Dear PoP – Spring is here, is there an uptick in harassement?

Photo by PoPville flickr user JosephLeonardo

“Dear PoP,

Yesterday my wife and I decided to enjoy the great weather and went for a jog late in the afternoon. We live just west of Ft. Totten Park and were run/walking up the hill by the cemeteries on Ft Totten Drive when four adolescent youths started yelling at my wife “Shake that ass, Shake that ass, Shake that ass.” My wife, who has continuously been a victim of such taunts became furious and started yelling back and even started after them before I stopped her. After the first encounter we continued into Rock Creek Church Cemetery where they followed us. Fearing for our safety and being somewhat cornered I confronted them. At that time a MDP cruiser pulled up and the two officers attempted to question the youths. At that time they took off running through the cemetery.

Not only was our day ruined, but my wife has had it with this kind of behavior and intimidation and wants to leave the city ASAP.

This and an attempted mugging a month ago has led me to wonder if folks are seeing an uptick in this kind of behavior from kids in the city. It is particularly troubling. Our experience have not been violent, but they have been terrifying and have me worried that they eventually will.”

I’m very sorry to hear about this terrible behavior. We have previously discussed street harassment here and here. But the reader asks a very specific question – does this behavior increase in the Spring with warm weather? I used to believe that this behavior absolutely increased with the warmer weather but I seem to recall a friend citing some statistics (at least on muggings) to the contrary. Did anyone notice street harassment increase last weekend when the weather was nice?