Posts about Crime

"Yeah, a former associate of mine has been set up in there pretty tight for a number of years," said community activist William Alston-El, who through community work and life experiences is affiliated with Anacostia's underworld. "His wife died and that's when he started. He's on crack, he's pretty gone in the head, you know. Yeah, you could say it's a crack house abandominium, a lot of people have been up in there, you know what I mean?"

By 2011 the taxes grew to more than $3,000. At this time Redemptor Litium, LLC, with holdings throughout all city neighborhoods, purchased the lien.

"This is a typical law school exam question," says James M. Loots, the lawyer representing Redemptor Litium, LLC. "The tax sale is supposed to fix the problem of getting the property under control and back to contributing property taxes."

Loots says his client has filed a motion for judgment and followed every necessary step to receive an order of foreclosure from posting the mandatory orange notice on the front door, to searching for heirs in the probate docket, to advertising in the paper for all known and unknown heirs to come forth.

The case is on a judge's desk and awaits another status hearing scheduled for next month.

Unfriendly neighbor

Dewey Sampson lives next door to the crack house abandominium. A federal employee, Sampson bought his home a little less than two years ago. On move-in day, two men sitting out front of the house next door offered their help, as good neighbors. Sampson soon learned from a long-time resident two down over that the men didn't live there. Nobody does. They are known undesirables, squatters.

"Early last summer I saw the orange sticker posted on the door," Sampson said. "I was really excited. I thought something was going to happen, but I didn't think it would take this long."

After the posting, last fall Sampson called the police on two squatters, who after an evening of drinking and drugging were cursing at each other loud enough for Sampson to hear through his walls.

"The police came right away. When they took one of the guys away he kept yelling, 'This is my house! This is my house! I was like what is he talking about?" said Sampson.

After telling him what I'd heard from Alston-El, Sampson said it now made sense. What's still illogical to Sampson and his fiance is how the house could sit vacant for so many years.

"This is a paradigm example of what the tax sale process is designed to address—getting vacant or neglected properties back on the tax rolls and into productive use. Unfortunately, that process takes a very long time," said Loots.

The sooner the better for Sampson, who last week saw a face he'd never seen before leaving the back of the house. "I don't want to judge people, but she looked like she was on drugs." Adding insult to injury, Sampson just paid an exterminator as a result of termites coming over from the abandominium.

"Those guys coming and going primarily are a safety concern for my fiancé, me, and the entire neighborhood. What if they set the house on fire and it spreads?" Sampson said. "What do we do then?"

Inside the house

This past Sunday morning with iPhone in hand, I went around to back of the home. Although the city boarded up the front door and the adjacent window last fall, I saw no evidence that anyone has made an effort to secure the rear.

I opened the mesh-screened back porch easily. There were bars on the back porch window to stop intruders from climbing in, but the back door is wide open.

Rear of abandominium in Historic Anacostia.

Stepping inside the kitchen, the rancid smell of urine welcomed me. The counter was covered in stubs of used candles and empty cans of Goya beans. The floor was littered with all sorts of debris, including chunks of fallen plaster from the ceiling. Slices of light from the second floor peeked through through small gaps in the floorboards above.

In the living room, more clothes covered the floor, along with discarded syringes and a bent spoon used to fire up dope. Two windows fronted 14th Street, one boarded up, one deflecting the morning sun behind a thick curtain. Peeling back the curtain, I saw Engine Company Fifteen; down the street is Saint Phillip the Evangelist Episcopal Church; in the median sits the restored Old Market House Square, which had a ribbon cutting last fall.

In the tight hallway junk mail fertilizes the floor. Three framed pictures rest atop the radiator: a baby girl not yet pre-school aged, a young man flashing a smile in cap and gown, and repentant hands coming together in a moment of prayer. Lord knows the rebirth of Historic Anacostia's crumbling homes need communion through any and all lines of invocation. Underneath the three photos is an unread Washington Post from this past November.

I ascended the staircase, keeping my ears open for any sounds of rustling. At the head of the stairs is a small room, the door ajar. A bare mattress sat snug in the far corner, amid fallen sheetrock and plaster. Behind the door I saw dress shirts and suits. I walk back into the hall and past the bathroom with the upturned bathtub and toilet laying on its side.

In the far room, Clothes strewn everywhere, a king size bed headboard sans bed, a plastic lawn chair, a DirecTV remote with no television to control. Running up in the home on the lonesome, without the better company of friend, I feel I should get going.

Passing a closed green door, I heard the static of a raspy cough. Time to get ghost. I slipped down the stairs, knowing the man behind the green door will not pursue what he likely thinks is a fellow squatter just looking for a small poor man's piece of the rock, an abandominium.

