Friday, July 18, 2008

Homicide on 1300 Block of Vermont

Is it just us, or does gun violence seem to be on the rise this summer? Without having taken the time to thoroughly research the crime statistics and trends, our own non-scientific observations seem to indicate that the level of violent crime in our area has increased this summer. A few days ago, we were treated to news of a woman who was shot and killed during an attempted carjacking near 9th and Barry Pl. NW. Then yesterday, this: a man apparently gunned down in the alley behind Vermont Ave. near 13th St. (near the Metropolitan Baptist Church and the Logan Station Condos) near N St. No motive, no witnesses and no suspects.

As someone who frequently finds himself running items out to our alley-located recycling bins late at night, this is anything but good news. The full text of the MPD release on the matter is included below:

WASHINGTON, D.C .- The Metropolitan Police Department is currently investigating a homicide which occurred earlier this morning in the 1300 block of Vermont Avenue, NW.

At approximately 2:00 a.m. on Thursday, July 17, 2008, officers from the Third District responded to the alley rear of the 1300 block of Vermont Avenue, NW, to investigate the report of a shooting. Upon arrival, officers located an unidentified adult male suffering from an apparent gunshot wound. D.C. Fire Department emergency medical personnel responded to the scene, but were unable to find any signs consistent with life. The victim was subsequently pronounced dead on the scene by a representative from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner for the District of Columbia.

This case remains under investigation by detectives from the department's Homicide and Sexual Offenses Branch. Anyone with information about this case is asked to call police at (202) 727-9099 or *1-888-919-CRIM [E]. *Anonymous information may also be forwarded to the department's *TEXT TIP LINE *by text messaging *50411. *

* *

The Metropolitan Police Department is currently offering a reward of
up to *TWENTY-FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS *to anyone who provides information which leads to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible for any homicide
committed in the District of Columbia.

5 comments:

Caro said...

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the release says "the 1300 block of Vermont Avenue, NW" not Vermont Avenue near 13th Street. The 1300 block of Vermont Ave is from N Street north to Logan Circle, is it not? Just for clarity's sake...

Regardless, I walk through that area every day to and from work, so either way it is very worrisome.

Logan13R said...

I don't have the stats to back it up, but I have personally noticed a huge difference, especially along R Street, and R's side streets (Riggs and Corcoran). The 1400 block of R has really been scary this summer. I used to prefer walking down R because of all of the people that hang out there. As opposed to Q Street where I was mugged in Oct 2005. But there have been several scary events on R St this year that I have read about and have happened with me personally, that now I walk all the way down to P and then up 14th. Very sad to have to live this way.

Anonymous said...

what has been happening on R? we live on corcoran, and sometimes walk up corcoran to 17th. i'd be interested on more details on items about R street. There are usually more people hanging out there but i don' think that is necessarily a good thing....

14th & You said...

Anonymous, sorry for the delay in responding. According to Mathew Rhoades a.k.a. Border Stan, there have been two recent incidents on R St. On Thursday, July 10th, there was a stabbing at 17th and R Streets. There was also a robbery in the very early morning on Sunday July 6th. The robbery involved 8 or 9 suspects who, while brandishing handguns, approached two victims in front of 1440 R Street. We're reasonably good at keeping up with crime stats, but the Border Stan email list is the best resource. Contact Matt at borderstan{at}gmail{dot}com to be added to his frequent news and alerts emails.

The 1400 block of R has had its share of problems. For a little more info., check out my old post at http://14thandyou.blogspot.com/2008/
02/mpd-is-watching.html.

Justin Hamilton said...

the shooting was directly behind our house. we've been having quite a little mini-crime spree.

here are some pics + text my wife took today of two kids breaking into cars right in front of our house (1300 blk Vermont) in broad daylight.

She chased them off by taking pictures of them with her iphone.

good read:

here-
http://flickr.com/photos/blugrn/2711090467/in/photostream/

and here-
http://flickr.com/photos/blugrn/2711085485/in/photostream/