Anonymous
Post 08/31/2023 08:47     Subject: Longterm dc area residents, have you noticed decline ?
Anonymous wrote:In the early 90s, things were kind of predictable. SE, east of 14th, Shaw, Logan Circle, Malcolm X Park were basically no go zones. But NW was always very safe. And then for twenty years everything improved. Almost all of DC was accessible and interesting.

But something snapped in the past five years. Our murder rate has doubled. Carjackings are out of control. The police don't even respond to most robberies. Our real crime rate is a lot higher than official statistics. And it seems to happen everywhere. It's unpredictable.

A lot of the violent crime seems to be driven by teenage boys. Back in the day it was crack and gangs. There was at least a logic to it. Now it seems like anarchy. It feels less safe now than before.


Among the other problems with this perspective, virtually all the areas you describe as "basically no go zones" are in NW.
Anonymous
Post 08/31/2023 08:46     Subject: Longterm dc area residents, have you noticed decline ?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Maybe there was more acts of crime in DC in the 80s and 90s. However, the difference between then and now is that many more areas of the city and the suburbs are less safe.


You're joking, right? There is no way you were here in the 80s and 90s if you actually believe that.

Literally the entire city east of Rock Creek Park is significantly safer now. Columbia Heights, Petworth, Brightwood, Fort Totten, Brookland, Hill East, Logan Circle, Shaw, Bloomingdale, Edgewood, Eckington, NoMa, (which absolutely wasn't called NoMa) Trinidad, H St., Michigan Park, Ivy City were all wastelands full of boarded up and burned out houses, open air drug markets, lacking any sort of retail or restaurants that didn't serve you through bulletproof glass. There is literally no comparison between now and then.

Meanwhile none of the neighborhoods that were safe back then are less safe in any meaningful way.

To say that any of the city and suburbs, much less "many more areas" are less safe than the 80s and 90s is patently and laughably absurd. To write that you would have to have absolutely zero knowledge or awareness of what the area was like back then.


Ok. I’ll try to be more specific. Criminals now come to Upper NW to rob and attack. That never used to happen with such regularity. They also now hang out in Arlington and other close-in burbs. This is all new, since 2020, I think.


There have been 93 robberies and 58 assaults in 2D (WOTP) this year to date. There are around 175,000 residents in that same area. Do you not understand how incredibly insignificant that is?

Even if there were 0 robberies and assaults in the 80s and 90s (there definitely weren't) the increase in your actual chances of being robbed would be so miniscule as to not even be worth thinking about.

Stop being hysterical, you're working yourself into a frenzy for absolutely no benefit. You were safe back then, you're safe now.


Murder rates up and carjacking up by 100+ percent, but their victims take solace knowing it was worse 30 years ago.


Oh no, 100%! That's a big number!

You know what's not a big number? The actual numbers of murders and carjackings compared to the amount of people in the city, and your chances of being one of those victims.

Wow, an extra 100 people a year got killed, almost entirely gangbangers with long criminal records and mostly EOTR where DCUMers have never even set foot. Real scary stuff for those stay at home moms in the Palisades who "don't feel safe anymore" despite the chances of being one of those victims going from approximately 0% to approximately 0%.



You are so out of touch with those of us who live in those neighborhoods and have experienced the murders, carjackings and break ins. I don't know what you think you're accomplishing but downplaying what we deal with.


If you live EOTR or in a heavily populated gang area....you chose that. You can move further out or to a safer neighborhood. It may mean a smaller home/apt but what do you value? Safety or space?


This is a pretty obnoxious and cold response to people's legitimate fears about rising crime in their neighborhood.
Anonymous
Post 08/31/2023 08:02     Subject: Longterm dc area residents, have you noticed decline ?
Born, raised and lived in DC for 31 years. We left realized I was making the decision to remove my groceries from the car before my kids. People would steal the groceries but not bother the kids. Nothing has happened in the 10 years we have lived in Mt Ranier.
Anonymous
Post 08/31/2023 07:52     Subject: Longterm dc area residents, have you noticed decline ?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:We feel unsafe. I have never felt unsafe since moving here in 2007. It sucks.


