11.20.2008

Kids These Days

I don't want to sound like a "hey childrens, get off my lawn" kind of guy, but something bizarre happened to me last night that I want to share.
First off, let me just say that the hood kids in this town are fucking nuts. Yesterday, Anacostia High School experienced what the Washington Post casually describes as "a disturbance" that left five students injured, including three with stab wounds:

The disturbance at Anacostia High School began shortly after 12:30 p.m. when two students began fighting in a second-floor hallway, said Assistant Police Chief Diane Groomes. While officers assigned to the school were breaking up the fight, someone set a small fire in another hallway on the floor, Groomes said. During the evacuation of the school's 1,100 students, more fights broke out among rival groups.

Groomes said five students were taken to hospitals -- three with stab wounds, one who was hurt in a fight and one who had an asthma attack. The teenager who was hurt while fighting is suspected of stabbing at least one of the other students with a shank"penlike knife," Groomes said.

For the record, Anacostia High looks like a goddamn penitentiary:









The article also details several other fun-filled extracurricular activities happening in DC schools:
  • Two students at Ballou High were arrested last week after a girl was hit with pepper spray and stabbed.

  • The 7th Police District deploys 17 officers, the district's entire foot patrol unit, outside the school each afternoon to make sure that its 1,500 students "leave in a safe and orderly fashion."

  • At Hart High, police have responded to three separate instances of assaults on teachers this year.

  • Seventh grade girls in one school regularly experience "disputes and instances of girls being improperly touched by male students."

Good times, good times. It's like High School Musical except the singing and dancing is replaced with prison violence.

So back to my original reason for posting today. At around 9pm last night, I made a quick run to the Waterfront CVS, which just so happens to be the place where an eldery woman and a police officer were randomly attacked by a group of teens this month. Fun fact: the hoodlums tried to steal the officer's gun. Kids, if your goal was to intimidate this white boy from running errands in his neighborhood at night, mission accomplished.

So anyway, as I was driving to CVS, I came across an intersection that had been obstructed by a row of big black trash bags full of leaves or god knows what. Evidently, some kids set up the bags like a barricade preventing me and three other cars from crossing the intersection. Why? Who knows. How do I know hood rats were responsible? Because all 10 of them we're standing right there on the sidewalk watching us.

So, being the upright citizen that I am, I decided to call the Police Department just to let them know that someone might want to clear the road. Yes, I have the police saved in my cell phone. I live in Southwest, remember? Here'y my call in dramatic reenactment format:

Dispatcher: "Hello, District 1 Police Department? I'm doing my nails. Whatcha want."

Me: "Hi, I'd like to report some kids obstructing the intersection of I Street and 3rd, SW?"

Dispatcher: "Lafonda, get me a pepsi!"

Me: "Hello? Its not urgent but I've read there's a youth crime problem here and..."

Dispatcher: "Where you at?"

Me: "I told you. 3rd and--"

Dispatcher: "Whats your name and number?"

Me: "It's King Friday, 202-XXX-XXXX. Shouldn't you have your caller ID swithced on?

Dispatcher: "Mmm hmm. What do you want to report?"

This went on for a while, but eventually she took my information and promised to send a car. Imagine my surprise when on the return trip 15 minutes later I saw the barricade still there as well as the kids. Thanks, DC police. Glad to know you're taking your youth violence task force to heart.

23 comments:

  1. I knew kids in DC didn't mess around when my friend, who is originally from the south side of Chicago and at the time of the incident worked security for the 9:30 Club, was attacked. She's not what normal kids -- or anyone, really -- would consider an "easy target."

    Five teens attacked her on a sidewalk in Petworth, beating her until they cracked her jaw and bruised her ribs.

    Since then, Rusty was mugged in Friendship Heights and another friend was shot several times a few blocks from 16th Street (he's ok now).

    Kind of glad we're in Ohio, where even mildly interesting things don't happen.

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  2. KIDS ARE LOYAL TO THEIR NEIGHBORHOODS. IF YOU REP ANOTHER NEIGHBORHOOD THAN ME, THEN ME AND YOU MIGHT HAVE SOME PROBLEMS WHEN WE CROSS EACH OTHER'S PATHS. NOW IF I SEE A BUNCH OF DC KIDS AGAINST A TRANSPLANT, REGARDLESS OF WHICH HOODS WE ALL FROM WE ALL DC SO WE JOIN TOGETHER AND WORRY ABOUT OUR BEEFS WITH EACH OTHER LATER.

