Posts Tagged ‘D.C. Police’
GW Student Goes ‘Missing,’ Creates One More Unnecessary Facebook Group
Just after midnight on Monday, GW’s Hatchet reported that senior Royal Gethers had gone missing. D.C. Police and the university had launched an investigation. Gethers was out of sight for a little more than a day.
Friends told the Hatchet that Gethers wasn’t the type of guy to just disappear. He was always texting, etc. When he failed to meet up with a friend on Sunday, and didn’t text in an apology, people got worried.
Friends started a Facebook group. Others planned to fly to D.C. to help with the search effort. Flyers started going up.
“Jazz Hayes” wrote into the Facebook group:
“GOODMORNING TEAM. LETS BE PRODUCTIVE AND PRECISE TODAY. FLYERS GO OUT, AND LOCAL NEWSTATIONS ARE CONTACTED. I WILL PAPER THIS ENTIRE DAMN CITY.”
And this from Hayes: “SEARCH TEAM POST YOUR TWITTERS SO WE MAY STAY UPDATED AWAY FROM THE COMPUTER!”
And then, um, Gethers showed up on campus Monday morning.
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Our Morning Roundup: Should Bloomingdale Become A Gated Community?
DC Teacher Chic stresses about having to monitor at-risk students. A huge number of your colleagues just got canned. And you get to complain about your job on a blog. Maybe you should quit. Here’s what they wrote:
“I have the fortunate task of progress monitoring at least three-quarters of the students in my classroom. To progress monitor a student in the intermediate elementary school grades, the assessment takes approximately thirty minutes to complete. And here’s the cherry on this hot-mess sundae — for students identified as high-risk, I have to perform the assessments every two weeks and for the students identified as some-risk, I have to perform them every three-weeks. YIKES!”
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Sinkhole Alert @ 295 And Pennsylvania Ave
DC.gov is texting some major traffic news:
“MPD is reporting a sinkhole at 295 & Pennsylvania Area. Delays in area; avoid if possible.”
A call to MPD’s press office put me on hold for longer than I care to admit. Maybe the public information officer fell in the sinkhole.
Our Morning Roundup: What’s On Your Agenda?
Dee Does the District believes last week’s protest will have no effect on Rhee’s hold on DCPS:
“The City Council uses only rhetoric to denounce the pairs’ actions; remember when Vincent Gray caved and restored the school funding he originally cut? The Washington Teachers Union has been utterly useless in the struggle between 825 and teachers’ rights; George Parker continues to cancel meetings and overall, has not been proactive in addressing the layoffs. With the Mayor’s reelection looming within a year, there are no candidates that pose a serious threat to him. And while the protests and sit-ins are a start, I seriously doubt Chancellor Rhee or Mayor….o until someone with a better vision and a stronger hand comes along, I think Chancellor Rhee is here to stay, despite what you think of her.”
Cruise Prostitutes, Get a Letter
If you happen to like cruising down Parker Street NE looking for hookers, here’s a warning: The D.C. police department could end up sending you an embarrassing letter.
Some time ago, ANC Commissioner Tony Richardson complained to the mayor’s office that Parker Street, which is amid the H Street NE corridor, was being overrun by prostitutes. Results ensued: The department declared the vicinity a prostitution-free zone for ten days and then increased patrols. The streetwalkers migrated elsewhere.
Scam City! Grifters – and Consumer Protection – Are on the Rise, Officials Say
The economy might be in the dumps but it’s turning into a stellar year for consumer scams … and government plans to combat them.
First, this just came in from one of the Metropolitan Police Department’s Yahoo groups: Beware of the telephone shysters posing as sales reps for the FBI. No, silly! Not the real Federal Bureau of Investigation. This one’s an alleged alarm company peddling “free” security systems. The pitch starts off saying “you live in a high crime statistics area” and offers a free home alarm system in exchange for letting the company put an FBI sign on your lawn. It’s the latest twist in alarm system scams.
AFTER THE JUMP: More on D.C. confidence schemes and Obama’s plans to take down abusive consumer lenders.
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Our Morning Roundup: Metro Crash Aftermath
Check out these must see photos of yesterday’s Metro crash aftermath. Read our interview we posted last night with a Deputy Fire Chief who was on the scene and ended up driving an ambulance. LL wonders: Are DC Metro cars safe? Need help with your commute? WMATA notes that red line service will be severely altered.
Weekend Police Roundup: Bikes, General Logan, Shootings
Did the police get all handsy with you this weekend? During the past three days, the D.C. Police launched another one of its All-Hands-On-Deck efforts in which all available officers were required to work a patrol beat. I saw the police respond in force to several little scenes—but the buzz going around centered on police apparently stopping and ticketing cyclists.