+1. Two guys ransacked our car two weeks ago in upper NW in the middle of the day. Nothing was stolen because we’re smart enough to not keep any of value in the cars after these past two years. We had video and called the police. They wouldn’t take a report because nothing was stolen. This will never appear in crime stats but it has impacted our mental health. This happens every day all across the city.


Was your car unlocked?? This happened to us in our quiet suburb and I felt dumb for leaving the car unlocked but it certainly hasn’t impacted my mental health. That’s a little extreme, don’t you think?


So either

A) you left your car unlocked which is dumb

Or

B) Someone smashed into your car thus causing property damage and the police incorrectly didn’t consider it a crime?

Which is it?

Be careful leaving your car unlocked. My dad did that in dc because the car was a junk heap and he didn’t care and someone must have slept in it because we found a half empty bottle of cheap liquor in the back .definitely not from anyone in our family. That could have gotten us charged with driving with an open container
Anonymous
Post 08/31/2023 07:45     Subject: Longterm dc area residents, have you noticed decline ?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:We feel unsafe. I have never felt unsafe since moving here in 2007. It sucks.


+1. Two guys ransacked our car two weeks ago in upper NW in the middle of the day. Nothing was stolen because we’re smart enough to not keep any of value in the cars after these past two years. We had video and called the police. They wouldn’t take a report because nothing was stolen. This will never appear in crime stats but it has impacted our mental health. This happens every day all across the city.


Was your car unlocked?? This happened to us in our quiet suburb and I felt dumb for leaving the car unlocked but it certainly hasn’t impacted my mental health. That’s a little extreme, don’t you think?
Anonymous
Post 08/31/2023 07:41     Subject: Longterm dc area residents, have you noticed decline ?
Anonymous wrote:As usual, this is so dumb. I was out cycling last weekend in Hains Point. It was wonderful. So many people out in the city having a wonderful time. All I could think about was BS posts like this. Where are you and what are you doing to think that DC sucks that bad. It's strange. It's like you watch tv and want it to be true.


Hains point was an open air drug market when I was in high school in the 90s.
Anonymous
Post 08/31/2023 07:27     Subject: Longterm dc area residents, have you noticed decline ?
Anonymous wrote:In the early 90s, things were kind of predictable. SE, east of 14th, Shaw, Logan Circle, Malcolm X Park were basically no go zones. But NW was always very safe. And then for twenty years everything improved. Almost all of DC was accessible and interesting.

But something snapped in the past five years. Our murder rate has doubled. Carjackings are out of control. The police don't even respond to most robberies. Our real crime rate is a lot higher than official statistics. And it seems to happen everywhere. It's unpredictable.

A lot of the violent crime seems to be driven by teenage boys. Back in the day it was crack and gangs. There was at least a logic to it. Now it seems like anarchy. It feels less safe now than before.


+1000.
Anonymous
Post 08/31/2023 07:12     Subject: Longterm dc area residents, have you noticed decline ?
Anonymous wrote:In the early 90s, things were kind of predictable. SE, east of 14th, Shaw, Logan Circle, Malcolm X Park were basically no go zones. But NW was always very safe. And then for twenty years everything improved. Almost all of DC was accessible and interesting.

But something snapped in the past five years. Our murder rate has doubled. Carjackings are out of control. The police don't even respond to most robberies. Our real crime rate is a lot higher than official statistics. And it seems to happen everywhere. It's unpredictable.

A lot of the violent crime seems to be driven by teenage boys. Back in the day it was crack and gangs. There was at least a logic to it. Now it seems like anarchy. It feels less safe now than before.


