If a Tree Falls in Dupont…
A tree fell on a female pedestrian near the corner of 20th Street and Connecticut Avenue NW this afternoon. But it was less a freak accident than preventable one—the tree fell two hours after police were notified.
At around 10:30 a.m., a Chipotle delivery truck collided with the tree, leaving it hanging at a 45-degree angle, witnesses say. Police responded after the collision and completed a report, but none were present when the tree crashed to the sidewalk about two hours later.
“People in Cosi were screaming,” says Brett Freeman, manager of a local store, describing onlookers’ attempts to prevent the initial crash. The delivery truck backed up and hit the tree again. “The driver didn’t care.…We called city services, but they never came,” Freeman says.
An employee of a nearby sandwich shop who saw the incident, Hannah Tesman, confirms that the police had abandoned the scene. “The police came out, but no one fixed it.…[N]o one was there when the tree came down.”
Karen Reyes, manager of the Chipotle, did not witness the collision or see the tree fall, but confirms that the driver came in to use the telephone. Reyes would not provide the number of the delivery company.
Police spokesperson Ofc. Israel James says that a branch of the tree struck the woman—according to witnesses, in her mid-20s—on the arm. An ambulance was called, and she was treated on the scene, he says. James could not comment on why police left the scene before the tree was secured. “I wasn’t told what caused the branch to strike the person,” he says.
According to Eric Lindon Erik Linden of the D.C. Department of Transportation, the agency’s Urban Foresty Administration didn’t hear about the tree until after it fell, at 12:55 p.m. “We immediately dispatched our emergency crews to the scene,” he says.
June 16th, 2006 at 5:31 pm
I was passing by to grab a sandwich after the tree had fallen, at which point I snapped this photo. That’s right beside the Church of Scientology. Were there any OTs available to offer Touch Assists?
June 16th, 2006 at 10:41 pm
A lot of trees in DC have scars from where vehicles of various sorts have hit their trunks or limbs.
I like lowish limbs on trees (as long as they don’t make the street dark enough to seem unsafe) but there’s always competition for space in cities. The trees should win to a point. I mean, how long did that tree (or any big tree) exist and provide beauty and environmental benefits ’till some thoughtless person decided they had to drive or park *right there* and damage it? I’d like to see the drivers fined.
June 17th, 2006 at 12:55 pm
I feel sorry for the tree.
June 17th, 2006 at 11:21 pm
Hey City Paper,
When you’ve finally decided to do something about Rees so that your blogs are actually useable by regular people, please post an announcement in your paper. I read City Paper religiously, but the blogs have become worthless and unreadable.
June 20th, 2006 at 7:15 pm
When you’ve finally decided to do something about Brooks also who has been posting here anonymously so that your blogs are actually useable by regular people, please post an announcement in your paper. I read City Paper religiously, but the blogs have become worthless and unreadable because of this tit for tat.
June 20th, 2006 at 7:23 pm
Proof that Sam Brooks is behind 90% of all the ugly postings will be seen tonight as he is now at a Ward 3 debate. Thus there will be no postings here or there until after he gets home.
We have watched this fact very carefully.
Go back and look at all blogs on the days that Brooks was participating in a debate and for those 2-3 hours, the blogs were free of his evil and dishonest psotings but tonight, he will respond after he gets home around 9.
June 20th, 2006 at 9:08 pm
You’re an ass, Rees. You’re the only politician who’s dumb enough to spend his time ranting on blogs. You’ve left a trail of IP addresses all across the internet proving it.
No one’s ever linked a single posting to Brooks.
By the way, most of the people who post against you are at the debate, listening to real, qualified, intelligent adults. It’s a nice break for them, i imagine, from wasting their time on your bizarre self-gratificational behavior here.
June 20th, 2006 at 10:08 pm
Who attended the Ward 3 event? I’d love to hear a recap.
Although not one of Rees’ famous “A friend of mine went and told me that no one was there”/”I overhead people saying mean things about Brooks” posts, please.
Someone who isn’t a flack for Rees, who actually attended and can describe the event with some measure of objectivity and insight. Thanks!
June 21st, 2006 at 12:33 am
Sam Brooks posted that above using a proxy as you can see the slashes and he also posted the same over on DC Wire in three places using various alaises.
Brooks is just as guilty as Rees and none of us have their IP addresses because none of us have proof of who their ISP is.
Get real people and techies like myself is not fooled by all the lies you tell that each of you has proof os trail of IP addresses.
Feed that lie to a computer illiterate but not so openly where people like I can call you a bold face liar.
June 21st, 2006 at 12:37 am
The turn out at this ward 3 candidate forum was dismallly well under 100 real people not associated with any of the candidates and that says a lot when there are 25,000 + voters in ward 3.
Also each of the candidates were so boring even their own eye brows fell asleep.
June 21st, 2006 at 1:40 am
One slash, used properly as punctuation. You dolt. That’s NOT how proxy server slashes manifest themselves. My god, that post just CRACKS me up. You don’t have the good sense to be embarassed by your own expansive ignorance, do you? You funny little man.
You seem to know as little about IT as you do about politics, world history, English composition or anything else.
Also: The turnout wasn’t dismal. And here’s a free lesson from Politics 101, Junior: Politicians don’t attend debates solely to talk to those in attendance. They use it as a vehicle for getting far wider attention through press coverage. If the Post, for example, covers it, the “attendance” becomes effectively equal to the paper’s readership. Which is gigantic.
And finally: “their own eye brows fell asleep?” WTF?
June 21st, 2006 at 1:41 am
I particularly enjoyed this examplary bit of Reesian wordsmithery:
“Feed that lie to a computer illiterate but not so openly where people like I can call you a bold face liar.”
Excellent!
June 21st, 2006 at 10:36 am
I am amazed how idiotic some of you are.
I know that Rees and Rivera are two very different people as I have worked with Rivera on other campaigns.
Rivera is a very hard core Hispanic who is, by what you have seen already, very anti-feminist, anti-gay and more.
Rivera is a very seasoned guy who knows how to market people, and it is he and his crew who are out there each night pushing Rees.
If Rees should pull it off, in this crowed field, Rivera will say it was because of him, and call in his chips, and demand that Rees re-pay him by voting against anything Rivera thinks is pro-gay or feminist. This would be like any other person who contributes to a campaign expecting favors for their input.
Until you guys see who is really posting here, you are leaving yourselves unguarded and making yourselves look like a scared herd of sheep running in different directions.
Rees has not as the person posting above thinks put himself on shaky legal grounds as he is not the one posting but that is a ploy Rivera uses to throw people off and a court of law would laugh at all of you if Rivera comes forward and says it was him all along using a political feint to throw off rivals.
Wake up dead heads as Rivera is the kind of evil bastard who tells others to sit back and let him handle things and they do as Rivera is not bad at his tricks of his trade.
June 21st, 2006 at 10:45 am
Rivera has a theory that most white people of ward 3 are inherently racist and sterotype.
He is proving that each night in what he is doing out there to reach voters you and I cannot under normal circulstances do, and he is doing it very successfully and plays upon the perceptions of white people as it concerns Latinos.
Care to guess what he is doing?
June 21st, 2006 at 10:46 am
If “rivera”’s strategy is to make Rees and anyone associated with him look like sleazebag, belligerent nutcases, then I agree - he’s knows how to market people.
Now STFU rees/rivera.