The MetroAccess Van pictured below hit a street light at the intersection of Warder and Irving Streets, NW, yesterday morning. An authority was on the scene and traffic seemed to not have been affected. Luckily, the van looks to have taken the brunt of the impact, and the street light on the southeast corner may have prevented any further damage to parked automobiles &/or houses.
The following is from the Washington Examiner and describes an incident that started early this morning (1/29/12) on the 700 block of Otis Place in Park View and ended on the 400 block of Taylor Street, NE.
Two people were killed and two police officers were injured early Sunday when a minivan fleeing a crime scene lost control, D.C. police said.
At about 3 a.m., police got several reports of gunshots being fired from a vehicle in the 700 block of Otis Place in the near Petworth (sic) neighborhood in Northwest Washington, said Commander James Crane. A man flagged down the officers saying that someone shot at him and drove away in a burgundy minivan with Virginia plates.
Responding officers saw a minivan that matched the description speeding down the 300 block of Upshur Street NW. The officers pursued the vehicle as the minivan blew through several stop signs, Crane said.
The minivan sped to the crest of the hill in the 400 block of Taylor Street NE and lost control, Crane said. The minvan tumbled over several times before crashing into a tree and landing on the hood of a police car coming from the other direction.
The police officers in the struck vehicle saw the minivan flip end over end and were able to stop and pull over to the side before the minivan crashed onto their car, Crane said.
The occupants of the minivan were tossed from the vehicle, Crane said. Two adult males were pronounced dead on the scene. A 17-year-old was taken to a hospital in critical condition.
The officers were taken to the hospital with non-life-threatenting injuries, police said.
Police found evidence linking the van to the original shooting at Otis Place in Petworth (sic).
The identities of the deceased were not availabe. One was a 19-year-old and the other has not been identified, Crane said.
Police failed to get a name of the man who flagged down police and would like to speak with him again to help with the investigation, Crane said. Anyone with information can call police at (202) 727-9099.
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/capital-land/2012/01/two-dead-two-officers-injured-police-pursuit/2147671#ixzz1ksb15ecj
One of many city trash cans filled to the brim after last year's 4th of July
MPD reminds residents that before they purchase an expensive haul of fireworks, make sure that you can legally ignite and use them in the District. In general, any firework that explodes is illegal in the city. Any person found using or in the possession of illegal fireworks in D.C. could face fines and penalties of up to $2,000 and/or arrest for further prosecution.
The types of fireworks that cause the most injuries include firecrackers, sparklers, and rockets. Sparklers were associated with over half of the estimated injuries among children under 5 years. Children 14 years and younger sustain about 45% of firework related injuries each year.
Characteristics of Illegal Fireworks
An illegal firework as defined in Article 27 of the D.C.
Official Code may have any of the following traits:
For more information visit the MPD website or click on the image below.
The Washington Post reports that not everything was peace, order, and calm along the Georgia Avenue corridor yesterday. Shortly after 5 p.m. near the intersection of Gresham Place and Georgia Avenue, one man was fatally shot and three others were wounded. Three of the four victims were from outside the neighborhood.
Assistant D.C. Police Chief Diane Groomes stated that the shooting had no connection to the DC Caribbean Parade, which was largely over by that time. MPD reports that nearly 20 shell casings from at least two guns were recovered as well as one firearm on Gresham Place.
You can read the full Washington Post article here.
Additional coverage, including interviews with residents and Assistant Chief Groomes, can be found at MyFoxdc.com. Click on the image below to read that report and see the accompanying video.
Map showing current and realigned Fourth Police District
For those that have been following the realignment of MPD’s seven police districts, it looks like Mt. Pleasant and everything north of Monroe Street/Park Road east of 16th Street is slated to become part of the Fourth District. Being someone who lives on the 3D/4D border, I do think that it will be nice to only have to call one district instead of two. However I haven’t been hearing flattering things about the last time parts of this area were within 4D.
In talking to one long-time resident about what it was like before the last police district change they replied that I didn’t have the “experience that [they did] with 4D and [their] untimely responses, if any, and rumors of drug dealers being alerted when calls were placed about the drug activity.” They continued that they believe things only improved once they were redistricted to the Third District. On the other hand, in talking to some residents currently living in the Fourth District they seem to think that their current level of support from MPD is pretty good.
Newly proposed 4D PSAs 408 and 409
The reason for the redistricting is to improve service by equally distributing crime and calls for service as evenly as possible among the District’s seven police districts. To this, my Ward 1 neighbor again stated that to realign based on crime stats is ridiculous. “If 4D is as ineffective as it was in the past, of course its crime stats are going to be lower than those of 3D.” Clearly, long-established residents have strong feelings about MPDs past performance. As such, I hope residents will attend MPD’s series of meetings focusing on these proposals and ask the tough questions they need answered.
You can read the Forth District information sheet here. That meeting is scheduled for June 16th at 7 p.m., 6001 Georgia Avenue, NW.
MPD districts as they currently stand
DC’s Metropolitan Police Department is planning to realign the various MPD districts. One of the threads I’ve been told, though unconfirmed, is that MPD 4D could extend south to Howard University in the Park View area (essentially 302 east).
