OPINION:
The bloodletting in the District isn’t at an all-time high, but if geography is as revealing an indicator as many suspect it is, the city’s leadership had better brace itself for the inevitable.
The 5th Police District, which covers much of Ward 5, including Brookland, Gallaudet University, the National Arboretum and The Washington Times — is being inundated with homicides, shootings and knifings, and other assorted violent crimes. So far this year, 17 persons have been killed and scores of others wounded. Last weekend, the city witnessed the shooting and stabbing of 13 persons, four of them fatalities.
The crime spree forced the mayor, the police chief and various lawmakers onto the hot seat, where moms and dads, taxpayers and an assortment of angry and frustrated homeowners demanded answers. Unfortunately, what they got was more of the same. In fact, on Monday, April 28, the very day that city officials had gathered for a press conference, another shooting occurred in Ward 5 — this one at a technical school. Ward 5 lawmaker Harry Thomas Jr. had planned to unveil his 10-point anticrime plan, but the shooting intervened.
Nothing said since then by Mr. Thomas, Mayor Adrian Fenty, Police Chief Cathy Lanier and the others leads us to believe that they have an effective anticrime plan waiting to be executed. The mayor on yesterday called the violence “staggering.” Chief Lanier wants to reinstate her “All Hands on Deck” initiative, which essentially cancels leave for most members of the rank-and-file corps. Mr. Thomas wants to expand social services, and job and educational opportunities.
Every member of the legislature is familiar with the “Dodge City” homicide rates of the 1980s and 1990s and their after-effects. Today’s murder rates are far lower (181-198 the past few years) but no less deadly for the victims’ families.
D.C. needs intelligence; criminals aren’t stupid. When criminals see “all hands” setting up shop in one area, they move to another. (If we had to cite one example it would be Ward 5’s Langdon Park.) City Hall’s push to blanket the capital with surveillance cameras won’t solve the problem, though cameras would catch shots of the coroner’s vans and ambulance crews tending to the dead and wounded.
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