just conservatives making

artappraiser — Tue, 21 Nov 2023 03:55:02 +0000

In reply to H Street was once a symbol of D.C.’s rebirth. Now it’s barely holding on.

just conservatives making stuff up; it's really a happy 'community' that doesn't need 'broken windows' policing:

[....] The corridor’s challenges also are exacerbated by violent incidents over the past year that drew national attention, including assaults on a member of Congress and a staffer. At the same time, a steady grind of burglaries, robberies and stolen cars add to a collective sense of unease. There also is the near-constant presence of aggressive panhandlers and clusters of people lingering on sidewalks, many of them appearing disheveled, disoriented and, at moments, menacing.

As October ended, a community group felt it necessary to advise a neighborhood email list that a D.C. judge had released a man with no fixed address who had been arrested on H Street after allegedly threatening two people with a machete.

“Please be alert,” wrote Bobby Pittman, chair of the First District Citizens Advisory Council. (By then, the judge had issued a pretrial stay-away order, barring the suspect from being with 100 yards of the two targets.)

Days later, the owners of a restaurant with locations on H Street and Dupont Circle announced they are shutting down, citing a “spike in violent crime” among their reasons.

“I’m just done,” Aaron McGovern, who closed Brine Oyster and Seafood House on Nov. 11, said in an interview. Several months ago, he also shuttered Biergarten Haus, a longtime H Street tavern. “People don’t want to come to H Street, not only because there are better options but because of the scariness of the street.” [....]

As she made her rounds one recent day, D.C. police Capt. Sherrelle Williams stopped at Shop & Run, a convenience store on the corner of H and Eighth streets NE, where the front window looked like a glass spiderweb — cracked from a brick someone threw three months ago.

Many of the store’s shelves were bare. Where the chips should have been, there was nothing. Same with the shelves for freshly made sandwiches and doughnuts.

The owner, Mohammad Mohammad, stopped ordering food a couple weeks ago. He is breaking his lease two years early, saying he is fed up with $5,000-a-month in shoplifting losses, the $14,000 monthly rent and the marijuana peddlers too often lingering outside his door.

“Maybe tomorrow will be my last day,” Mohammad, 38, told the captain.

“Give us 30 days,” Williams said. She repeated herself twice more: “Give us 30 days.”

The captain took responsibility for H Street in July and needs time to get things straight. She has started what she touts as a “boots on the ground” campaign involving residents, business owners, city agencies, and police officers on bikes, scooters and in cruisers.

“We want to disrupt what’s happening on H Street,” she told a recent meeting of 40 residents and business owners. At one point, she promised to have a bench removed from Eighth Street, where people linger at all hours, near storefront real estate ads that announce, “You Belong Here.”

As he listened to the captain, Itay Hertz, an Israeli-born security consultant who bought a rowhouse in the neighborhood in 2022, worried that the police department’s approach is more reactive than proactive.

“They talked about taking a bench,” he said later. “What is the strategic plan?

Hertz’s concerns sharpened earlier this year when a neighbor was mugged while pushing his daughter in a stroller at 8 a.m. on a Saturday. “Took his money, phone and the shirt off his back,” Hertz said, an account confirmed by the victim. In October, a man with a pipe lumbered toward Hertz’s wife, Elisabeth, cursing and threatening her as she took a lunchtime stroll.

Hertz said he plans to train volunteers for a neighborhood patrol modeled after those that he said exist in Israel. The goal, he said, is not to intervene, but to document illegal activity and alert police. “I want eyes on the street,” he said.

The growing sense of danger in the neighborhood is reflected in crime data. Since January, for example, the number of violent crimes increased from 76 to 96, or nearly 25 percent, compared to the same period last year. The number of stolen cars rose from 115 to 163, or 41 percent, while robberies increased from 62 to 79, or 25 percent and burglaries jumped from 14 to 36. Overall crime is up nearly 6 percent.

The increase in violent crime has been greater elsewhere, including the U Street neighborhood, where the number of incidents jumped nearly 84 percent in that same period. Yet, what distinguishes H Street is the public attention catalyzed by high-profile incidents, the most recent in September when Blake Bozeman, a former Morgan State University basketball player, was fatally shot at the Cru Lounge.

A little more than a year ago, Washington Commanders running back Brian Robinson Jr. was shot and wounded during an attempted robbery on H Street NE. In February, Rep. Angie Craig (D-Minn.) fought off an apparently disturbed attacker in her apartment building who she said punched her in the face. The following month, a man stabbed an aide to Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) during a random late-afternoon encounter on the corridor.[....]

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