City people... when is enough enough re: crime
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Anonymous
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We live in the city and our kids attend solid schools (one DCPS and one charter). We love our neighborhood, our friends and our life here. But we are increasingly uncomfortable with the level of unchecked crime happening in the city and the hopelessness we feel about things getting better.
I know things have been a lot worse in the city in the past. But each year, we seem to be going further backwards. Neighborhood stores are closing because they can't operate with this level of crime. There are shootings and car jackings in our neighborhood, where that was unheard of before. I drive by cars everyday up on blocks because the wheels were stolen. And I have a constant feeling of "wtf" because Bowser and the Council seem to either not care or not have a realistic plan to fix it. When is it time to call it quits? |
Anonymous
| We all need to stop voting for soft-on-crime politicians. And also be comfortable telling our neighbors, friends, etc. that crime is a major concern of ours. Too many people have a bizarre fear that being concerned about crime makes one a racist. |
Anonymous
| You leave and don’t look back. DC government has demonstrated it doesn’t care. It would take significant changes for things to change. Maybe in 20 years. There are too many other places to live where you don’t have to worry about this amount of crime. |
Anonymous
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Things like stealing tires would never get me to call it quits. I also wouldn't be so quick to assume that neighborhood stores closing was due to crime (even if they said it was). Most small businesses fail, unfortunately. And shopping/eating patterns have changed so much with the pandemic.
So for me - it would be the shootings and carjackings and other violent crimes. And it'd need to be a lot more than a couple. Might be worth it to also review the actual crime stats for your neighborhood. I do feel as I age that I notice/hear about a lot more crime than I did when I was younger, but that doesn't always mean there actually IS more crime. I dunno, I love city life. It would take a lot for me to leave. |
Anonymous
Yes, let's just stick our head in the sand and pretend things aren't getting worse. |
Anonymous
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Council should pass emergency legislation.
Crime with a gun? Mandatory sentence, no plea except for a conditional deal that results in the arrests of the person you got the gun from along with all other accomplices in the crime. Any priors in the last 2 years? Mandatory sentence, no plea. Write in mandates, so that the USAO doesn't have any way out. |
Anonymous
| We are at that point. We are moving. |
Anonymous
I'm not talking about mom and pop stores. Walmart closed. Starbucks closed. CVS is probably going to close soon because they're getting ransacked multiple times a week. |
Anonymous
| What neighborhood are you in, OP? |
Anonymous
| OP, I feel the same. The issue is where to move to at this point. I do have family and friends nearby. As a sole parent that is important. Those are the intangibles that can’t be matched but moving is definitely on my mind. Then we have days like yesterday, the sun is shining bright, we attend our church, which I love, the museums are open and free. This weekend we went to a DPR playground and our local DC library across the street, both new/newly renovated and awesome….sigh |
Anonymous
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Two children were hit by stray bullets in DC in last 24hrs in separate incidents.
One riding in a car in NE. One sleeping in bed in SE. |
Anonymous
| My problem is that the suburbs here are not someplace I would ever want to live. And America in general is terrifying because of the guns and humongous cars and the bad aspects of our culture. I would love to move to another city in another country, but that is not realistic with jobs, kids, etc. DC is pretty wonderful and the only place I want to live in America right now. We are staying put in upper NW (we'll see how much more crime creep we get there) in a small rental because it's also pretty unaffordable. |
Anonymous
| We are giving it at least another election cycle. We really love our life here so it’s hard to move. We do like the suburbs and planned to move eventually but just aren’t ready yet. We remind ourselves that even with the crime increase, the danger crime poses to the average white UMC family in NW is still extremely low. It almost makes me feel guilty to say that because some families in this city don’t live in the same world, but it is what it is. We do still feel safe here, but are just not sure when we will cross the threshold of feeling unsafe, which is kind of why I’d like to wait and see see if there ends up being a political push to prevent that. |
Anonymous
That is... not at all what they said. They gave an honest answer, which is more than you can say about most posters on threads like this that just want to trash one side or another. FWIW, our assessment is very similar to this poster's. In our neighborhood the stats do bear out a substantial increase in some types of crime in the last few years (mostly carjacking by teens and people who don't live here but come into the neighborhood for this purpose). We are doing what we can to pressure for sensible changes while also recognizing that many of the problems go far beyond what individual city officials or MPD can control. Digging holistically into the statistics, we realize that we're probably still safer here than we would be in almost any more car-dependent place, and we like it much better here anyway. So until we feel like our individual safety or that of our child is at significant personal risk, we'll be here, and we're a long way from that point. |
Anonymous
| We’re almost there. Our tipping point might just be replacing our old beater car. Our biggest consideration for brand, model and year isn’t comfort, reliability or safety but the likelihood of theft and vandalism. It’s sad. |