Rock-throwers meet indifferent Metro employee

Groups of rowdy kids are getting in fights and throwing rocks in Hill East, on their way from school to the Potomac Avenue Metro.

They’ve thrown rocks at resident Tim Krepp while he was holding a child, and recently, hit him in the head with a rock as he filmed the incident on his phone. MPD has been working hard to try to stop the problem. The school principal and DCPS officials came to Krepp’s house to talk to him and try to identify the students responsible.

Unfortunately, he’s had much less cooperation from Metro. According to his account, he chased the latest group of kids to the Metro station, where a (non-police) employee was standing at the top of the escalators. That employee refused to call the police, saying, “You’ve got a cell phone, call them yourself,” and, “Some people just think the world revolves around him.” Metro has still not responded to Krepp’s complaint.

We’re some of the strongest advocates and cheerleaders for Metro. Our region wouldn’t be what it is without our high-quality transit system. But it’s tough to continue to defend Metro and advocate for more funding when the organization refuses safety inspectors access to tracks, keeps everyone in the dark about SmarTrip changes, discusses important issues in secret, doesn’t follow up about serious crime and customer service complaints, and more. We want to support Metro, but need to be able to argue with a straight face that Metro deserves the public’s support.

WUSA9 and ABC7 both ran video segments on the rock-throwing incident. Congress Heights On the Rise notes their annoying habit of referring to all places by quadrant. They say that the incident happened in “Southeast,” conflating it with River East’s reputation for roughness instead of saying “Capitol Hill.” Later in the segment, WUSA9 notes that the kids are walking from their school “in Northeast.” It’d be interesting to see if they still say “Southeast” if something happens closer to Eastern Market, or “Northwest” when talking about an incident in Eckington Bloomingdale.