corruption – a police officer charged in a bank robbery.

Two alleged murders in Southeast, and one in Northwest.

Latest murder in Columbia Heights raises new old questions about police protection in the area.

Homicide in VA: Falls Church man found lying dead in the street.

You know it’s a sad news week when you have to turn to an alleged cocaine and Ritalin using doctor for some levity.  The guy looks like somebody ran over his dog.

This elegant article by Washington Post writer Kirk Savage explores some of the deeper meaning behind the Holocaust Museum shooting.  It seems that every once in awhile we are reminded about exactly the kind of weapon words can be; a brutal, slaying force can lurk behind any rhetoric, behind any essay, behind any novel or website or blog post.  It’s important for all of us to remember exactly what words can do.  Words can bring like-minded thinkers together in an effort to spread the ideals of peace and prosperity for all, of brotherhood and sisterhood, of an inherent subservience to your fellow human being.  The Golden Rule, after all, is only words.  And James von Brunn was only convinced by words that his actions were justifiable, he was convinced by words that he was supposed to do what he did.  We must remember that history is a fearful and powerful foe and fair-weather friend, but that it can also be that which guides us into a better day, a more conscientious and respectful world.  Peace, and rest in peace, Stephen T. Johns. 

Stephen Johns (left), a 39-year old African-American security officer, killed at yesterday’s shooting at the Holocaust Museum, is remembered.

Ta-Nehisi Coates, a blogger for The Atlantic, comments on the symbolism of Johns’ death.

Some information on the shooter’s background.  Mayor Fenty: “There are madmen in our midst.”

A man shot in Columbia Heights last night (1300 block Columbia Rd NW) died after being transported to a local hospital.  Jim Graham:

“This is the same block that has had a police post and a light tower every day for months,” Graham said. “This means that the shooting occurred just a stone’s throw from a police officer.”

Cathy Lanier wants DC Blues to get in shape.

A PG County Police Officer is moonlighting — as a bank robber.

Dr. Eric Carl Greenberg, and his wife, Jaquenette Irene Fischman, have been arrested in Bethesda on drug-related charges.

CNN is reporting that there has been a shooting “at or around” the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.

UPDATE: CBS News “reports that the gunman at the Holocaust Museum in D.C. was an 87-year-old man linked to white supremacist websites.” (via Twitter).

Oooh, poor you: you can’t speed without paying a fine anymore?  But traffic fatalaties have been halved in Montgomery County, in part because of speed cameras.  (It’s always fun and games behind the wheel until you’re going so fast you can’t stop to yield the right-of-way to a pedestrian, and then who winds up in jail?  You!)

Also in MoCo, two police cars will have surveillance cameras installed after a long fight between the County Council and the local police union.

DC’s Inspector General: your personal information, city employees?  Not so private.

Leave it to DC: a man in NE, overdosed, revived in the ambulance, stole the ambulance, and then was thwarted in his ambulance thievery by the Fire Department.

Babynapping?  Only not?  Huh?

Shoplifters, take note: bringing kids with when you shoplift won’t keep the police from arresting you.  FIVE different people, with their kids — Walmart, Target.

Delivery-on-demand, thanks to a 911-operator responding to a call from Germantown.

A former DC police officer pleaded guilty today to charges of federal tax fraud. A co-owner of a SE security consulting firm at the time, he was charged for withholding over $2 million in payroll taxes that were never paid to the feds.

The family of a man killed by police in Trinidad Monday night wants answers.  And this guy at NBC-4 gives a hell of a delivery on the story of the shootings in SE.

Some genius jumped the fence at the White House.

A story a credit card fraud.

Shootings last night in DC: following a pursuit, a man was fatally shot by US Park Police in Trinidad NE, and a shooting in SE left a girl and a teenager wounded.

DC residents are this country’s top cocaine, alcohol abusers. (For the record, I don’t call it abuse — I call it happy hour!)  Related: GWU professor urges new approach to war on drugs.

A suspicious package, which turned out to have nothing dangerous in it, caused the US Capitol Visitor Center to be evacuated yesterday.

You might’ve been stuck in a tunnel, but overall, the DC Homeland and Emergency Management Agency concluded the inauguration was

“highly successful given the unprecedented challenges” associated with handling 1.8 million visitors on the Mall.

In their report, agency officials said the city should be applauded for pulling off an event that featured no arrests, fatalities or other major incidents.

Related, I am LOLing at: “Survivors of the Purple Tunnel of Doom”.

Evening, folks.

Slightly unnerving: A man on the run for allegedly stabbing his girlfriend to death was spotted at her funeral today.  This led to a police chase ended with the man shooting himself.

The woman charged for killing her four daughters and leaving their bodies to rot last year has waived her right to a jury trial.

Suspected arson in Rockville.

Not a crime, but it sure makes DC motorists look like a buncha jerks.

And we’ve been doing this for  month now!  Let’s see if we’re still doing this on July 8th, m’kay?

One billion dollars.  That’s a 1 + 000,000,000.  And that’s how much DC taxpayers are shelling out for drug-use in the nation’s capital:

The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse lumped together all costs associated with drug use in 2005 to determine how much federal, state and local governments were spending. Expenses ranged from health care for smoking-related diseases to incarceration for drug dealers to recovery programs for alcohol and prescription drug addictions.

According to the center’s calculations, 18.9 percent of the District’s $4.2 billion budget in 2005 went to drug-related costs.

DC finally has regulations on the book detailing how to legally own a handgun in the District, but guess what?  They’re being challenged in court, and Congress might throw ‘em out altogether!

Chocolate milk: a fitting tribute to a Fredericksburg police officer slain in the line of duty.

Gang initiations and arrests in Alexandria.

Ok, so the corpse in Maryland is probably not that of a missing DC resident.

2 arrested, 1 sought, in connection with a night-club shooting in the Pee-Gee.

Filed in “somebody please smack me this is awful”: One could say, the trial is “frozen” in place, re: Accused Freezer Mom.