Prospective Ludlow Taylor Parent

[Anonymous]

^^ that's the apathetic attitude I'm talking about!!

No one said it was in front of the school, but it is in plain sight of some of the classroom windows and the playground and adjoining field.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^^ and this is why I didn't send my DC there. There's a weird sense of apathy and low expectations surrounding it, even as it seems to be on the upswing academically.

Why hasn't the LT administration been on MPD for years about the sketchy loitering on Morris, near the playground? How do the parents not notice this?

PP, I hope you don't live on Capitol Hill. Or in Washington, DC. Or really even in the U.S. with its lax gun control laws. Because obviously you're a bad parent if you do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^ and this is why I didn't send my DC there. There's a weird sense of apathy and low expectations surrounding it, even as it seems to be on the upswing academically.

Why hasn't the LT administration been on MPD for years about the sketchy loitering on Morris, near the playground? How do the parents not notice this?

PP, I hope you don't live on Capitol Hill. Or in Washington, DC. Or really even in the U.S. with its lax gun control laws. Because obviously you're a bad parent if you do.

This insulting comment was made by an idiot.

[Anonymous]

Question: does DC have some kind of no drug/gun tolerance zone around schools? I don't know the details of the shooting, but it sounds like it was in the public space within a hundred yards of the school (I KNOW it wasn't in front of the entrance, but in sight of the playground while kids were on it???) It seems MPD should enforce no drug/gun tolerance zones around ALL district schools. This could have happened at any district school (though less likely I am sure in certain neighborhoods). Anyways, I hope this is a wakeup call to MPD.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^^ and this is why I didn't send my DC there. There's a weird sense of apathy and low expectations surrounding it, even as it seems to be on the upswing academically.

Why hasn't the LT administration been on MPD for years about the sketchy loitering on Morris, near the playground? How do the parents not notice this?

So-called "sketchy loitering" is not prohibited by DC law, and even if it was, anti-loitering laws are routinely struck down as unconstitutional. Despite this fact, Jim Graham did his best get to get one passed several years ago. Persons engaged in in commodity will, however, face the full fury of the DC court system. http://dccode.org/simple/sections/22-1307.html. The fact is most MPD officers couldn't be bothered to write a ticket for drinking in public space. At least this group is no longer hanging out on the playground after hours.

[Anonymous]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun-Free_School_Zones_Act_of_1990

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The principal should be outraged[u], demanding a meeting with police and community leaders (ANC, etc.) to make a plan to end this. Any news?

Yes, all of the above have been done.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nope, not a troll. Read old posts. Was mostly baseless praise. We have the kids in the cluster schools- and everyone we talk to says to run like hell from LT. Just trying to figure out why there is such discrepancy.

Is there any specifics you'd like to know? Or is there something specific you'd like to hear that would make you feel more comfortable about L-T? That would help save some time from writing something that would just be considered "baseless praise."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The principal should be outraged[u], demanding a meeting with police and community leaders (ANC, etc.) to make a plan to end this. Any news?

Yes, all of the above have been done.

Good. I'll pray something positive can come out of this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: This shooting had nothing at all to do with H Street. The only thing H Street's development has to do with LT is enabling a lot of on-street parking on the weekends.

There has been a large group of men who hang out daily in front of two houses on Morris for at least 10 years, drinking, smoking weed and generally being a public nuisance. The administration at LT looks away, the old neighbors never minded, the new neighbors have too much white guilt to call them in, and the police can't do anything about loitering and it's hard/not worth it to bust them for public drinking, etc.

The loiterers are rarely currently from the neighborhood -- they come back to their old stomping grounds and use NE as their open-air bar/men's club. Anyone who has attended a little league game or practice on a weeknight knows exactly who/how/where this shooting occurred.

This problem is not block-specific, it's house-specific.

