Man Stabbed to Death inside Petworth Library Evening of 3/2

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m not saying murderers don’t belong in prison, but most people experiencing homelessness or severe mental illness aren’t murderers or even criminals.

They are NOT mutually exclusive categories. This fiction helps no one.

[Anonymous]

Why was there no description of the assailant in the linked article? It says witnesses held him/them. Was this random or targeted?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why would any of us who are lifelong Dems vote for conservatives because of issues like this? It’s not like Rs are proposing any actual solutions to homelessness or mental illness. Reagan only closed the hospitals because of $$$, not because he cared about abuse or quality care.

I’m not saying murderers don’t belong in prison, but most people experiencing homelessness or severe mental illness aren’t murderers or even criminals. At least Dems recognize that these people need help.

You let them lie in the street in their faeces. That is happening all across town. If Democrats realize they need help, why aren't they helping? Last I checked, we have a Democratic Party Mayor, Council and non-voting Rep. Please don't say "because statehood". I seriously don't see any policies or bills to address mental illness or homelessness being blocked. And if they were, at least y'all tried.

Even California under Newsome has moved toward making involuntary commitment easier.

The "activists" of Homeless Inc rake in a lot of money using the visuals of people on the street for leverage. Maybe this conflict perpetuates the status quo? What other voices are heard?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m not saying murderers don’t belong in prison, but most people experiencing homelessness or severe mental illness aren’t murderers or even criminals.

They are NOT mutually exclusive categories. This fiction helps no one.

What is your point? The categories of people living in houses and people who are murderers are ALSO NOT mutually exclusive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A) terrible, and my sympathy to the victim, the bystanders AND the librarians
B) Why do we allow libraries to be used as day shelters? [b]At the very least, clear them for after school hours. It is so unfair to these kids!Can the city not incentivize shelters to rotate some staying open by day? or, golly, OPEN day shelters?? Why do we only have one of these:[/b]

Downtown Day Services Center
The Center offers downtown day services to individuals experiencing homelessness. The Center utilizes a Housing First method to move individuals into housing by connecting them with supportive services.

The Center is operated by the DowntownDC Business Improvement District (BID) with support from the District of Columbia Department of Human Services and services from Pathways to Housing DC and HIPS.

Hours Open: Monday through Friday from 9:00 am – 5:00 pm; Saturday from 10:00 am to 3:00 pm

Meals: Daily from 11:00 am - 1:00 pm; during weekend lunch, hygiene items, and PPE are available at Vermont Avenue, NW while supplies last.

Services Available: Showers, laundry, restrooms, phone and computers, emergency clothing, vital records, medical, harm reduction, and housing guidance. Saturday services are available: Showers, laundry, and meals.

Restrooms & Showers
Laundry & Emergency Clothing
Phone Charging & Computers
The District Department of Employment Services
District Department of Health
District Department of Motor Vehicles
Economic Security Administration
Unity Health Care
Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless
For more information, contact 202-383-8810 or e-mail: [e-mail].

Are you suggesting not allowing certain people into a public library? How exactly are you going to check? What if they are homeless but not visibly so? Using a computer to apply for jobs?

Having more and better service centers that help them with all the services at that day center would be great. Put one of those in every ward?

You could not allow them to wheel all their belongings in. You could put time limits on bathrooms and blacklights so no one can find their veins to shoot up. You could station library police who could call in 311 wellness checks on any disturbed behavior. You could ask shelters and the city to not run vans and buses to the libraries in the mornings as I've heard they have done at times. Oh, imagine this--you could create options for the homeless: how about... reading rooms for the homeless with donuts, coffees and computers. They LOVE computer banks. You could have the vans run straight from the shelters to the reading rooms. Yes, it would take imagination and $. We seem to spend plenty of the latter on social issues, and completely lack the former.

I'm with you on making attractive other options that benefit them. But I can't get behind things that would hurt us all, like black lights in a bathroom. I can't imagine my kids going into a bathroom like that.

your child should only use the bathroom attached to the children's section. no adults are allowed in without a child. at least at mlk library. this heart breaking- that is such cosy library and there are kids from Rosevelt there all the time!

MLK library was across the street from my office. I used to go all the time until I noticed I was alone with 10-20 homeless men, staring at me, while I looked for books on the second floor. I stopped using the library because I felt unsafe.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why was there no description of the assailant in the linked article? It says witnesses held him/them. Was this random or targeted?

It was targeted. There is a link to a tweet containing the police report in this thread.

The stabber claims the deceased sold him bad drugs that caused him to OD. He had previously burned the tent of the deceased and there was a recent tent fire near the metro. Then he stabbed him.

The dynamics of drug use, dealing, mental illness and violence/criminal behavior have generally been recognized as significant in the population of those who choose to live outside and use, for self medication of mental illness or otherwise. Current street drugs can trigger mental illness or cause brain damage, see The Atlantic article on current versions of meth. Others who are unhoused use shelters and comply with rules or have families or acquaintances willing to allow them to couch surf.

