passed Spring Road on 16th at approx 4pm, it was taped off, full of cops.

Any idea what happened to the shooter?

@5:19 – funniest thing I heard today

There was also a bug incident a couple blocks south… Must have been 4 firetrucks and a couple other emergency vehicles at one if the housing units…no smoke in sight though.

That’s an awfully far way to run after being shot in the back. Where could he be going?

Poon is right and the property values continue to fall more than other areas because it is still ghetto.

According to dcist, police are now saying he was being assisted by another man and was being driven (to the hospital?) when they flagged down a MPD officer.

Scum. Scum.

Gun control NOW.

Damn … I was just thinking that it had been relatively quiet for awhile after the spate of shootings near the metro, so much for that. Hopefully, with summer nearing an end, this is a last hurrah and things will soon become relatively calm …

Is 16 and spring rd considerd columbia heights?

yeah, it aint the guns. i grew up with guns and i’m not a criminal. a gun charge is really just a way of having something against someone the cops know did something. just like drugs. anything we can hold them with is good. but those things arent the real problem.

and we need strict judges… how do we get that to happen?
and we need the death sentence for the most violent among us.
and we need auxiliary work training centers for youth, not just rec centers, but places to teach them to work. and not just trade jobs, but clerical, office jobs, hospitality jobs, tour guides, park and rec jobs, get the best on tracks to be teachers or entrepreneurs.
we need to make all students do community service.
we need a structure that makes it very easy for adults to volunteer for kids and teenagers.
we need parental training course and we need to hold parents legally responsible for their children, as in they should be fined when their kids commit crimes. maybe serve some time.
we need smaller class rooms, not bigger.
we need to up the age for teenage drivers.

we need to meet with people on our block, know our neighbors, know who the kids parents are. community is a lot of fucking work, that most of us dont have time or the real caring for. but thats what makes civilization, which we are sorely lacking in this town.

Asking for gun control is NOT asking to do nothing about the root of the problems. Guns don’t help.

gun control:
http://www.theroot.com/views/londons-weapon-choice

its just a band aid.

ayep, interesting that the same people that use guns here are the ones using knives there.

Michael,
The UK has a different demographic for one thing. I know that is not politically correct to point out. But the same people that kill by gun here, kill by knife there.

All,

Listen to This American Life from two weeks ago. It has a tremendous piece about breaking cycles of poverty, and if you have kids, you may find yourself reading more and more books and using more and more words. There is funding in the proposed federal budget, I believe, to support such programs around the country, including DC.

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1311

I am interested in what people think and what we can all do to support such activities in our neighborhoods.

ayep, was just kidding as your list was pretty all encompassing. I will say that for decades I’ve watched idealists make long wish lists like you’ve done, instead of understanding the political realities of the city we live in and addressing a few specific issues that they might make progress on. By focusing on utopia you leave this world and enter a fantasy.

What have I got? I hope to destroy Phil Mendelsons chances for re-election next year. Limited, tangible, achievable.

penywise,

no i hear you. my list was just sitting here at my desk upset at violence. it totally takes the smaller doable actions. i think ( and blog comment) idealistically, but act pragmatically. i’d think we all pretty much do that. or at least, it requires both mindsets.

good luck with phil. who’s running against him?

they must get a lot of frequent flier mileage.

David,
I’m with you on that episode of This American Life. The Harlem Children’s Zone is a true success story and it would be amazing if something like that could be implemented here. But the toughest part of that solution is the recognition that the path to get children out of poverty does not necessarily include getting their parent(s) out of poverty. What the studies have shown is that most of the later intervention programs like job training don’t work because many of the folks these programs are aimed at don’t have the fundamental skills necessary to hold a job – motivation to work; ability to communicate and get along with others; sufficient math skills, patience, ability to take direction. The key is to get to them when they are kids and give them the skills they will need to pull themselves out of poverty. The program recognizes that this generation of poor urban parents may have to sacrifice their own ambitions to get their kids out of poverty. This sounds pretty obvious and it is. Many of us are children or grandchildren of people who worked long hours at crap jobs just to make a better life for their children. But it is nonetheless an idea that is, unfortunately, foreign to some parents.