Tenley Chick Filet takes measures against loitering after school by students, including Wilson

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A McDonalds in the area plays classical music which apparently is repellent to the teen loiterers.

Have you ever been around the McDonalds across from BCC at dismissal time? (I guess there's no play space at that location)

Uh, that McDonalds closed 5 years ago. Problem solved.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm pretty sick of people criminalizing children's behavior. Yes, these teenagers are CHILDREN. And it seems like they don't have better options than to loiter around a chick-fil-a chatting with their friends (sounds pretty harmless to me). And getting 1,000 kids in and out of a school could be pretty crazy.

In case you haven't been around teenagers recently: They are loud, they don't know exactly how to behave yet, they still want to play and have fun but are "too old" to play on playgrounds. I teach at a high school: teenagers love getting stickers. They try to act "grown up", but still sleep with a teddy bear and need their parents help.

When your little Larlo is suddenly a teenager who cusses and takes up the sidewalk while walking with his friends, and then other people call him a criminal/thug/brat, you'll feel differently. You'll know that he comes home and plays with his little brother. Or he loves basketball. Or dancing. Or science. Please stop talking like my students are criminals.

This wins for most naive post of the day. And its only 10:20am!! A 17 year old is NOT a child. These "kids" are doing a LOT more than talking too loud too. Do you even live in DC?

NP. Brains are not fully developed at 17. They are children.

but kids in past generations managed to leave school and go home at the end of the day without the behaviors described (and most kids do it today, even though they are 17 and younger). basic respect for themselves and others and basic rules of behavior can be easily grasped by a 17 yr old brain.

Yeah, past generation of 17-year olds NEVER got into trouble (and there are no famous movies, musicals, books, songs, or plays about the bad behaviors of 17 years olds of past generations).

And 17-year-olds of past generations would never have hung out at convenience stores and fast food restaurants after school, being loud and showing off for each other. Definitely not. I mean, my friends and I certainly NEVER EVER did that.

[Anonymous]

Oh - how many of you are actually there. I have an idea. Go once a week when school gets out and stand by the metro, in CVS, near other stores, etc. Do this for 10 weeks. Report back. These kids are mostly just normally obnoxious teenagers, but some of them are more than that. And some of them are about 6'2" and 300 lbs. (thinking of one I saw just the other day who himself was acting just fine.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oh - how many of you are actually there. I have an idea. Go once a week when school gets out and stand by the metro, in CVS, near other stores, etc. Do this for 10 weeks. Report back. These kids are mostly just normally obnoxious teenagers, but some of them are more than that. And some of them are about 6'2" and 300 lbs. (thinking of one I saw just the other day who himself was acting just fine.)

OK, you have now officially lost all hope of convincing people you are sane.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I went to HS in the Tenley area in the 1980's and many stores would not let us in with backpacks and limited us to 5 teens at a time. One would have to stand outside with the backpacks and only 5 could go in at a time.

Of course we were obnoxious teenagers. They took measures to protect their business. No big deal.

Yes this. None of this is new. It's been going on for positively decades in that part of town.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh - how many of you are actually there. I have an idea. Go once a week when school gets out and stand by the metro, in CVS, near other stores, etc. Do this for 10 weeks. Report back. These kids are mostly just normally obnoxious teenagers, but some of them are more than that. And some of them are about 6'2" and 300 lbs. (thinking of one I saw just the other day who himself was acting just fine.)

OK, you have now officially lost all hope of convincing people you are sane.

I take the metro from Tenleytown in the morning and I would say that this estimate isn't not that far off. There are some BIG kids there. But like the PP they are acting just fine when I see them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oh - how many of you are actually there. I have an idea. Go once a week when school gets out and stand by the metro, in CVS, near other stores, etc. Do this for 10 weeks. Report back. These kids are mostly just normally obnoxious teenagers, but some of them are more than that. And some of them are about 6'2" and 300 lbs. (thinking of one I saw just the other day who himself was acting just fine.)

If the larger kid was acting fine, why the hell do you mentione hai height and weight? You are a prefect example of what's wrong with our society. Perceived threat vs actual threat 101 taught by George Zimmerman. I can't believe you just said that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh - how many of you are actually there. I have an idea. Go once a week when school gets out and stand by the metro, in CVS, near other stores, etc. Do this for 10 weeks. Report back. These kids are mostly just normally obnoxious teenagers, but some of them are more than that. And some of them are about 6'2" and 300 lbs. (thinking of one I saw just the other day who himself was acting just fine.)

If the larger kid was acting fine, why the hell do you mentione hai height and weight? You are a prefect example of what's wrong with our society. Perceived threat vs actual threat 101 taught by George Zimmerman. I can't believe you just said that.

I can't believe you actually read (or understood) what previous poster wrote.

Go home. Be safe.

[Anonymous]

Some folks are dense. yes, everyone agrees that teens can be loud, obnoxious etc. But whats going on here is often quite more extreme. I was a loud obnoxious teen but I never threatened to beat up strangers, I never screamed racists obscentieis in public in front of adults, I never ran in and ot of traffic while smoking weed and just daring someone to say something. Yall are dumb and probably new to the City cause you think a 17 year who screams "what you looking at white bitch" and threatens to harm you at metro is just a silly child. Oh those kids just being kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some folks are dense. yes, everyone agrees that teens can be loud, obnoxious etc. But whats going on here is often quite more extreme. I was a loud obnoxious teen but I never threatened to beat up strangers, I never screamed racists obscentieis in public in front of adults, I never ran in and ot of traffic while smoking weed and just daring someone to say something. Yall are dumb and probably new to the City cause you think a 17 year who screams "what you looking at white bitch" and threatens to harm you at metro is just a silly child. Oh those kids just being kids.

