Better & Better

The District of Columbia...the nation's capitol, is under an official CRIME EMERGENCY as I type these words. Not just because the routine crimes of robbery etc. have risen lately, but because murder is once again the past time of the Have-less/Have-not crowd.

On Q Street, NW ( Georgetown), in the driveway of a house I almost bought and moved to, a British man was knifed to death on Sunday morning. A group of four folks from the other side of town (one of whom was a woman), tried to rob this young man and the young woman with him. They also tried to drag away the young woman for obviously nefarious purposes. He died defending the woman, who got away...Apparently this crew had been "working" Georgetown for a few months, but never went so far as murder or attempted rape...the DC Police had a good idea where to look and scarfed them up within a few hours...
Perhaps even more terrifying is the fact that most of the murders are occurring amongst the folks on the other side of town...Killing each other for shoes, IPods, jackets etc. Sometimes it is hard to fathom that children or adolescents have so little empathy or actual feeling that they don't care if they kill a peer for his IPod...
What that says about our society, and their culture, is not something that causes pride...at least to me...This is one issue on which I don't have any workable thoughts about how to cure the situation...obviously it borders on anarchy in some neighborhoods...you'd think that the capitol city of the US would be able to do better, to become a model of everything, but no matter which party controls the government things remain the same...all the money, all of the programs are tested and implemented out in the country...and DC sits in it's own filth, unable and unwilling to break the cycle of stupidity.
How stupid??? A little over a year ago the Chief of Police had his car stolen...two weeks ago a mayoral candidate (a long-shot), who was confined to a wheelchair was gunned down...

If murders can occur arbitrarily in Georgetown, where police presence is relatively high, then it might just be time for this Crime Emergency...now if only they will do more than declare a problem and go to Dunkin' Donuts to discuss it.