A little off topic, but still relevant – to me, at least.
Adams Morgan, one of the more popular neighborhoods in Washington, DC, has been experiencing an increase in crime recently. Just last week the relatively affluent area suffered two separate shootings, one of which resulted in a fatality.
Anyway, Saturday night, assembling IKEA furniture (which is probably pretty normal for Adams Morgan), and I suddenly hear about 10 gunshots from right outside my bedroom window. I look out at the street and I see a bunch of people lying down, but no unusual police presence (the police routinely limits traffic to one direction on weekend nights on of the streets around here).
About a minute later a few police cars show up, flashing lights, sirens blaring and all. They drive down the street, they drive back up the street, they drive back down the street again. This is repeated for a few times, and it is fairly evident that they have no clue what is going on. They probably were notified that shots were fired somewhere in the area and decided that driving up and down the street is a good way of finding the crime scene. Great way to attract criminals too – since it is widely known that criminals are attracted to flashing lights and loud noises.
More than a few minutes passed before a crime scene was taped off and at least 10 minutes passed until ambulances arrived on the scene.
I realize I’m no authority on police methodolgy or criminology or anything else really related, but from this civilian’s point of view, someone (or some people) seems extremely incompetent.
It’s also pretty odd for me to hear gunshots in this environment, feels totally out of place.
I was in Adams Morgan last night and also heard this. We were walking down 18th Street and heard multiple gunshots in about 1-2 blocks from us in the other direction. Immediately after the burst of gunshots I saw an undercover cop run out of one of the bars or restaurants in Adams Morgan to the scene of the shooting. My girlfriend and I immediately decided to go home at this point. We saw crime scene tape and multiple ambulances when walking towards our car. Two immediate thoughts. First, Adams Morgan has far too many highly intoxicated people in a confined area. This is likely to lead to unlawful conduct and, unfortunately, violence. Second, people who say that guns don’t kill people are simply lying. There is no reason a person in an urban area such as this needs to have a handgun. It is very unfortunate that the Supreme Court threw out DC’s gun regulations.
I heard these too. I was in my apartment and heard a half dozen shots and within seconds, I heard sirens and then saw them outside my window. I went outside and heard a woman and a man had been shot, though not any confirmation yet.
i can’t find anything about this incident on any news sites online at all – and you say you saw an undercover cop run out from one of the bars – what is going on??!
QUESTION: which cross streets with 18th St. were the gunshots heard? i live on 18th st. between columbia rd. and belmont st. and heard last night’s sirens, people yelling, and saw a few guys get handcuffed directly below my living room window before getting released. however, i was home the whole night and did not hear the gunshots themselves–maybe because the drunken crowd was so loud. i often ask myself: why do i PAY to rent live here? this violence is ridiculous since less than a week ago there was an attempted murder and suicide at meskerem restaurant (which is on the same 2400 block that i live on). what good does the second ammendment serve, really? guns should be banned and wiped off of the black market but HOW can that ever happen in this military state? Although 18th street is lovely during the days, now it reflects hell on earth at night.
The police tape and the ambulances were in the ally off of 18th St, by the Sun Trust bank, across the street from McDonalds.
That is exactly what I was telling my girlfriend– Adams Morgan is fine during the day and there are some good restaurants there but it is a completely different place at night. I will no longer be going to the bars there. There was no question, however, as to the gun shots last night.
http://marcusbird.wordpress.co.....xperience/
The fatality that you mention last week was a suicide….and while it was indeed an incident with a gun on 18th St. the attempted-murder/suicide that happened at Meskerem last Sunday night could have happened anywhere, you simply cannot attribute that to the recent spike in crime in Adams Morgan or the other homicides in the past four years that have been the result of people having too much to drink and then fighting.
Yeah, the suicide thing is different.
What happened last night is …. the normal Adams Morgan crime.
Yep, too many drunk people in a confined space, and sometimes the police are out in force to babysit (what an atmosphere!), sometimes not.
It’s thugsville, and has been for about 8 years.
Not sure why liqor licenses keep getting granted. Seems like one horrible decision after another.