Thank you! It was odd to hear folks say they live on the "good" block of Capitol Hill where there is rarely any crime (unlike the crime on H Street.) Very odd! In this particular instance, the crime followed nearby residents (whom we have to remember were victims as well). Doing drugs out in public shouldn't be tolerated so I agree that police should be called. However, the neighbors need to be on the same page because if they have been doing this for 10 years they won't appreciate new neighbors coming in to tell what to do.

I didn't read the original post to be claiming there are good blocks and bad blocks at all. I read it to mean that H St. is a known gathering place of, shall we say, undesirables, and that sometimes their activities bleed--no pun intended--into the surrounding blocks.

Have you ever walked down H St. during the day? Lots of loitering. G St., not at all. As much as people want to think of H as having been gentrified it still has a long way to go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: This shooting had nothing at all to do with H Street. The only thing H Street's development has to do with LT is enabling a lot of on-street parking on the weekends.

There has been a large group of men who hang out daily in front of two houses on Morris for at least 10 years, drinking, smoking weed and generally being a public nuisance. The administration at LT looks away, the old neighbors never minded, the new neighbors have too much white guilt to call them in, and the police can't do anything about loitering and it's hard/not worth it to bust them for public drinking, etc.

The loiterers are rarely currently from the neighborhood -- they come back to their old stomping grounds and use NE as their open-air bar/men's club. Anyone who has attended a little league game or practice on a weeknight knows exactly who/how/where this shooting occurred.

This problem is not block-specific, it's house-specific.

Thank you! It was odd to hear folks say they live on the "good" block of Capitol Hill where there is rarely any crime (unlike the crime on H Street.) Very odd! In this particular instance, the crime followed nearby residents (whom we have to remember were victims as well). Doing drugs out in public shouldn't be tolerated so I agree that police should be called. However, the neighbors need to be on the same page because if they have been doing this for 10 years they won't appreciate new neighbors coming in to tell what to do.

I didn't read the original post to be claiming there are good blocks and bad blocks at all. I read it to mean that H St. is a known gathering place of, shall we say, undesirables, and that sometimes their activities bleed--no pun intended--into the surrounding blocks.

Have you ever walked down H St. during the day? Lots of loitering. G St., not at all. As much as people want to think of H as having been gentrified it still has a long way to go.

That is NOT true. There is a lot of loitering btw 5th and 6th on G, another "bad house" similar to the one where the shooting happened. There is more loitering on G for the community center, Sherwood. There is even more a few blocks further east. I see it every day.

[Anonymous]

PP who noted the "bad house" phenomenon. You are spot on in many respects and make a lot of good points. I live on Morris Place and have a child at LT. One point I'd add is that not *all* of the "new neighbors" hesitate to call the police. Some of us new neighbors have no white guilt, sometimes because we're not even white

We have called the police on many occasions and will continue to do so. When my husband spoke to the police officer on watch the other night, he encouraged us to call every time there is a dice game (not just when we suspect durg dealing) because "there's a gun at most dice games".

But Morris is a small street, not many houses, so I'm hoping that anyone who cares about this neighborhood and this school -- if you see a dice game or suspicious activity on Morris Place, please call the police! We neighbors will be calling too. The more people who call, the more times police come by, the faster this street and schoolyard will become a place where open-air-mens-club-dice-playing-sometimes-dealing-visitors no longer want to loiter.

I'm going to post this to MOTH as well and ask more neighbors to alert police whenever they see suspicious activity around LT.

[Anonymous]

^^^^ Dear Neighbor, thank you!!!

[Anonymous]

23:18 closing the Morris "Club" will do a lot to help LT's reputation. Not the school's fault, but well-regarded schools on the Hill have serene immediate neighborhoods.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:23:18 closing the Morris "Club" will do a lot to help LT's reputation. Not the school's fault, but well-regarded schools on the Hill have serene immediate neighborhoods.

That's nonsense. SWS is two blocks to the east and adjoins Sherwood. Maury is a few blocks farther southeast. Watkins and Tyler are both pretty close to large public housing projects.

so you're pretty much describing Brent and Peabody among Hill elementary schools. This has nothing to do with LT