Previously, courts would incentivize treatment or rehab by trading off sentences for misdemeanors. Now that so much has been decriminalized, there is not the same carrot available, nor are those who commit crimes held as often as in the past. That provided a time of drying out and stabilization that could have led to insight re: treatment. Now the cycle has fewer points of possible change.

Anyone who looks at MPD releases re: arrests will see how many involve the unhoused. Living in tent smoking meth does not automatically make you Mr. Rogers. Many violent crimes are caused by unhoused people in one or more categories of addiction, mental illness or past violent & criminal behavior. Many are involved in the drug trade. The myth of Housing First has pushed the propaganda that sticking people from tents or Union Station into apartments in NW will transform the core issues. Treatment for mental illness or addiction is voluntary. Advocates wax poetic about the "communities" the same ones in which many homeless are raped, killed and OD. Homeless Inc is big money for SO many, but it makes it off the back of human misery, it's cruel. There are also huge public safety issues. It works only for those who financially profit off of it.

[Anonymous]

Shelter first, housing earned incentivizes healthy and pro-social behavior and statistically is more successful.

The current Housing First propaganda has taken a huge toll on individuals and has been destructive to society. Staggering sums are being spent in endless churn, who benefits is the key question.

https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/politics/581841-lessons-learned-from-a-failed-bet-on-housing-first/

Btw, HF was a Bush program modeled on CA, just like shutting down institutions involved Ds, Rs and the ACLU. It's time to stop the rote arguments that protect the status quo.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why was there no description of the assailant in the linked article? It says witnesses held him/them. Was this random or targeted?

It was targeted. There is a link to a tweet containing the police report in this thread.

The stabber claims the deceased sold him bad drugs that caused him to OD. He had previously burned the tent of the deceased and there was a recent tent fire near the metro. Then he stabbed him.

The dynamics of drug use, dealing, mental illness and violence/criminal behavior have generally been recognized as significant in the population of those who choose to live outside and use, for self medication of mental illness or otherwise. Current street drugs can trigger mental illness or cause brain damage, see The Atlantic article on current versions of meth. Others who are unhoused use shelters and comply with rules or have families or acquaintances willing to allow them to couch surf.

Previously, courts would incentivize treatment or rehab by trading off sentences for misdemeanors. Now that so much has been decriminalized, there is not the same carrot available, nor are those who commit crimes held as often as in the past. That provided a time of drying out and stabilization that could have led to insight re: treatment. Now the cycle has fewer points of possible change.

Anyone who looks at MPD releases re: arrests will see how many involve the unhoused. Living in tent smoking meth does not automatically make you Mr. Rogers. Many violent crimes are caused by unhoused people in one or more categories of addiction, mental illness or past violent & criminal behavior. Many are involved in the drug trade. The myth of Housing First has pushed the propaganda that sticking people from tents or Union Station into apartments in NW will transform the core issues. Treatment for mental illness or addiction is voluntary. Advocates wax poetic about the "communities" the same ones in which many homeless are raped, killed and OD. Homeless Inc is big money for SO many, but it makes it off the back of human misery, it's cruel. There are also huge public safety issues. It works only for those who financially profit off of it.

Where did they buy drug and who are the sellers? If the government and police confiscated the drugs on streets, it will save a lots of people, housed and unhoused.

[Anonymous]

This account has a lot of information re: the realities of the situation. CA is ahead of DC in trying some approaches like safe sleep and safe spaces to use. Some have been disastrous, in CA and elsewhere. CA has also made it easier to involuntarily commit. It would be nice if DC could learn from approaches tried elsewhere that have upped the human toll/cost.

It is a feature of both addiction and mental illness to lack insight. To frame that as a justice cause while profiting financially is cruel. Billions are being spent yet the problems grow. Follow the $ and ask who benefits from the status quo? Europe does not allow large open air drug scenes to take over public spaces. The cost to both individuals and the public at large is seen as too high.

https://twitter.com/ShellenbergerMD/status/1632096338895839233

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's shit like this EVERY DAY that beats down those of us who live here until we just can't manage anymore. I have become a worse person during the 18 years i have lived in DC. I used to pick up litter. I used to talk to people and engage and check in with folks. I could be a bystander that intervened. At this point in my life (middle age) I am freaking OVER IT. If i see homeless people i ignore them and move on. If I see a group of teenagers I GTFO of the way. I lock my car doors incessantly. I worry every day my kids are going to be the witness of victims of a senseless act of violence perpetrated by someone "who just needs restorative justice". I would LOVE to vote for someone, anyone for public office that actually had the capacity and political motivation to DO something besides stand in front of a microphone and say the same thing over and over.

Is it bad enough yet to sallow your pride, and vote R? Or will you keep voting D to keep getting more of the same, and worse?

We aren’t voting R, no matter how many times you post this. The people who respond that they are “lifelong Ds, now driven to vote R” are liars on an anonymous message board, trying to convince others to join them and advance their backwards conservative agenda. Sorry. Won’t work.

Bullsht. I am a lifelong dumb, and I vote Republican frequently in DC elections. Never at the national level just to say, and I’m not alone. I suspect this might be an age thing.