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D.C. Police To Launch Anti-Littering Campaign
In a retro zero-tolerance move, the D.C. Police announced today that it will start ticketing litter bugs. The move follows the D.C. Council passing an anti-littering law last year. Don’t worry, you probably can go ahead and throw your McDonald’s wrappers out of your car window. There’s a month-long grace period. And do you really see D.C. cops ticketing for this?
The police write in its release:
“Starting April 10, 2009 (today), the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) will begin a 30-day warning period to alert motorists of the littering violation and associated fines. Following the warning period, police will begin issuing actual Notices of Infraction (NOIs) to motorists caught littering from their vehicles. The fine for a traffic littering violation is $100 per violation.
“Litter poses health risks, harms water quality and wildlife habitat, and is an offense against communities. Neighborhoods with a lot of litter are at risk of more serious crime and disorder.”
Who Is Joseph Randolph Mays?
You think you know Joseph Randolph Mays. You know that he’s an ex-postal worker. You know that he’s been charged with stabbing to death his girlfriend Erika Peters and her two young boys on March 21. You know that he’s now another defendant awaiting trial at the D.C. Jail.
But Joseph Randolph Mays was much more. He was a poet, a spiritual counselor, and an Internet addict. On one of his more than six blogs and websites, he penned his own simple message to the world:
“My message to everyone in the world. Let’s do this and make our world a better place to live in.”
Our Morning Roundup: Gay Momentum & Stagnetti’s Revenge
*PRETTY SOON THEY MIGHT START REPRODUCING: After victories in Iowa and Vermont, “[gay] momentum…could spill into other states,” the New York Times speculates. Closer to home, the D.C. Council voted resoundingly to recognize same-sex marriages from other states. Jason Cherkis has some comments on that, as well as some intriguing internal polling, here.
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A Cop, A Dipper, And Courtroom 321
Officer Harris takes the escalator up to the third floor inside D.C. Superior Court. He then does what all officers must do every morning in the courthouse: check in on his case. He walks over to courtroom 321 and scans the printout case list taped to the door. His case is there.
It’s almost 9 a.m. This morning, he skipped breakfast and coffee, and took the Green Line from Camp Springs. Officer Harris says he had to be at Superior Court by 8:30. It’s his day off. “Unfortunately,” Harris says, “if we don’t come we get in trouble.”
Harris is stuck standing outside courtroom 321 because of some other guy’s troubles. This past summer, he arrested a guy for possession of PCP. One of the easiest arrests he’s ever made.
Three Murders In Three Days
Murders became routine this weekend. One on Friday. One on Saturday. And one on Sunday. At least that’s what D.C. Police are reporting. (They can be a little slow sending out releases).
Here’s a rundown of the terrible news.
Escapee Still Being Sought
On Saturday, Jan 31, 24-year-old Corey Harrison pulled off a pretty incredible stunt. It was 5:30 p.m. He had been arrested by D.C. Police as a fugitive from P.G. County. There has been a bench warrant issued for him in a child support case. But after being arrested, Mr. Harrison promptly escaped from custody at the United Medical Center at 1310 Southern Avenue SE.
On February 2, D.C. Police finally released a press release asking for help. They provided the details of his escape:
“He escaped from a men’s room by climbing through the ceiling of the restroom and then making his way to another room. When he escaped, he was wearing a white T-shirt, boxer shorts and a handcuff on one wrist.”
So, officers: Why the handcuff on just the one wrist? In the middle of winter, you couldn’t find a guy running around wearing a t-shirt and boxers?
Harrison is still on the loose.
Leaving the Mall: Hopeless
People got tired of trying to leave the city:
Cops could have used these:
“Three Million People Trapped On The Mall.” This was the headline my travelling companion had given the moment. She was sure it would be the headline of the day. Not Obama’s historic presidency. Not Obama’s speech. Not Michelle Obama’s dress. But the hell that was the mass exodus off the Mall.
If you wanted chaos, cops offering either lousy directives or attitude, and mobs of people pushing in all directions then you had a good time. For everyone else, it just sucked.
If you thought memorizing the inauguration map made you safe—you were wrong. When we arrived at our first idea of an out–the 3rd Street tunnel, cops said it was closed. It may have opened at some point. But not for us and thousands of others. If you bothered to ask the cops for an explanation, the cops weren’t interested.
There was one case where I can’t blame the cops for giving the cold shoulder. One guy at 3rd and Independence asked: “Where’s the parade at?” Some people should have studied up before this morning!
So we decided to head west on Independence. Any spot near a metro was a total standstill. Gridlock. Hell. Whatever you want to call it. The cop to people ratio was like 1 to 5,000. All cops we talked to either didn’t know where anything was or could not explain why a street was closed. If you thought the cops would do some kind of traffic control, forget it. Old ladies w/ canes—they were on their own. Etc.
