Flickr: IntangibleArts

14th and V Streets, NW.

Shots were fired at a busy intersection near U Street today. Two men were wounded in a drive-by shooting; neither had life-threatening injuries, according to Council member Jim Graham. A woman told NBC that a stray bullet hit the window of her apartment above Busboys and Poets while she was home having lunch. A conversation about whether the shooting would have gotten as much coverage had it been in a poor neighborhood ensued on Twitter.

Flickr: Mr. T in DC

Christmas tree in Columbia Heights.

I stood at the customer service counter, wondering if anyone would notice me amid the shopping carts and baskets which surrounded me, each heaped with spurned gifts, returned merchandise that needed to be put-back. The lights were already dim in this part of the store, a testament to how slow my normally chaotic neighborhood had become due to the threat of snow. After several minutes, a tall, striking young employee approached me to ask if I needed help. I said that I needed to make a return.

Wordlessly, he rounded the carts and positioned himself behind the counter. I handed him my receipt and he scanned it, then reached for the tchotchke I was returning. He tossed it in to a giant bin behind him without looking. “$21 will go back on your card. Thank you.”

“Thank you,” I replied.

“Did you have a nice Christmas?”, he mindlessly asked.

And because I have no boundaries, I replied, “I don’t really celebrate it anymore. Some years ago, my dad went in to a coma on the 23rd of December and passed away on the 29th. We buried him on the 31st. So the holidays just haven’t been the same after that.” My cheeks were hot by the time my explanation trailed off awkwardly. I should’ve just said, “Yes, thanks for asking!” and walked out.

My answer had snapped him out of his exhaustion, haze, reverie. “That’s deep.”

“Do you think you’ll ever celebrate it again?”, he asked. I stared at him, and for the first time, I really saw him. He was too pretty for retail. He looked like he should be the supporting actor on a sitcom, the one-liner-spouting son with an easy smile, filling out a fake nuclear family on some set in L.A. I had noticed him before, but only in the most cursory way– he stood out from the other employees. While they shuffled, slouched and grumbled, his posture was flawless. While they layered tee-shirts and sagged their pants, he always wore a designer crewneck sweater and a trim, shiny belt with a giant French logo for a belt buckle. The latter could’ve been a fake, but if it was, it was a great one. No fraying threads or tarnished metal in sight. He took his appearance and his comportment seriously.

“I don’t know…I hope so, ‘celebrating’ would be better than spending a whole week grieving,” I began. “Someone once told me that when I have kids, I’ll feel like celebrating…but I don’t have kids. I just have a puppy.”

“A puppy? Nice.”

“How was your Christmas?” I asked.

“Wow, did you just ask me that? That’s so nice of you. No one has asked me that. Not one person.”

“Well…that’s not…very kind”, I stumbled. I wasn’t surprised though. Columbia Heights seemed to be a neighborhood of haves and have-nots– and the haves whom I had observed were rarely polite to those in the service industry, as if being imperious and entitled would somehow magnify the numbers in their bank accounts.

“I’m used to it, in this neighborhood.” His face darkened. I hoped I hadn’t reminded him of some ugly situation. I tried to change the subject.

“Are you doing anything fun for New Year’s?” I was trying to sound cheery.

He stared at me and his expression changed, again. I’m telling you, I could see him on stage, emoting effortlessly.

He took a deep breath. “I’m not doing anything for it, if that’s what you mean. I didn’t think I’d make it to another year, so I’m just happy I did. I’m celebrating that.”

“What do you mean…why wouldn’t you make it?”

“Well, some of my friends didn’t, na’mean? My best friend, he got killed this year…he didn’t make it. I’m still here. That’s what I’ll celebrate. Every day.”

“I’m so sorry for your loss. That’s terrible.” He looked so young himself…how old could his friend have been?

“It’s been rough.”

The store was nearly empty. No one was nearby. It felt like the entire world had receded. Maybe that’s why I kept going. “What happened, if I may ask? If you don’t want to tell me, I understand completely. I’m sorry if it seems intrusive…”

“Nah, it’s all good. You did ask how my Christmas was and everything. You aight. My friend…he…hmmm.”

He paused, lips pursed, and looked away. I waited.

“My friend got shot. He told this kid a joke, and I guess he didn’t like it, because next thing I know he pulls out a gun and starts shooting. He hit my best friend and then shot this other kid in the leg. The kid who got shot in the leg made it. My best friend didn’t. Because this guy couldn’t take a joke.”

“How old was your friend?”

