There have been a number of shootings lately in Shaw. This has touched off a lot of worries on the part of community leaders that a gang war has started up. Councilmember Jim Graham dashed off a letter to D.C. Police  Chief Cathy Lanier and others concerning these recent events.

Read the letter after the jump.

Read More "Has A Gang War Started In Shaw? Graham Says Yes." »

The Washington Post has a tiny brief on the back page of today's Metro section reporting that the Metropolitan Police Department has made an arrest in Monday night's fatal shooting on Quebec Place N.W. and another in Colombia Heights last month. 

Police charged Troy Renard Thomas, 18, of the 3000 block of Third Street N.W. , with first-degree premeditated murder while armed of Ryan Randy Trotman.

Arrested in the Columbia Heights case was Robert Larry Brock, 28, of Beltsville in the shooting of Marcus Robertson on May 15. Brock was also charged with first-degree premeditated murder while armed.

The story, reported by Theola Labbé-DeBose, makes no mention that the two homicides, while apparently unrelated, are both allegedly tied to gang beefs going on in different neighborhoods.

Ward 1 Councilmember Jim Graham told his constituents last month that Brock was targeted for the shooting in "gang beefs that have been ongoing since the murders in Dec/Jan.  Another young adult, Paul Jones, was shot and killed by LaFonte Carlton this past January on the 1300 block of Columbia.  Carlton is now facing two murder charges," Graham reported in a May 16 post to the MPD-3D Listserv.

Ward 4 Councilmember Muriel Bowser, meanwhile, has said police are investigating Trotman's killing and another gun-related incident later that night as gang-related.

Metropolitan Police Department’s Homicide Branch has identified Ryan Randy Trotman as one of the victims of Monday night’s shooting on Quebec Place N.W. 

Trotman, 28, of the 7400 block of 7th Street, N.W., later died of his injuries. The name of the other victim, a woman who was shot in the leg, is being withheld because she witnessed the crime.

But a quick call the police didn't net anything new about whether the shooting and another incident a few blocks away the same night were part of a beef between rival gangs in the Petworth-Park View area.

“There are no updates” Officer Quintin Peterson in the police department’s Office of Public Affairs said this afternoon.

Today, the various crime bills are being debated as I write this item. You can read the complete and competing bills here. The Post has gathered up the pro and con surrounding the controversial proposal to take gangs or gang members to civil court. The Post writes:

The provision -- drafted by the administration of Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) -- would allow authorities to target alleged gang members in civil proceedings. A prosecutor could obtain an injunction barring an alleged gang member from engaging in a range of activities, including such nuisance offenses as harassing passersby on the street.

Loose Lips is liveblogging the big crime bill debate. This afternoon, I talked to a veteran D.C. Police official who has vast experience with drug and gang cases. I wanted to know their thoughts on the crime bills and the civil-court provisions.

They basically thought the crime bill(s) were a waste of time.

Read More "One Veteran Cop on the Crime Bill Grandstanding" »

Here's an interesting but not really shocking D.C. crime fact: The District is home to about 130 criminal street gangs and smaller crews, whose members are involved in a disproportionate number of the city’s homicides, according to the report “Responding to Gang, Crew and Youth Violence in the District of Columbia.”

Gang members make up more than 60 percent of the city’s homicide suspects and four in every 10 of the victims, according to the report, commissioned by the D.C. Council and published by the Healthy Families/Thriving Communities Collaborative Council. It goes on to issue recommendation on how city officials, police and the community could do a better job of defusing youth violence and preventing teenagers from joining gangs.  You can find the full text here.

Even in these troubled economic times, some groups are thriving  – take organized gangs of shoplifters, for instance.

According to the National Retail Federation’s fifth annual Organized Retail Crime survey, nine out of ten retailers say they’ve been robbed by organized gangs in the last year. And, nearly three-quarters of the stores and restaurants surveyed say the collective thievery is on the rise.

Maybe they should follow Universal Gear’s example and get creative with the crime fighting. Last month, Universal’s owner posted surveillance video from a brazen spree at the 14^th Street clothing joint.

All the publicity from the YouTube posting has really taken a bite out of crime, says Kristopher Johnson, the store’s sales manager. Universal hasn’t had a single group-shoplifting incident since the visuals went online. On the other hand, the police presence at the store has gone way up, says Johnson. (It probably didn’t hurt that the Washington Post ran a Metro-front story about the video.) 

But Johnson doubts YouTube’s crime-fighting abilities over the long haul.

“It’s definitely not a long term solution. But for the last month or so, it’s worked for our store,” he says.

There's been a lot of grandstanding over the pending crime bill. Mendo has been particularly targeted in silly ways--at a press conference and at recent hearing. Now comes Muriel Bowser on Kojo with her own bit of fear mongering. (She's BSing right now! on gangs). Bowser argues that the police need better tools in dealing with gangs. Her argument is completely uninformed, straight-up Palin-esque politics.

Yes. Gangs are scary. But D.C. has plenty of tools already on the books. The District does not need to go into civil court with these new crime-bill tools. The Feds have long used RICO to take gangs off street corners. They've been quite successful. RICO is scary, too. Gang leaders like Kevin Gray and Tommy Edelin have found that out. Death penalty cases are now part of D.C.

There are also already civil tools the city has used like nuisance property laws that can target crack houses and shut them down. The results have been mixed. Innocent families have been targeted based on flimsy evidence.

Read More "Crime Bill Angst" »

Good morning, City Desk readers, and thanks to everyone who came to City Paper's Christmas party--I hope your headaches are exponentially less painful than mine. And now some news:

• In WaPo: The MPD has tied the death of 14-year-old Giovanni Sanchez to Mara Salvatrucha (also known as MS-13).
• New Columbia Heights alludes to a new restaurant coming to 14th St.
• Now that the recession has reduced individual spending power, says Penn Quarter Living, is it finally acceptable for good people to buy those cheap Prada knockoffs at the metro kiosks?
• Word of new shopping options coming to Petworth, courtesy of Petworth News.
• Braveheart over at River East Idealist sounds a call to arms: "Let us not develop River East just for development's sake. Let's fix broken windows and everything they represent."
• And Now, Anacostia has some good news and some bad news: Verizon FIOS is coming to Anacostia, but it won't be fully in place for 9 years. (That's kind of like Georgia Ave. resident fantasizing about the supposed trolley system that's on its way.)
• Also in WaPo: Police confiscate cocks in Virginia.

Update: Asher Corson, Mary Cheh's communications director, writes in to clarify the FiOS deal: "The build out deadline is just that, a deadline, not a timeline.  What I mean to say: FiOS is more likely than not to be entirely built before the 9 year deadline."