As easy as it would be to blame Adams Morgan violence on drunk club-goers, most of the closing time beatings and robberies in the last couple of years have been attributed (by the cops I’ve spoken to) to kids from elsewhere in the city looking to fuck up drunk club-goers. The commuter drunks are generally the victims, not the perpetrators. Lots of the gun violence lately is a spill-over from longstanding feuds between two crews: 17th & Euclid and 14th & Girard.
The commuter drunks commit homicide with their cars on there way home. There is no enforcement of DC law that make it criminal to serve someone who is already drunk. The police know which places over serve, operate after hours and deal drugs – and it does not take long to discover that the ones that do this have 3D MPD police connections.
Long time observer: No doubt. And they also throw their empty six packs and greasy paper pizza plates all over the neighborhood. But they’re not the people shooting off guns in Adams Morgan. Not sayin’ anything, just sayin’….
But ntx, without the excessive number of restaurants serving alcohol and – wow – dealing drugs, there would not be the gangland violence. The atmosphere is created that enables the violence.
You just gotta start where you can, and curtailing the number of establishments that serve alcohol is where you can start. Otherwise, you will need an occupying army, which they sometimes do have, and is one of the worst things of all time.
For anyone to describe Adams Morgan as a happening nightspot, is a joke. It’s a jail that serves alcohol.
No argument there.
Ben,
I agree that AM is definitely different during the day then at night. I used to hang out there at night years ago, but things eventually got out of hand and I simply found better and safer places to spend time. AM is not the center of the nightlife universe in the DC area and in fact, it’s slowly becoming the armpit.
So how do we as AM residents curtail these bars/restaurants that over serve? for example, I suggested to FELIX Spy Lounge that they put up a sign that reads: “please do not loiter after hours”… who knows if that will help but I think it is our responsibility as AM residents to prevent AM from digressing into the armpit of DC.
Also, although the Meskerem suicide cannot be categorized as the same type of violence as that of this past weekends, it reflects the fact that people seem to find AM to be a comfort zone (for a lack of a better expression) for committing acts of violence and that can be addressed. I propose we stage a nonviolent demonstration perhaps one weekend night where the residents take over the streets and practice nonviolence through protest… any thoughts?
I heard the shots also. There were six fired in a matter of seconds. It was around 1:15 AM. The next day, an officer in the neighborhood told me that someone was shot during a mugging. He said that the suspect was arrested. Has there been any news coverage on this incident?
So how do we as AM residents curtail these bars/restaurants that over serve?
You stop granting liquor licenses, period. It’s not about little signs.
Someone was caught? I am very curious as to why there was no new s coverage or police report. I did see one college kid loaded into an ambulance with a wrap on his head. There were at least 20 poliec officers within 100 feet of this gun firing. Why didn’t they apprehend the shooter?
Point taken, Key, but how can we stop granting liquor licenses? prohibition is not an option… Do we have that influential power and if so, who can we speak with? http://www.kaloramacitizens.org/what/liquor/ ?
also~i totally agree that Admo has become a jail that serves alcohol at night. How can residents feel safe if shootings become a weekly trend? I know that this sort of violence can happen anywhere but I seriously think that there needs to be some sort of solution that the residents can be a part of i.e. hand out free flowers whenever passing through the crowds to make folks less hostile…
[...] Morgan Shooting – No News? October 6, 2008 Posted by LB in America, DC, Media. trackback I posted the other day about a shooting incident in Adams Morgan on Saturday night. Apart from very little information on [...]
It may be time to implement a solution Jim Graham mentioned a couple years back. 1) The Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC) have the authority to request that establishments serving alcohol close their doors by Midnight. 2) No parking after 9pm – except for residents and their quests. 3) The City should enforce the law on over serving. 4) No police Moonlighting in Liquor establishments, even when the money is indirect – it leads to corruption. 5) The direct and indirect costs of managing the chaos along the 18th street bar strip should be calculated. That cost is spread throughout the Metropolitan Community, in that Adams Morgan is a draw for people throughout the region, so it’s not only a cost to the DC Police and local emergency personnel – but that car crash in Alexandria or Rockwell may well have originated in Adams Morgan. And they do keep statistics in the emergency rooms. These costs far out way any benefit from taxes and employment gained by keeping bars open after midnight.