Inside the kitchen of 2010 14th Street SE.

Over debris, clothes, beer cans, and drug paraphernalia I passed through the living room, crouched under a long board that's presumably been set up as a barrier between the kitchen and further entryway into the abandominium for a less able-bodied person. My first and last self-guided tour of an Anacostia abandominium.

I give Alston-El a call, telling him what I saw.

"What's the waiting list for housing in this city, 45,000? Me and you could find that many units and more in all these abandominiums," Alston-El says. A painter-by-trade, Alston-El repeats his lament, "They fix these places up and then there'd be jobs for everyone from the community who can work with their hands. It could create some small businesses. Yeah, but they don't want to do that, you see, because it would save the neighborhood. But, nope, too much like right."

It was at 8 o'clock on the evening of Sunday, January 31, 1892, that [Howard J.] Schneider shot his wife, Amanda Hamlink Schneider, and his brother-in-law, Frank Hamlink, almost in front of their father's door, on [1733] Q Street between Seventeenth and Eighteenth. Schneider was a young electrician when he met Amanda Hamlink, in the summer of 1891.

He was of good family, not a bad-looking young fellow, who dressed well and drove fast horses. He made love to the young lady, became engaged to her, and one day in June when they were out driving he produced a marriage license and threatened to shoot himself unless she married him at once. Miss Hamlink yielded, and a minister in Hyattsville performed the ceremony.

The marriage was kept a secret until fall, when the young woman's father discovered it. Then there was a scene, the father suspecting at first that the marriage had been a fraud, and requiring Schneider to produce the certificate. After that Schneider went to the Hamlink house to live. His cruelties made the life of his wife an unhappy one. More than once he threatened to shoot her. Finally he began staying out late at night, and after due warning was locked out from the Hamlink house.

About this time, a few weeks before the tragedy, he became enamored of a young girl from Virginia who was visiting [her sister who also lived on that same Q Street block]. He determined to secure a divorce from his wife, and made preparations to go to Chicago. On the Sunday evening of the tragedy he had sent a colored man to the house with a note asking if his wife intended to live with him.

While he was waiting for an answer across the street from the house, his wife, with her brother and sister, walked down Q Street from Eighteenth. Schneider crossed over to them, leaving his chum, Marion Appleby on the south side of the street.

Grasping at his wife roughly by the wrist, he told her he wanted to speak to her. The brother interfered. Schneider drew a revolver and fired five shots. Three of them entered the body of his wife, whom he still held by the hand, one pierced Frank Hamlink's breast, and the fifth crashed through the window of the Hamlink house.

Frank Hamlink fell into the street, dying almost instantly. Mrs. Schneider was able to walk into the house. She languised until the 6th of February, and left a dying declaration detailing the circumstances of the crime.

Howard Schneider threw down his revolver by the body of Frank Hamlink and fled. Within a half hour he walked into the nearest police station and gave himself up, saying he did the deed in self-defense.

The Hamlink House, 1733 Q Street NW. Photo by the author.

Although most of us have never heard a thing about it, Howard Schneider's trial was one of the most infamous the city has ever experienced. The Washington Post's April 10, 1892 edition (the day after the verdict) was the largest edition it had ever published up to that time. 10,000 additional copies and an extra came off the presses.

Many witnesses were called, and in a dramatic twist, most of them lived on T.F.'s block of Q Street row houses. This meant that they knew both the Hamlink and Schneider families and some were still indebted to T.F. for the property.

When T.F. took the stand, he was accused of intimidating some of his neighbors. In one instance, he had sold a Q Street row house to a Mr. Bean and still held 2 notes for $2000 against him. Before Mrs. Bean testified at trial, T.F. had told the Beans that he could renew the note. After she testified, T.F. wrote Mr. Bean that he would no longer do so because he was unsatisfied with his wife's testimony.

Howard and his friends did their best to plant evidence that he acted in self-defense, but the prosecution was able to debunk most of these details. They proved that Howard stole Hamlink's gun, shot him with it, and then threw it by his body. They showed that Howard planted a second gun and that he created fake bullet holes in his own clothing.

Perhaps the most telling and dramatically sad testimony of the trial came from Mrs. Schneider, Howard and T.F.'s mother, who was forced to describe the mental instability of her son. Of Howard, she said:

He was always talking to himself in his room…and would swear at me or some imaginary person. When I went upstairs to remonstrate with him he would slam the door and swear. He would leave the house after breakfast in pleasant spirits, and would return to lunch out of temper. Often he would break out at the table violently. He had trouble with everyone with whom he had dealings, and always complained that they were against him. He was constantly making appointments and failing to keep them.

