Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Violent Crimes and Neighborhood Watches

  Reports have recently come in of another mugging taking place in the park that seperates Galloway and Gallatain St's NE early Sunday morning, on the upper path close to the Magnolia Plumbing Facility.  An adult male was walking through the upper section of the park, and was attacked by two males with a 3' section of pipe and struck in the back.  During the altercation only his cell phone was taken, and he sustained fairly minor injuries.  Park Police are working with the victim, but this is yet another instance of neighbors being assulated or ambused (regardless of which they have definitely been targeted) while walking through the park to get home.  In the past few months there have been several robbery attempts, utilizing various weapons, in the park yet nothing seems to change.  Although there seems to be more police presence at the metro station itself, there is still a marked lack of police presence away from the station.  Many long time residents see this as a trend taking them back nearly a decade ago when violent crimes and rape were major problems in the park.  Some neighbors have commented on seeing police occasionally patrolling the paths, but acknowledge more needs to be done.   
  DDOT (d.), in partnership with Toole Design, is still in the process of finalizing their plan to improve the Metro Station and park area safety and accessibility.  Their plan to increase lighting, add new paths, better sight lines and safer sidewalks also extend to improving the paths and safety of the park access points. The d. and Toole Design Project Managers were contacted for updates on the project, but no response was received.  However, d. still broadcasts that work on this redesign will begin later this year, and cost just under $3M.  Information on the redesign and current status can be found here : http://tooledesign.com/forttotten/downloads/2011-08-04_1st-Galloway_ReportFINAL.pdf and here: http://tooledesign.com/forttotten/.
  In the interim, however, personal safety and increased vigilance is recommended.  With this in mind Samantha Nolan, Neighborhood Watch Coordinator for DC, will be holding a Community Watch Training Session at the Lamond Riggs Library on South Dakota this Thursday (April 5th).  Ms. Nolan has over 11 years experience with Community Watches and will be providing this training free of charge to all in attendance. Attendance is strongly encouraged!

Neighborhood Watch Training Session

Thursday April 5, 2012
7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
Location: Lamond-Riggs Library
Street: 5401 South Dakota Avenue, NE
City State Zip: Washington, DC 20011
Phone: 202.541.6255
Web: http://www.dclibrary.org/lamond.

3 comments:

CaraF said...

Thanks for sharing! A good reminder to stick to the sidewalks even during daylight. Hopefully they get the path and lights put up one of these days...years...

Steven Sorrell said...

D and tooledesign have heard the complaints about these paths. However, it is a federal park and would require approval by NPS. Last I heard is that they don't want to do this as it will encourage new paths and eventually destroy the park, which they would like to restore. We will need our new ward 5 council to help push and make this more of apriority, especially with artplace coming which will create more traffic through there.

Anonymous said...

Yes, we've seen crime rates go up in the city this year, as well as my neighbourhood, half a mile west of Fort Totten. How do you keep up with all the news? Very helpful, thanks.