“16. No, 17. He was a little bit younger ‘n me, but he was my best friend. And he’s dead. For nothin’. For a joke.”

“Where did this happen?”

“Right here.”

“In Columbia Heights, you mean?”

“Nah, nah…I mean D.C. In Northeast.”

“That’s terrible. I’m so sorry.”

He shrugged. “Nothin’ to be done about it. All I can do is try and move on and feel blessed to still be here. I’ll be all right. I have to go help close, though.”

“Take care,” I said, lamely.

He smiled from behind the counter, rounded the carts gracefully, and then walked away.

thisisbossi

Last Saturday, Raj Patel was murdered when he chanced upon a robbery happening in the corner store he managed, in Brookland. Last night, the community which appreciated him held a vigil in his memory. We Love DC was there, and unimpressed with MPD’s excuse for its absence:

Mr. Patel’s son, nephew and brother were present, and have asked that any further donations not be made to the family, but rather to Brookland causes, businesses and churches. Mr. Patel’s nephew explained that while the donations were generous and welcome, that the family knew that Mr. Patel would have wanted that money to go to the people who would need it this holiday season within the Brookland community.

I was disappointed at the lack of representation from MPD, who did not send anyone to the event. I received an email from Commander Greene of the Fifth District last night who said that they had not been made aware of the vigil, and had they known, they would have sent someone to attend and speak to the group, but that they were unaware. Given the large number of posts on area listserves, as well as flyers throughout the neighborhood announcing the event, I find it troubling they were not organically aware of the event, and would have needed an invite.

NBC 4 has more; the murder has not been solved.

Kevin H.

Public officials will tell you that the crews have moved on to other parts of the city… so don’t believe your lying eyes. We have been here before, a high profile killing that grabs the up and coming part of the city. But then like collective amnesia we move on and forget.

The point being made in article after article is that last week’s murder happened in the rapidly gentrifying part of the city. But we can’t coffee-shop and bike-lane our way out of this tragedy. There are still numerous people in DC who have degenerated to the point of expressing dissent through murder and haven’t learned to disagree without becoming violently disagreeable, no matter where they live. But my hope is that the people who use those coffee shops and bike lanes can and will be the change — if they care enough to do so….

More:

Blanket ideas like civil injunctions and curfews, that are not well thought-out, can’t be the only solution.

The best way to stop a bullet is an education and a job.

And we must make sure their stories are told. Every young person murdered in this city has someone who loved them. A parent, a grandparent, a friend, a cousin, a mentor. None of these young lives should end up being relegated to just two column-inches buried deep in the Metro section. Their stories need to be told. They must be humanized instead of being turned into a passing sentence or two on a blog, in the paper or on TV.

We must take the time to get to know our neighbors and reach out to the young people in our community. We need to celebrate our differences instead of condemning them.

“You know somebody for 10 years, and you fight for them to move away from a certain lifestyle,” said Bryan Weaver, 40, a neighborhood activist who ran unsuccessfully this year for Ward 1′s seat on the D.C. Council.

He said Coates, who had an arrest record, belonged to the “1-7″ crew, based around 17th and Euclid streets NW in Adams Morgan. In the summer of 2009, he was among 30 young people who spent six weeks in Guatemala teaching basketball to local children with Hoops Sagrado, an organization Weaver founded that aims to encourage peaceful coexistence by exposing District youths to foreign culture.

“You have this kid by the neck, and you’re trying to wrestle him out of that lifestyle, and then suddenly something like this happens,” Weaver said.

“Unfortunately, it looks like a continuation of the crew violence,” said Bryan Weaver, an advisory neighborhood commissioner in the area who runs a nonprofit group, Hoops Sagrado, that helps at-risk young people…

Weaver said he knew Coates for more than 10 years. Last year, he said, Coates worked with him on community service projects in Guatemala, where he also studied Spanish and worked on conflict mediation issues.

After his return, Coates entered a GED program, held an internship with a city agency, and was working with the Shaw Family Collaborative, Weaver said.

Weaver said that he thought it “highly likely” that the shooting was connected to an ongoing crew war between groups from the Columbia Heights/Adams Morgan area and a group from the Petworth area of Northwest.

Five uniformed police officers also attended the services, Ward 1 D.C. Councilmember Jim Graham said…

Graham said gang members from Columbia Heights and Adams Morgan were exchanging words during the funeral services and the taunting escalated to violence outside.

Council member Jim Graham told Mike DeBonis that in addition to the five uniformed cops, officers in plain-clothes were at the service, too. And this still happened.

- 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.