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.