In DC: 1 Killed, 13 Wounded in 5 Overnight Shootings (WP)

[diamond14]

1 Killed, 13 Wounded in 5 Overnight Shootings
Police Say Shootings Appear to Be Unrelated

By Petula Dvorak
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 14, 2003; 11:05 AM

A bloody night in D.C. left 14 people shot, one fatally, in five separate incidents across the city, police said.

About 15 minutes after the nightclub shooting, officers called to the 300 block of 13th Street NE found a 23-year-old man who had been fatally shot in the neck, police said. The victim's identity is being withheld until detectives notify his family. Police don't know the motive in his killing, police said.

The violence began about 10:50 p.m., when two women in the 1200 block of Oates Street NE were shot, one in the lower back, the other in the arm, police said. About the same time, a man was shot in the leg and the stomach at the 700 block of Atlantic Street SE. There were few details available in that shooting, but the injuries were not life threatening, police said.

About three hours later, two men driving south on Kenilworth Avenue near Polk Street NE were shot, one in the wrist and another in the chest, apparently by someone firing from an overpass, police said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57812-2003Aug14.html

[northzax]

1. Welcome to the third world

although it's a an awful term, parts of DC, which never caught on to the 90's boom, are spiraling out of control.

[jiacinto]

7. I live in DC

There are unsafe parts, but it hardly is as bad as the city people think it is.

[Bandit]

2. Guns don't kill people ~~ Bullets kill people

To fix this problem we need more guns. If everyone owned a gun then everyone would be afraid to use them. Does that argument make any sense at all.:shrug:

[study_war_no_more]

13. Free the DC people

Texas Missisippi DC...

[diamond14]

3. IMO...this is a culmination of bush* social policies and bush*

leadership in promulgating VIOLENCE as the solution to any problems...when the leader of our nation is screaming for assassinations of world leaders, offering bounties, and KILLING thousands of innocents while cheered on TV...what can anyone expect...bush* leads in the KILLING worldwide...the others are simply followers of a bad leader and the recipients of bad bush* policies...

bush* leaves everyone behind, as the rich hide in their gated communities, armed-guarded gates, with glass shards embedded in the tops of the stone walls....

[rook1]

4. Nonsense

DC has had a long history of violent crime. It also has the strictest gun laws in the country.....hmmmmmmmmm!
No guns, No crime...right?

[diamond14]

5. come live inside the beltway, and you wouldn't say such insanity

I live here....and it is clearly gotten much much worse, as the impacts of bush* school policies, welfare policies, housing policies, medicare/medicaid policies impact a lot of people...come see OUR Veterans lying on benches, sick from their war wounds (mentally and physically), right outside the White House...

all the failed policies of the bush* administration come home here in the BIG cities of America...

since you are just joining DU, I welcome you :hi:

but at the same time, please don't say "nonsense" without posting any justification...this is not free republic...this board has many intelligent and educated people posting here...a good discussion is always enjoyed, but not just flinging out "nonsense" attacks...

[Bandit]

6. I personally would prefer people getting blowjobs than killing folks.

If only people would follow Clinton's example instead of Bush*. I think more people would be smiling than filled with so much hatred.

[jiacinto]

8. This problem existed before Bush

The problem is the "benign neglect" that started with the Nixon administration back in the late 1960s. In the 1970s and in the 1980s, as whites and minorities who could afford to fled to the suburbs, the tax base eroded, businesses left, and poverty increased.

What you had left were neighborhoods without steady families or a decent tax base. That led to drugs and alcohol proliferating the neighborhoods. The lower tax base led to underfunded public schools and the cycle of poverty and drugs that characterizes all too many of these communities began.

I think that many of these problems would stop if the public schools were decently funded and if the dependence on drugs an alcohol that existed would be eliminated. Drugs and Alcohol account for most of the problems. If people could stay clean they could do so much more.