It is unfortunate that many will cease to patron Adams Morgan because of this incident. The reality is that every neighborhood has this kinda crime, it’s city wide. Violence citywide has been growing. Most of it, though, just doesn’t get reported. This incident is only being reported on the local blogs. No media is covering this cuz it’s just too common. I was in Chinatown last weekend and there was more police presence than in Adams Morgan and I truly felt less safe based on the crowds there. It’s all crazy.
I just searched and there is a record of a violent crime (assult with a weapon) between the dates of Oct 4-6 in the 2400 block of 18th Street.
http://crimemap.dc.gov/present.....nt%20Crime
Falafel, flowers are nice, but hardly the solution.
You get the ANCs to not grant any more liq licenses, and you take up some of the suggestions long time observer just made.
This might just be the straw…
This is the result of years of policy in never saying no to a liquor license.
DisneyWorld of Drunk.
[...] – A comment from Ben has alerted me that MPD has a record of gun violence on its map matching the incident from Saturday night. However, no news outlets seem to be picking it up – and at this point, they probably will not [...]
Adams Morgan Crime on the Rise
Washington Post
http://voices.washingtonpost.c....._rise.html
Just last week, in the wake of two shootings in heavily trafficked nightlife areas — in Adams Morgan and at 14th and T Streets — we were asking how safe you felt when you went out. Then, around 1 a.m. on Sunday morning in Adams Morgan, an unknown person fired six shots in the alley between the Suntrust bank and Julia’s Empanadas, near the corner of 18th Street and Columbia Road, with one of the bullets flying across 18th Street and striking a light fixture on the porch outside Madams Organ. Although the gunplay happened right next to a police substation, the shooter got away.
As a result, you’ll see more police on the streets in Adams Morgan this weekend, including the city’s elite Crime Suppression Unit. But according to Brian Weaver, the head of the Advisory Neighborhood Commission, these two shootings are just the tip of the iceberg of rising crime in Adams Morgan: There have been 30 violent crimes in the last 30 days, primarily muggings and armed robberies, along with 14 confirmed incidents of shots being fired. “I view this as a scary jump,” he says. “[Residents of Adams Morgan] tolerate drunk people fighting in the pizza line,” Weaver says. “This is a little bit different.”
(As a comparison, in August, there were 11 muggings and two assaults with a deadly weapon, which can be anything from hitting someone with a beer bottle to a shooting.)
The rise in shootings looks troubling. Weaver says police have determined that almost all are part of a long-simmering feud between rival teenage gangs, and the majority of those shootings are not happening on Adams Morgan’s busiest streets. What’s more worrying for visitors is that huge spike in muggings.
These robberies aren’t happening on the 18th Street strip or Columbia Road, either, says Weaver; instead, the muggers and thieves are hiding out on deserted sidestreets like “Lanier Place or Champlain Street, waiting for people to come back to their car.”
So while there will be more cops on the streets, consider this your public service announcement for the weekend: Park in the garage, take a taxi, grab the Adams Morgan-U Street Link bus to and from the Metro and just be extra vigilant. That way, there’s less chance you’ll turn out to be a statistic.
It’s not the drunk Yuppies, it’s the high school aged black kids with nothing better to do but run around, rob people, and act like thugs. They don’t go to the bars because they can’t get in. Highschool age kids in DC are insane. Several years ago a couple of kids murdered a guy in Georgetown by slitting his throat. Have you seen Clockwork Orange?
The people in the bars drinking are affluent urbanites and people from VA.
Definitely watch yourself after midnight on the weekends – don’t walk side streets around totally intoxicated, oblivious of your surroundings or you might get jumped. Avoid confrontation because the kids are dangerous.
As far as solving the problem, the cops definitely could step up the presence. I don’t see a lot of patrols on the side streets. They could also probably stop, search and question more people.
Finally as far as guns, I personally would like to like to legally own and defend my house and neighborhood. The bad guys already have them why can’t we?