Photo from the Washington Post archives.

Howard's important family bought him good lawyers, but that was all they could do to help him. For the year after he was convicted of the murders and sentenced to death, his attorneys appealed to overturn the conviction on insanity grounds. They brought the case as high as the US Supreme Court, which refused to step in. On March 17, 1893, after President Cleveland denied clemency, Howard J. Schneider was hanged in the DC District jail.

Cross-posted at The Location.

Systemic forces like white flight, black flight, redlining, blockbusting, wage stagnation created this problem, and numerous challenges impede reinvestment in neighborhoods like this one.

There are 2,232 addresses on the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs' (DCRA) vacant and blighted properties list, the principal data source for the maps above. The list includes 4022 South Capitol Street as well as the two apartment buildings immediately adjacent to it.

These are not normal short term vacancies, simply between leases. They are the buildings that are unleasable in their current state of disrepair. Some are bank owned, some are city owned. Some have absentee owners, some have local owners who live in poverty and have no means with which to fix up their assets.

In some cases, the owner listed on the title is deceased and there are multiple heirs to the property. Many require a significant investment of time and money before they can again be occupied.

The purpose of DCRA's list is to identify targets for the District's first line of defense against dilapidated buildings: taxation. By threatening to raise property taxes to 5% for vacant properties and 10% for blighted properties, the city encourages the owner to either bring the property up to code or sell it to someone who will, probably at a price less than what the owner would otherwise be willing to accept.

Ultimately, if the owner neither takes action nor pays the elevated taxes, the property goes to tax sale and is awarded to the highest bidder. If no one bids, ownership rights go to the city, but that doesn't mean that a fresh title magically appears in the name of the District of Columbia. The District, like any other winning bidder, must first go through foreclosure proceedings, sorting through existing liens on the property and attempting to resolve any other title issues that exist.

In other words, no one, least of all the District government, wants it to get to that point. This approach is a relatively new, boutique initiative that seems to have promise, as Lydia DePillis has thoroughly described.

In the grander scheme of things, there are really three variables that affect the rehabilitation or redevelopment of nuisance properties:

1. Acquisition cost: the cost of purchasing the property, which may include substantial legal fees, and interest or investor payments on borrowed money.
   
2. Redevelopment cost: site preparation (potentially including demolition), design and construction costs, interim maintenance and taxes, debt payments.
   
3. Income from the redeveloped property: the income that the property generates once it is redeveloped and operational, whether in the form of net operating income if the owner chooses to lease it out, or income from the sale of the property minus any costs associated with the sale.

For redevelopment to make sense, the sum of the first two variables must be less than the third, and when it doesn't, the free market won't mitigate vacant properties and blight.

The first two solutions presented require a taxpayer subsidy. Is it justified?

It is easier to quantify the costs associated with rehabilitating blighted properties than it is to quantify the benefits. The broken windows theory suggests that blight can encourage and support illegal activities, but it is difficult to measure to what extent that is the case.

Blight may lower surrounding property values and deter new investment. It can also contribute to the stigmatization of a neighborhood if dilapidated properties are seen as representative of the entire community. Across the country, the consensus seems to be that investing public funds in individual nuisance properties in order to battle the negative effects of disinvestment is a worthy cause.

The Gray administration, like previous administrations, uses a combination of the three strategies discussed in the previous graphic to combat long-term vacancy and blight, though there seems to be an intentional focus on Solution #3. Dedicating a greater share of energy and resources to large-scale economic development projects, which in Ward 8 tend to revolve around St. Elizabeths, is certainly a more glamorous approach and it probably will have a greater impact on the District's bottom line in the long run.

However, it is interesting that there has not been a more coordinated, ambitious, or heavily-funded government proposal for dealing directly with vacant and blighted properties where they are most concentrated. After all, this is the topic that Ward 8 residents ranked as their top development-related priority at the Ward 8 Community Summit, and unfortunately it is an issue that will forever be intertwined with the tragic events that occurred two years ago at 4022 South Capitol St SE.

WMATA has also started replacing signs at the station, formerly known as New York Avenue-Florida Avenue-Gallaudet University with its new name: NoMa-Gallaudet U. This is one of several station name changes the WMATA board recently approved.

Metro recently posted a sign on the existing racks, saying that it will be moving them farther from the wall on May 10, and installed 27 new racks. There used to be 8 racks at the N Street entrance to the station, and 5 racks at the M Street entrance. Now, there are 30 at the N Street entrance, and 10 at the M Street entrance.