I've lived in DC my whole life. My dad used to work near the Thomas Circle area. And it was scary 13 years ago. In the 1980s some parts of DC--like Adams Morgan, Mt. Pleasant, U Street, Eastern Market, and Capitol Hill--were not places to be at at night. However, the city is coming back. Houses on U Street near Florida Avenue now sell for like $500K-750,000 dollars.

The other problem is that people in the suburbs still don't want to come to DC. I know several people who live in Montgomery County--that's where I grew up--who still think DC is unsafe. I live in Upper NW and they still think I live in an unsafe neigbhorhood. Their biases of what DC is still center around what happened in the 1970s.

Then again, when it comes to education and substance abuse problems, the people--even in the lower working class--don't want to "pay higher taxes". So I don't know how to solve these problems.

[Topaz]

9. Well...

"Then again, when it comes to education and substance abuse problems, the people--even in the lower working class--don't want to "pay higher taxes". So I don't know how to solve these problems."

Maybe if we kept a few billion home to fund our schools instead of sending it to Iraq? Just a thought....then we wouldn't have to pay higher taxes either. I really don't blame most people for not wanting to pay those higher taxes when it seems the money the government (and to some degree the school systems) already has could be spent more wisely.

Let's rebuild our schools before we rebuild other countries.

(Funny, how having what I see as a 'common sense' viewpoint on this is perceived as completely radical by others...I just don't see what is so radical about it!)

*waving* Jiacinto...I'm inside the Beltway as well, in Alexandria.

[jiacinto]

11. I can fully sympathize

Let me say this. I really can understand why people don't want to pay more taxes when they don't see themselves getting much more in return. That is something I fully understand.

School reform itself has been a tough issue. But I do think that a lot of the problems could be solved if inner city and rural high schools finally had decent funding.

[Topaz]

18. Topaz

"School reform itself has been a tough issue. But I do think that a lot of the problems could be solved if inner city and rural high schools finally had decent funding."

Yup, I *completely* agree with you here.

[jiacinto]

19. Yeah I know

It is a shame how underfunded some scholos are.

[lanlady]

16. hello, Alexandria!

I had the pleasure of working in Old Town for several years until our company was bought and they moved us near the Dulles corridor.

I got lost in Anacostia the other day, a few blocks south of Congress, and don't mind say I was scared shitless. But we have all the money in the world to reconstruct and bring security to Baghdad....

[northzax]

17. er, Anacostia

isn't close to a few blocks awar from Congress (unless of course, there is a Congress Street you are referring to.) Anacostia is the area east the Anacostia River.

Personally, I live deep in the SW, and, despite efforts at gentrification, I can see the increasing crime and desperation. As DC police are required (by the Feds) to spend more and more time doing "homeland Security" stuff, they spend less and less on policing.

and for the people complaining about the gun control laws: maybe if it wasn't so damn easy to bring in a gun from Virginia, there'd be fewer around? you think? or would you move a recovering addict next door to a crack house and expect the bright line to hold?

[study_war_no_more]

12. loss of jobs -generational poverty -gangs - drugs

They don't call it the "White" house for nothing.

[study_war_no_more]

14. gated communities are the plan of the future

I went to an communitie meeting last night in Minneapolis and this was explained to be the safest private way to create community within a "hard area" Remember New jack city with its courtyard communities?

[jiacinto]

21. They are already here

In a lot of areas there are "gated" communities. They aren't the future--they are the present.

[maxsolomon]

10. 3 shot in seattle yesterday

full moon & high summer make for a macho dickhead perfect storm.

[study_war_no_more]

15. Homocide is up twenty percent here

It looks like we won't get called murderanoplis again this year with this going on elseware too.

[diamond14]

20. it's shrub's failed policies: failed war on drugs, failed job programs

there are millions of people OUT OF WORK...there are NO drug treatment programs...shrub's failings include: failed economic policies, failed drug program, failed job programs, failed school programs, TWO failed and very costly wars draining out money....failed economic stimulus (tax cuts for rich), failed medicare/medicaid, failed programs for welfare recipients, failed
children's programs....



so...what can you expect as a direct result of shrub's failures:

LOTS more CRIME.....