I’ve already posted on this and other threads. I have no problem voting for someone like Tony Williams, or Carol Schwartz, if they were to have an R after their name, let alone current candidates.

[Anonymous]

Ha. Lifelong DEM. although maybe I am dumb for so faithfully supporting the party if it’s brought us to the situation at the local level.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why was there no description of the assailant in the linked article? It says witnesses held him/them. Was this random or targeted?

It was targeted. There is a link to a tweet containing the police report in this thread.

The stabber claims the deceased sold him bad drugs that caused him to OD. He had previously burned the tent of the deceased and there was a recent tent fire near the metro. Then he stabbed him.

The dynamics of drug use, dealing, mental illness and violence/criminal behavior have generally been recognized as significant in the population of those who choose to live outside and use, for self medication of mental illness or otherwise. Current street drugs can trigger mental illness or cause brain damage, see The Atlantic article on current versions of meth. Others who are unhoused use shelters and comply with rules or have families or acquaintances willing to allow them to couch surf.

Previously, courts would incentivize treatment or rehab by trading off sentences for misdemeanors. Now that so much has been decriminalized, there is not the same carrot available, nor are those who commit crimes held as often as in the past. That provided a time of drying out and stabilization that could have led to insight re: treatment. Now the cycle has fewer points of possible change.

Anyone who looks at MPD releases re: arrests will see how many involve the unhoused. Living in tent smoking meth does not automatically make you Mr. Rogers. Many violent crimes are caused by unhoused people in one or more categories of addiction, mental illness or past violent & criminal behavior. Many are involved in the drug trade. The myth of Housing First has pushed the propaganda that sticking people from tents or Union Station into apartments in NW will transform the core issues. Treatment for mental illness or addiction is voluntary. Advocates wax poetic about the "communities" the same ones in which many homeless are raped, killed and OD. Homeless Inc is big money for SO many, but it makes it off the back of human misery, it's cruel. There are also huge public safety issues. It works only for those who financially profit off of it.

There won't be any successful treatment or rehabilitation without close supervision. If prison isn't the place where people think it should or can happen then it should be some other kind of institution. And yes, DC law says people CAN be involuntarily committed to drug rehab or mental health treatment if that is the assessment of a qualified medical professional.

I think DC needs to step up. And if the person doesn't want to face the prospect of being committed involuntarily, they should see about getting themselves to a different jurisdiction which doesn't allow it. And before you say "oh how can a broke homeless person move" they do it all the time, many of DC's homeless have already drifted from city to city and they certainly manage to find enough money to feed the drug habit...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Democrats won't do what needs to be done and ignore the problem.
Republicans only whine, blame and complain, they won't do what needs to be done either.

I travel a lot for work. Often I end up in "red" states and while I don't like a lot of their policies, particularly on guns and reproductive health, I've also found that whatever they are doing to deal with homeless has results. You see a lot fewer homeless on the streets there. I don't know if they lock them up, get them help, or ship them out, but the problem just isn't visually as widespread there.

My next business trip is downtown San Francisco.. Not looking forward to that. I'm embarrassed to take our foreign clients out for dinner around there, the situation is so bad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This account has a lot of information re: the realities of the situation. CA is ahead of DC in trying some approaches like safe sleep and safe spaces to use. Some have been disastrous, in CA and elsewhere. CA has also made it easier to involuntarily commit. It would be nice if DC could learn from approaches tried elsewhere that have upped the human toll/cost.

It is a feature of both addiction and mental illness to lack insight. To frame that as a justice cause while profiting financially is cruel. Billions are being spent yet the problems grow. Follow the $ and ask who benefits from the status quo? Europe does not allow large open air drug scenes to take over public spaces. The cost to both individuals and the public at large is seen as too high.

https://twitter.com/ShellenbergerMD/status/1632096338895839233

Exactly this.

DC has a massive homeless-industrial complex that rakes in $$$$$ every year from the city. Countless "charities" that get lavish government contracts for feel-good measures like handing out BP&J sandwiches at astronomically high per-unit prices to the city.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This account has a lot of information re: the realities of the situation. CA is ahead of DC in trying some approaches like safe sleep and safe spaces to use. Some have been disastrous, in CA and elsewhere. CA has also made it easier to involuntarily commit. It would be nice if DC could learn from approaches tried elsewhere that have upped the human toll/cost.

It is a feature of both addiction and mental illness to lack insight. To frame that as a justice cause while profiting financially is cruel. Billions are being spent yet the problems grow. Follow the $ and ask who benefits from the status quo? Europe does not allow large open air drug scenes to take over public spaces. The cost to both individuals and the public at large is seen as too high.

https://twitter.com/ShellenbergerMD/status/1632096338895839233

Exactly this.

DC has a massive homeless-industrial complex that rakes in $$$$$ every year from the city. Countless "charities" that get lavish government contracts for feel-good measures like handing out BP&J sandwiches at astronomically high per-unit prices to the city.

If you build it, they will come. The more money that is spent on homelessness, the more homeless there will be. Follow the money.