4 new racks at the N Street entrance.

8 new racks just south of the N Street entrance.

The original 8 racks near the N St entrance, plus 10 new ones.

Finally, the 5 old and 5 new racks at the M Street entrance.

While these improvements are excellent, Metro should still consider installing racks inside the station for even more safety. Theft has declined, but I've noticed a recent uptick in missing front wheels.

It's fantastic to see Metro responding to the demand for more and better bicycle parking. There are probably more racks now than absolutely necessary to accommodate the people who bike there on an average day, but now that nearby residents have this bike parking, hopefully more will start cycling to the NoMa-Gallaudet U Station.

The technology, similar to night vision, has not hit the streets yet. Tests at a police shooting range have demonstrated the technology's effectiveness is limited to around 5 meters, but NYPD would like to achieve 25 meters.

DC is not involved in similar research.

"Our best bet is that the Secret Service develops it and then lets us use it," said Kristopher Baumann, Chairman of the Fraternal Order of Police's Metropolitan Police Department Labor Committee.

Baumann praised Ray Kelly, NYPD's Commissioner, for advancing his department's use of new technology to improve public safety. "Ray Kelly and NYPD are 100 years ahead of us," Baumann said.

But the Metropolitan Police Department has made investments in other technologies under Police Chief Cathy Lanier.

Public listservs now include more than 10,000 members and allow citizens to read arrest and crime reports in almost real time. MPD has installed speed cameras around the city, added closed-circuit television cameras, and ShotSpotter devices, which immediately alert police to the sound of gunfire, in high-crime areas.

Not all technology investments are working, however. A 2011 study by the Urban Institute concluded the city's more than 70 neighborhood crime cameras do not have a measurable effect on crime.

Surveillance of the city's foreboding corners and hardscrabble courtyards began in summer 2006 by Chief Charles Ramsey, now police chief in Philadelphia, with funds from the DC Council to install nearly 50 cameras. Cameras are reportedly monitored from a single control center with a police officer at the rank of lieutenant or higher present at all times. They retain footage for 10 days.

According to the study's analysis of DC's network, "[B]ecause the video cannot be zoomed in after-the-fact without distorting the image, the footage is often too granular to make positive identifications. Cameras are also sensitive to changes in weather and lighting and do not always maintain a continuous flow of coverage." The study cited the "limited use of camera footage in court cases" as evidence that cameras don't help solve or prosecute cases.

Another weapon police have used in recent years to combat crime with mixed results is the Global Positioning System. While ankle monitoring bracelets have been in use for nearly three decades, in recent years these devices have been equipped with GPS. To a determined executioner in the Barry Farm neighborhood this gadget was of no consequence; while equipped with a court-mandated GPS ankle bracelet prosecutors believe Alonzo Marlow committed two murders.

Last month the Supreme Court issued a ruling against the MPD and law enforcement agencies across the country, deciding that the warrantless use of a tracking device on a suspect's vehicle to monitor movements on public streets violated the Fourth Amendment. In response to the Supreme Court decision, the FBI announced last week they were turning off nearly 3,000 GPS devices, many of them stuck underneath cars.

In 2009, Chief Lanier declared, "We're targeting for under 100 [homicides], and I think we can do it if we give everything we've got." With 132 murders recorded in 2010 and 108 last year, Lanier is knocking at the door of her stated goal.

At this time last year, there were 15 homicides in the city. This year there have been 12.

According to the most recent statistics, MPD has recovered 311 illegal firearms this year. Last year, 1,919 total guns were recovered, the fewest recovered since 2003.

A DC law enforcement officer who spoke on the condition of anonymity envisions where and how new gun-spotting equipment could be used throughout our region. "It could prevent a lot of the violence at the Go-Go shows. You could single them out one by one," the officer said. "It could make everyone safer."

Crime against SYEP youth: The pay days for students participating in the Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP) are well-known around the community, which has led to youth being targeted for robbery outside of Metro stations like Deanwood and Minnesota Avenue.

In response to this problem, the students said they would like to see an increased police presence. They also noted that police have a tendency to clump together and talk to each other rather than fully patrol the stations, so the students suggested that police spread out to cover a larger area.

Subsidized fares: SYEP paychecks will be cut by $2 per hour this summer. Therefore, the students recommended having WMATA or the District subsidize transit fares for SYEP participants. At the very least, the presenters asked for subsidized fares during the first two weeks of the program while participants wait for their first paycheck.

Councilmembers Tommy Wells (ward 6) and Muriel Bowser (ward 4, the Council's representative on the WMATA Board) asked DDOT and WMATA about the cost of a subsidy and what its fiscal impact would be, noting that youth who go to summer school already get a similar transit subsidy.