    ZEBRABOY DID NOT LIKE PUNK BULLSHIT. BUT HE WOULD PUT ALL OF THAT HATE ASIDE IF HE SAW A BUNCH OF DC OR BALTIMORE PUNKS ATTACKING A TRANSPLANT. THEN HE WOULD GO BACK TO HATING THE PUNKS RIGHT AFTER THE BEAT DOWN WAS OVER.

    THATS JUST THE WAY IT GOES DOWN IN THIS CITY.

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  3. King Friday, I was going to suggest that you get out of your car and move the bags yourself and drive on down the road, but then I remembered that I like this blog and you wouldn't be a good blogger with 10 broken fingers and/or an extra hole in the head.

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  4. juvenile detention centers look more welcoming than anacostia highschool.

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  5. carry a knife. fucking kids. so funny how it's a tragedy when one teen in SE gets shot...oh the humanity. i say good, one less fucking ignorant human being on the face of the earth who wont be able to reproduce. scum. violence begets violenc, only a matter of time until we have some bernard goetz (sp?) shot go down. punks watch out.

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  6. All Caps Old Guy, thanks for teaching me a great new euphemism! "Gang violence" = "KIDS ARE LOYAL TO THEIR NEIGHBORHOODS." Much more PC. It's DC to be PC. Keep it real, anonymous!

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  7. THE KIDS WERE PROBABLY SAYING TO THEMSELVES.

    "WHO THE FUCK IS THAT GUY DRIVING THROUGH OUR NEIGHBORHOOD?"

    AT THE SAME TIME THERE WERE PROBABLY OTHER KIDS WATCHING FROM ACROSS THE STREET SAYING TO THEMSELVES

    "WHO THE FUCK IS THAT GUY DRIVING THROUGH OUR NEIGHBORHOOD?"

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  8. All Caps Guy, I got that exact impression. This was about asserting terriroty, albeit stupidly. I guess these kids are just looking for something in their life that they can control for once.

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  9. Maybe they were building a fun fort and just waiting for you to get some soda from the CVS so that you could all go hang out in the bag fort. I think maybe you just don't have good personal skills.

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  10. ANONYMOUS. YOU DUMB FUCK. ITS NOT GANG VIOLENCE ITS KIDS FROM DIFFERENT NEIGHBORHOODS BEEFING WITH EACH OTHER AT SCHOOL.

    KING. I AM TOO OLD TO CARE ABOUT IF AN OUTSIDER IS DRIVING OR WALKING THROUGH MY NEIGHBORHOOD.

    NOW IF I AM ON THE SUBWAY AND I SEE SOMEONE WHO DISRESPECTED ME WAYYYYYYYY BACK IN 1994 NOW THAT IS ANOTHER STORY ENTIRELY.

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  11. You should have raped them.

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  12. I AM OLD, IRATE AND WRONG ABOUT EVERYTHING.

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  13. HRH -- just to be clear -- it fucking sucks that M*&# writes here.

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  14. Terri, you're just mad because of that time I raped you.

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  15. S6 Bus Line? Is that you?

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  16. My first husband was an Ancostia HS grad in 61. He told me that kids walked through the halls with the points of geometry compasses cupped in their hands for protection. A few years back I got lost in DC and found myself in his old neighborhood, in front of the church where we got married. Everything looks scary when you're a stranger, but I must admit I didn't think the locks on my car doors would be any protection. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

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  17. so the originator of this post is upset that the police did not respond within 15 minutes to a report of multiple youths standing near some trash bags? gosh, are you sure that's enough time for the detectives at the crime lab to process all that really useful information?

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  18. There is an MPD-1D (your police district, I believe) on Yahoo Groups that is very active and monitored by the police. You might want to post there and ask if anyone ever responded to the call.

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  19. I'm looking forward to raping M@.

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  20. brif, you left out the part where the kids had the intersection blocked. Um, yeah, retard. That KINDA warrants a drive-by at least, don't you think?

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  21. Look at the cars in the parking lot. Those car payments could cover a year of private school. People's priorities are really hilarious.

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