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.

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.

Last week, I treated myself to a gin & tonic at the Que Pasa Cantina. I took a seat at a nearly empty bar – the only other patrons were off-duty bouncers, large men in hooded sweatshirts. They sat in a row across from me, heads like bowling balls, talking to Chris, the bartender. Eavesdropping like only a bored local can, I gathered that the tall one on the right had just started bouncing at The Starboard. I asked how it was going for him.

He shrugged. The Starboard was a pretty sedate place, he explained, and so far, he’s only worked the VIP entrance, telling drunk girls that yes, their breasts were nice, but not as nice as a VIP card and would they please put them away, thank you. Anyway, The Starboard draws a different crowd than the Rusty Rudder. Eighty-sixing is normally just a matter of asking someone to leave. And if they don’t, there’s Reggie Branch, the former Redskins runningback who can pick up even the meatiest of fratboys and transport them to the door. Steven “Monty” Montgomery, a shrewd businessman, hires a private security firm to train his bouncers in self-defense and brief them on liability issues - Starboard bouncing is based more on the promise of violence than its application.

The Rudder is a different story, another bouncer said. Friday and Saturday nights can degenerate quickly, especially during the breezeless torpor of August. Packed dance floors, foul restrooms and mobbed bars add a dangerous element to an already combustible mix of testosterone, humidity and overpriced, cheap booze: rage. When punches fly, the Rudder bouncer’s MO is direct: swarm and toss.

I can’t take credit for the phrase – it belongs to Chris, a local who’s seen it happen dozens of times. Rudder redshirts spot the sudden open space created by fistfights and converge in threes and fours. The fighters are separated, sped to the entrance and tossed to the sidewalk like a bag of empty Miller cans. The cops show up soon thereafter, and unless the disoriented drunk makes themselves scare, they get cuffed and processed a few streets over at the station.

I saw someone get tossed a few months ago, covering the Delaware Music Festival on the Rudder’s opening weekend. I was snapping shots of a so-so cover band, and while the frontman was thrusting his hips at my lens, I saw a blur of red in my peripheral vision and felt the boards shake. I turned to see a redshirt grappling with a guy in a powder-blue polo. The pair seesawed back and forth, but the redshirt wasn’t gaining any ground, and taking a few tight hooks in his kidneys. When the swarm peeled off baby blue, I was surprised to see he wasn’t a hair over 5’ 6”, his close-set eyes panning wildly as the heels of his sneakers skipped across the boards. He was tossed down the last two stairs and landed, surprisingly, on his feet.

The Rusty Rudder management amicably refuses comment on its bouncers. But recently, a chatty doorman reframed swarm-and-toss as watch-each-other’s-back. Swarming promotes intimidation, he said with a surprising note of disdain. He said Rudder bouncers back up their coworkers, but prefer to avoid turning scraps into redshirt dogpiles.

I asked Chris if Que Pasa saw much action. He shook his head. It was kind of a dumb question – Que Pasa draw old people who want a quiet (but not too quiet) drink before turning in. Really, he said, it’s less action-packed than you think.

“You’re babysitting drunk people,” he said, sounding bored. “That’s it.”

A husky doorman said sometimes girls rubbed up against him to skip long lines.

“You know, they rub up against you,” he said, making a face and wiping his hands on his shirt. Chris watched him for what seemed like a long before he turned to me and said, “Last call.”

This employee of City Desk Operations Inc. has waited and waited for a snarky blog post from LL on the Harold Brazil arrest (holy #$%%@!). DCist expressed shock hours ago!

WTOP's Mark Segraves had it first. The Post got the story too.

Damn. What a story. Former bubbling councilmember gets into a fight at a tattoo shop! Post has the details:

"Brazil, 59, entered the Jinx Proof Tattoo shop in the 3200 block of M Street NW with two women, one of whom went to the back of the store to receive a tattoo, police said. When Brazil tried to follow the woman, an employee told him only customers were allowed in the work area, which prompted an argument and then a fight.

It took three employees to subdue Brazil before officers were called at about 7:30 p.m., authorities said. He was arrested and charged with simple assault and taken to the 2nd District police station, said Assistant Police Chief Diane Groomes. Authorities released Brazil with a citation and a summons to appear in court at a later date, officials said. Brazil could not be reached for comment."

Of course, City Desk demands some answers from Brazil about his conduct. But what we really want are some good jokes. Whoever submits the best joke wins a City Paper t-shirt?

(If you are unfamiliar with Brazil's tenure on the council, go here).

*photo courtesy of the Washington Post.