Youth advisory council: After last year's summit, WMATA was interested in establishing a youth advisory council to discuss activity on buses. Unfortunately, there had not been follow-up from the local councilmember, Yvette Alexander, to move this forward. At this year's summit, WMATA reaffirmed their interest in a youth advisory council.

Aging in place: One resident noted that the very young and the very old have unique needs when it comes to transportation, and asked how WMATA can help residents age in place, and how it can better accommodate strollers on buses.

Deaf riders: Other participants said that Ward 7 has an increasing population of the hearing impaired and deaf, and that transit employees should be trained to both recognize deaf customers and help them use the system.

Pedestrian safety: Organizer Neha Bhatt discussed pedestrian safety concerns at Benning Road's intersections with Minnesota Avenue and East Capitol Street. She had organized a recent walking tour with Ward 3 councilmember Mary Cheh, chair of the committee overseeing transportation, to look at problem intersections.

Capital Bikeshare: WABA executive director Shane Farthing raised the idea of subsidizing bike sharing for residents east of the river, and suggested changing Capital Bikeshare rules to allow younger members. Currently, one must be at least 16 years old to use Capital Bikeshare.

There was also an open house where community members could find information from DDOT, WMATA, Capital Bikeshare, and WABA, as well as discuss ideas with representatives from these groups.

The summit's two-hour timeframe turned out to be somewhat too short, so presentations and discussion were rushed at the end. The organizers are hoping to reformat for next year to avoid this issue.

Overall, residents came away with a widespread belief that working to pick the low-hanging fruit is a smart way to move forward and begin to bring positive change to Ward 7.

Trail advocates, neighbors, and the governments of DC and Montgomery County have vetted plans and agreed to a common vision for a continuous, safe, off-road trail connecting multi-modal transportation hubs in Silver Spring and the District.

But this year, the Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett's budget cuts all construction funding for the MBT for the next 6 years. This breaks the county's promises to complete the trail.

Empty words don't define a county's priorities. Budgetary commitments do. The County Council must ensure that the county respects the community's efforts to reach this shared vision by restoring the funding for the trail.

Meanwhile, the District's portion of the trail faces its own challenges. DC rightly pushed ahead to build the southern portion of the trail on its own. The existing segment from Monroe Street to M Street is a gem. However, until it connects all the way to Silver Spring, the trail won't draw as many riders as it promises.

Without that activity, the trail remains somewhat isolated and needs police attention to maintain safety. Police officials have periodically told trail advocates and neighbors that they are increasing patrols, but this commitment remains reactive and inconsistent.

Several community groups have worked diligently to bring more activity to the trail. Groups like the Washington Area Bicyclist Association, Rails to Trails Conservancy, and Kidical Mass have run programming on or near it to keep eyes on the trail. But special events only do so much.

Two weeks ago, a trail user was mugged and shot. But I have seen no increased police presence nor heard any new communication on trail safety, either to in my professional capacity as executive director of the region's largest association of bicyclists or in my personal capacity as a trail neighbor. Last week, I was trailside for nearly 6 hours over 2 days giving out bike lights and trail safety information. In that time I did not encounter a single law enforcement officer on the trail.

We need better. Safety is as much a part of the larger vision for this trail as the laying of asphalt. The lack of safety can undermine this community resource just as easily as a capital budget cut or construction flaw.

The vision is clear. The plan is complete. DC and Montgomery leaders: It is time for you to get serious about funding, building, maintaining, and protecting this long-awaited amenity in the eastern portions of your jurisdictions, just as you funded and built the Capital Crescent Trail decades ago, and ensure that it is a safe, usable place for cyclists, runners, and pedestrians.

Tomorrow night at 7 pm, the Montgomery County Council will host a public hearing on the proposed budget and its capital plans. This is the community's chance to testify in support of the trail, and to ask councilmembers to keep the MBT a priority keep the county's commitments. If you are unable to attend and testify in person, you can send an email to the Council here.

On the District end, we must continue to push MPD to understand the importance of this trail and the need for a real maintenance and public safety plan. Construction is not the end of the work involved in making a trail succeed. It is just the beginning. We must continue to push DDOT, DPW, and MPD to live up to their responsibilities to the trail and its users. That push will come through ongoing dialogue, communication with trail users and residents, and push for accountability led by those of us who value the trail and its success.

Trail supporters need our leaders in both the District and Montgomery County to be accountable to the full vision of the trail, and we must do our part to remind them of that vision and keep them aware of the greater goal. The next major opportunity to do so is tomorrow night in Rockville.