This is quite a myopic statement.
Anonymous
Post 08/31/2023 07:10     Subject: Longterm dc area residents, have you noticed decline ?
It’s not just teenage boys. A 13 year old girl carjacked a car and was involved in four other crimes. The street fights and those I see on Metro always involve teenage girls. Might keep them from reproducing at least.
Anonymous
Post 08/31/2023 07:07     Subject: Longterm dc area residents, have you noticed decline ?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Things are far worse now in urban areas across America than they were in 2005, which was probably the high water mark of urban revitalization. Progressive policies without any check from republicans in cities and places like MoCo have led to soaring taxes to fund pensions, reduced services, and tolerance of and embrace of bad behavior. The whole “victimless crime” decriminalization of marijuana has been the latest thing that blows my mind. In the late 90s you couldn’t go out to a bar without smelling like an ashtray. We applauded when smoking bans were passed. Now we are assaulted by marijuana smoke outside, everywhere, and no one bats an eye. Young men are unemployed and shiftless—but again, we are told that it’s due to structural something or something. At some point, the tide will turn back towards sanity, but there are still enough clueless progressive voters to keep writing blank checks to liberal municipalities. When Chicago finally goes bankrupt (hard to fund a $45k pp debt with 8% interest rates) maybe some rationality will return.


You can't smoke weed in restaurants. Dumb comparison.

Legalizing weed and banning smoking indoors is not apples to apples.

Would you rather smell weed or cigarettes? I'll take weed 10 out of 10 times. Plus, I don't mind if people are walking around stoned. Who cares..they are relaxed. Not a bother what so ever. Way better than the crack epidemic.


I'd take cigarettes. Or neither, how about that? It's called "politeness"


Weed smoke won't kill you


More’s the pity.
Anonymous
Post 08/31/2023 04:48     Subject: Longterm dc area residents, have you noticed decline ?
In the early 90s, things were kind of predictable. SE, east of 14th, Shaw, Logan Circle, Malcolm X Park were basically no go zones. But NW was always very safe. And then for twenty years everything improved. Almost all of DC was accessible and interesting.

But something snapped in the past five years. Our murder rate has doubled. Carjackings are out of control. The police don't even respond to most robberies. Our real crime rate is a lot higher than official statistics. And it seems to happen everywhere. It's unpredictable.

A lot of the violent crime seems to be driven by teenage boys. Back in the day it was crack and gangs. There was at least a logic to it. Now it seems like anarchy. It feels less safe now than before.
Anonymous
Post 08/31/2023 04:38     Subject: Longterm dc area residents, have you noticed decline ?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:We feel unsafe. I have never felt unsafe since moving here in 2007. It sucks.


+1. Two guys ransacked our car two weeks ago in upper NW in the middle of the day. Nothing was stolen because we’re smart enough to not keep any of value in the cars after these past two years. We had video and called the police. They wouldn’t take a report because nothing was stolen. This will never appear in crime stats but it has impacted our mental health. This happens every day all across the city.


I think I have a solution to DC's homeless problem.
Anonymous
Post 08/31/2023 00:42     Subject: Longterm dc area residents, have you noticed decline ?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Blame the morons who chanted that we need to defund the police. Absolute idiocy.


And yet DC never defunded police, in fact the budgets have increased.

Or are you insinuating that police are not doing their jobs because they have hurt feelings?


NP. I think it affected the public’s perception of whether people would be held accountable for their actions, and that impact is uniquely felt in a city like DC, where people are frequently not held accountable for their actions.

Enter lawlessness….


It’s de facto legal to drive without a license plate now, which opens a million doors for murder, burglary, etc with very little chance or getting caught. Lawlessness and the people who downplay it do a disservice to the working poor of DC.
Anonymous
Post 08/30/2023 23:50     Subject: Longterm dc area residents, have you noticed decline ?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Blame the morons who chanted that we need to defund the police. Absolute idiocy.


And yet DC never defunded police, in fact the budgets have increased.

Or are you insinuating that police are not doing their jobs because they have hurt feelings?


NP. I think it affected the public’s perception of whether people would be held accountable for their actions, and that impact is uniquely felt in a city like DC, where people are frequently not held accountable for their actions.

Enter lawlessness….
Anonymous
Post 08/30/2023 23:11     Subject: Longterm dc area residents, have you noticed decline ?
Anonymous wrote:We feel unsafe. I have never felt unsafe since moving here in 2007. It sucks.


+1. Two guys ransacked our car two weeks ago in upper NW in the middle of the day. Nothing was stolen because we’re smart enough to not keep any of value in the cars after these past two years. We had video and called the police. They wouldn’t take a report because nothing was stolen. This will never appear in crime stats but it has impacted our mental health. This happens every day all across the city.