DCentric

I’ve had my head in my hands for most of the day, first because of frustrating WordPress issues, then because of the horrific shooting down the street from where I live (and write this blog). You’re probably already aware of the details, but if you aren’t, I’ll summarize what I’ve read at DCist, TBD and on various Twitter feeds:

- A funeral was held at Walker Memorial Baptist Church for 21-year old Ashley McRae, a Columbia Heights woman who was killed in SE last week after leaving Ibiza nightclub. Ashley worked at Commander Salamander in Georgetown and she was a student studying accounting.

- As the procession started down 13th street, a group of men opened fire on a vehicle, which crashed in to other cars and flipped upside down at 11th and U. An employee at Ben’s Chili Bowl said he saw the gunmen fleeing South.

- Some witnesses saw people fleeing the car, which was totaled.

- One person inside the car was killed, two others were shot, one of them is in critical condition.

All of this, at a funeral procession.

Yes, the two tragedies are related and yes, it’s not the first time that a funeral was targeted for violence. It’s horrifying; people trying to mourn one of their own come out to gun fire. I’m amazed more people weren’t hit or hurt.

What better moment for a tea-partier with an axe to grind. Bruce Majors, who wrote the infamous, widely-pilloried “Guide to D.C.” (which instructed naive out-of-towners who’d be attending Glenn Beck’s rally on the Mall to avoid the Green and Yellow lines, lest they be eaten alive by savage natives) decided that this was the apposite moment to chime in under a DCist post about the tragedy (which took place near their office):

Hey isn’t it racist to run this article?

I only recommended that tourists not wander around there alone at night, and everyone from MSNBC to you said I was a racist for doing so.

I have checked and none of the people who appear on NBC actually live in anything other than a lily white neighborhoods (http://teapartiers.blogspot.com/2010/09/they-dont-like-black-people.html).

Do any of you?

Yes, Bruce Majors. You were so right about U street and the metro lines which serve it. Thank goodness the tea party-attendees had you to warn them away from a street so dangerous, Guy Fieri featured one of its eateries on his Food Network Show. If I were you, I’d hide your glee. It’s unseemly, especially when one funeral has just resulted in the need for another.