As many, many PPs have said, there is general agreement that the crimes you just mentioned should be reported to the police. There is no disagreement about that. But swearing at people, while horrid, is not something the police can do anything about. There are nasty people in the city. Wish there weren't, but there are.

Please go back and read the "bright lines" post.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh - how many of you are actually there. I have an idea. Go once a week when school gets out and stand by the metro, in CVS, near other stores, etc. Do this for 10 weeks. Report back. These kids are mostly just normally obnoxious teenagers, but some of them are more than that. And some of them are about 6'2" and 300 lbs. (thinking of one I saw just the other day who himself was acting just fine.)

OK, you have now officially lost all hope of convincing people you are sane.

I take the metro from Tenleytown in the morning and I would say that this estimate isn't not that far off. There are some BIG kids there. But like the PP they are acting just fine when I see them.

Of course there are big teens. My boys and their best friends will be huge. My sons's BFF is almost 6" at age 13. My brothers were 6'5" in high school. So? What exactly is wrong with big kids who are "acting just fine"?

[Anonymous]

Almost all of the discussion on this topic has been on the Cleveland Park listserv. Haven't seen anything on the Tenley listserv. Not clear on this anonymous forum how many posters live in Tenleytown, but it appeared from signatures on the CP listserv that most posters were from elsewhere.

Anonymous wrote:And just to add some perspective, Tenleytown is an overwhelmingly liberal and hybrid neighborhood. These are people who would give themselves west nile and zika to save a few bees. To see this many people speak up and sign their names and say they are basically horrified (and some fearful) from the behaviors they've witnessed or experiences I would say takes a lot . This deserves a hearing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Almost all of the discussion on this topic has been on the Cleveland Park listserv. Haven't seen anything on the Tenley listserv. Not clear on this anonymous forum how many posters live in Tenleytown, but it appeared from signatures on the CP listserv that most posters were from elsewhere.

Anonymous wrote:And just to add some perspective, Tenleytown is an overwhelmingly liberal and hybrid neighborhood. These are people who would give themselves west nile and zika to save a few bees. To see this many people speak up and sign their names and say they are basically horrified (and some fearful) from the behaviors they've witnessed or experiences I would say takes a lot . This deserves a hearing.

Most of the posters on the Cleveland Park list serv don't live in Cleveland Park. It's the de facto Northwest list serv, but long ago ceased to be about the neighborhood. It's good for selling something (the list serv owners charge for that), but most neighborhood people took serious discussion of local issues to other forums like 10 years ago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm pretty sick of people criminalizing children's behavior. Yes, these teenagers are CHILDREN. And it seems like they don't have better options than to loiter around a chick-fil-a chatting with their friends (sounds pretty harmless to me). And getting 1,000 kids in and out of a school could be pretty crazy.

In case you haven't been around teenagers recently: They are loud, they don't know exactly how to behave yet, they still want to play and have fun but are "too old" to play on playgrounds. I teach at a high school: teenagers love getting stickers. They try to act "grown up", but still sleep with a teddy bear and need their parents help.

When your little Larlo is suddenly a teenager who cusses and takes up the sidewalk while walking with his friends, and then other people call him a criminal/thug/brat, you'll feel differently. You'll know that he comes home and plays with his little brother. Or he loves basketball. Or dancing. Or science. Please stop talking like my students are criminals.

This wins for most naive post of the day. And its only 10:20am!! A 17 year old is NOT a child. These "kids" are doing a LOT more than talking too loud too. Do you even live in DC?

NP. Brains are not fully developed at 17. They are children.

Most 16 or 17 years olds know to avoid spitting on other pedestrians. It's happened to me, by a Wilson student. I'd like to believe that she didn't seem me as she spit sideways rather than having done it deliberately, but her response made me wonder. When I said "excuse me, you just spit on me" and expected to hear "I'm so sorry" or "I didn't see you," instead I received an invective of F-bombs in reply. Her friends, who egged her on, seemed to find the whole incident amusing.

But how would a 16-year-old possibly know that it is inappropriate to spit on someone? To scream curses at people? To walk with friends, full span across a sidewalk and stare down and curse at anyone coming the other direction who does not clear the whole sidewalk for the children? To climb up on top of someone else's car? These are just kids after all. And if these kids do these things, we should let them, no repercussions, no lessons learned. Otherwise, these kids might have their egos hurt (or might knife you).

The poor dears need their "Safe Spaces."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm pretty sick of people criminalizing children's behavior. Yes, these teenagers are CHILDREN. And it seems like they don't have better options than to loiter around a chick-fil-a chatting with their friends (sounds pretty harmless to me). And getting 1,000 kids in and out of a school could be pretty crazy.

In case you haven't been around teenagers recently: They are loud, they don't know exactly how to behave yet, they still want to play and have fun but are "too old" to play on playgrounds. I teach at a high school: teenagers love getting stickers. They try to act "grown up", but still sleep with a teddy bear and need their parents help.

When your little Larlo is suddenly a teenager who cusses and takes up the sidewalk while walking with his friends, and then other people call him a criminal/thug/brat, you'll feel differently. You'll know that he comes home and plays with his little brother. Or he loves basketball. Or dancing. Or science. Please stop talking like my students are criminals.

This wins for most naive post of the day. And its only 10:20am!! A 17 year old is NOT a child. These "kids" are doing a LOT more than talking too loud too. Do you even live in DC?

+1

+2. I had the same thought: this post has all the markings of being written by a lovely African American grandmother who lives in a really safe suburb of Greensboro, NC. But who reads DCUM for fun, and thus knows about "Larla"