While this may not turn out to be entirely true, overall I’d like to know:
From the MPD Website:
The MPD will discuss plans to improve the delivery of police services in the District of Columbia beginning on June 7, 2011 at the First District. Each police district will host a community meeting to discuss new Police Service Area boundaries in that district. Community members are invited to attend these meetings to get more information and have their questions answered.
http://mpdc.dc.gov/districts (The website will be updated if there are any emergency cancellations.)
Meeting dates and times are scheduled as follows: for the Community Room of Each Police Station.
For more information on a particular district, click on the link below.
Confusing Traffic Signs on Park Pl NW
As pointed out in September 2010, DDOT’s lane reconfiguration of southern Park Place NW has created confusion. Over time, drivers have not become familiar with the lane reconfiguration. As a result there are daily near-accidents and a total disregard for the bike lane. Most audibly, the use of car horns is prevalent as drivers warn those that do not maintain their lanes.
Let’s backup … one-way south-bound traffic starts on Park Place at Rock Creek Church Road. As traffic crosses over Kenyon Street there are three lanes of traffic. The furthest lane to the left is a turn only lane onto east-bound Irving Street. At the Park Place/Irving Street intersection traffic is supposed to merge into two lanes. The middle lane traffic is meant to merge to the left-most lane and the right-most lane merges into the middle lane.
Recent signage (above) located on both sides of the street helps neither lane of traffic because the implied action is not right. The sign says ‘MERGE RIGHT, which makes sense only if ‘Right’ is to be interpreted as Correctly — as in Correctly Merge. Perhaps the sign is warning ‘MERGE (Coming from Your) RIGHT’.
With all kidding aside, the traffic warning sign should read “MERGE LEFT.” Right?
In early April I asked the community if they thought a new stop sign was warranted at the intersection of Warder Street and Princeton Place. I know some residents had taken this directly to DDOT citing concerns with the number of children that cross at this intersection to get to the Park View Kids Zone program run out of the recreation center’s field house.
It would seem that DDOT agreed that action was required but stopped short of adding another stop sign. What they did instead was add new signs reminding drivers that they are required to stop for pedestrians in the crosswalk. It will be interesting to see if these signs make a noticeable difference in children’s safety, or if further action is required.
Neighborhood signage about pet waste
Dog waste that is left on sidewalks and in the parking along streets continues to be a bit of a community problem. While this can be particularly nasty in the winter, now that warmer weather is here the issues of children’s health and providing food for rats become ever-increasing problems.
I’m encouraged that the neighbors I’ve spoken with who tend to be the angriest about unclaimed excrement tend to have dogs themselves and tend to speak out when they witness someone not doing their civic duty.
There are a couple of ways that this issue has been addressed, but I personally wonder how effective any of them are. The area has several locations where signage is posted. The triangle park at Park Place and Rock Creek Church Road has a sign as do several locations in lower Park View — specifically along Irving and Kenyon Streets. The most effective method tends to be just calling a transgressor out when you see it, but even that can sometimes lead to altercations.
Below is a more passive attempt by a resident on Irving Street who decided the posted signage wasn’t enough. Their strategy?:
1) Place homemade “Pick Up After your Dog. It’s the Law” signs at ground-level; and,
2) Provide FREE plastic bags to assist pet owners.
"Pick up after your dog. Take a plastic bag."
The Department of Public Works, on the other hand, created the flier below to address the issue. Clicking on the image will get you both English and Spanish versions. Yet again, I wonder how effective they are since I don’t recall ever seeing them distributed publicly.
Leaking hydrant at nw corner of Newton & Warder
I was a bit surprised to see not one, but two fire hydrants that were leaking severely in the area. The one that bothers me the most is on the northwest corner of Newton Place and Warder Street … in front of the school.
It is clearly marked “Out of Service” and has been for a while. There is a constant stream of water flowing from it. Though I haven’t taken any measurements, it wouldn’t shock me to discover that a couple of gallons of water were leaking out of it each hour.
The other hydrant is on the southwest corner of Princeton Place and Georgia Avenue. The rate of water loss at this one is nowhere near as severe.
Leaking hydrant @ sw corner of Georgia & Princeton
I found it noteworthy that this hydrant is clearly marked as being “in service.”
I’ll certainly be following up on these to find out when they are scheduled to be repaired. I’m especially concerned about how long the hydrant by the school will be off-line. While I’m not going to suggest that any down hydrant isn’t a priority, I would think that hydrants near schools, hospitals, or other such buildings should be a higher priority.
Does anyone know if there are other broken hydrants around the neighborhood, or are these the only two examples at this time?
"The territory comprising Park View extends from Gresham Street north to Rock Creek Church Road, and from Georgia Avenue to the Soldiers' Home grounds, including the triangle bounded by Park Road, Georgia Avenue, and New Hampshire Avenue" (from Directory and History of Park View, 1921.)
Metrorail disruptions WUSA-TV – DC News Washington Business Journal
