Killings subside in D.C.’s Trinidad neighborhood

The Trinidad neighborhood of Northeast Washington doesn’t look much different than it did more than a year ago.

Faded “Beware of Dog” signs sit crookedly in windows, decaying vacant buildings interrupt stretches of well-kept brick row houses, and the community’s working-class residents still congregate on porches and sidewalks.

But there’s a quiet in the neighborhood now that wasn’t here 14 months ago. That’s how long it’s been since anyone was killed here. That was the end of a five-month spate of violence in this 2-square-mile community that saw 10 people killed.

D.C. Council member Harry Thomas Jr. represents the area and is clearly pleased with the accomplishment.

“Don’t you jinx me,” he said playfully, when asked about the reduction in violence.

The playfulness didn’t last. It was replaced by a resolve to maintain the peace.

“We’re not going to let this neighborhood slip away,” he said.

Trinidad, whose name the local neighborhood association says is thought to come from a former landowner who had lived on the island nation, is largely residential save for a few small businesses, a recreation center and a newly renovated elementary school.

The neighborhood — bordered by Mount Olivet Road to the north, Florida Avenue to the south, West Virginia Avenue to the west and Bladensburg Avenue to the east, has suffered its share of crime. But the spasm of violence last year was uncharacteristic, matching in five months the number of killings that took place in the neighborhood the three years prior.

It began shortly after 8 a.m. on April 16, 2008, when police found Tonette Gail Ferguson, 38, beaten to death in the 1600 block of Montello Avenue NE.

Later that night, 18-year-old Darvell Stewart was fatally shot in the 1100 block of Owen Place NE.

Eleven days later, Metropolitan Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier tripled the number of police officers on patrol in the city to 1,200 after four people were killed in eight shootings around the District during a five-hour period. One of the victims was Melvin R. Seals, 30, who was fatally shot at the intersection of Morse Street and Montello Avenue NE in Trinidad.

On May 31, seven people were killed during a nine-hour stretch. Three of the victims were from Trinidad. Duane Hough, 37, Anthony Mincey, 35, and Johnny Jeter, 24, were shot in the 1100 block of Holbrook Street NE as a result of an “argument on the block that erupted into gunfire,” Assistant Police Chief Diane Groomes said at the time.

Five days later, D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty called a press conference on the steps of Trinidad’s Joe Cole Fitness Center in the 1200 block of Morse Street Northeast.

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