Columbia Heights

Photo by PoPville flickr user ekelly80

“Dear PoPville,

According to my building’s management, last night a guest of a tenant in my building was buzzed in and three men in their late 20s or early 30s who were hanging out in front followed him into the building. When they all were on the elevator, the men then robbed him of his wallet. He was not physically hurt thankfully. The robbery was reported to the police, who have reviewed the building’s security camera footage and are now investigating.

While I’ve heard of people sneaking into buildings to steal packages and the like, I have not heard of this robbery tactic before, and I thought it might be good to give people a head’s up. Just another reason to not let strangers into an apartment building. The locale of this crime was on 15th Street by Meridian Hill Park.”

“Dear PoPville,

On Saturday night around 2AM, my boyfriend and I were traveling home after spending the evening out. While walking down the 1500 block of Park Rd. NW, we encountered a young girl who looked like she was in her early twenties. She was being detained by two older men who looked liked like they were in their thirties. It was obvious she didn’t know them. She mouthed to us to please help her, and the look on her face could only be described as pure terror, and perhaps shock. We went over to see what the issue was and the two men just kept saying “she’s drunk, she’s drunk.” We said, she could walk with us and we would make sure she got home safely. She tried to leave with us but the two men wouldn’t let her leave. One of them went as far as to grab my arm to keep us from leaving. At this point we noticed that her jeans were undone and her undergarments showing. Her purse was also open. We called the police. One of the individuals then disappeared into an apartment building, while the other tried to make us leave the girl with him. While my boyfriend was on the phone with the police, the girl was able to get away and just ran in the opposite direction. I’m unsure why she didn’t wait for the police to come, maybe she was in shock. Perhaps she was underage and feared any legal implications. While intervening may have not been the safest thing for us to do, I hope that by doing so we were able to stop something horrible from happening.

In any regard, I thought it was important to share this story because it highlights how important it is for women and men to be smart when traveling home at night. Don’t walk around intoxicated, especially by yourself, especially late at night. Things like this can happen anywhere in the city but if you do live in a transitioning neighborhood or an area with higher crime rates, be smart. Just because it hasn’t happened doesn’t mean it can’t.”

Photo by PoPville flickr user MJWein

“Dear PoPville,

There was a flasher at 7:30 Saturday morning in the 1400 block of Columbia Rd.
Here’s what happened.

There I was just walking my dog early this morning and it is freezing. I look across the street, about to cross the road to go back inside when I see standing in the glass doorway of the main door to MY building, a TALL beige man, in a white robe that dragged to mid-way down his calf. He was standing with his hips pointed toward the street, and in a robe. When he saw me glance toward the building, he grabbed the wings of his robe, and slung it WIDE open. He opened up, showing his dong when he saw me looking his way. Thank god he didn’t do the helicopter.

My neighbor was walking her dog too…. and saw him. She chased after him —- much braver than me. She saw the flasher run to the basement of our building. She didn’t see where he went. The flasher could live in this building. or as I’d rather believe, he could have escaped out the back door.

Either way, I’m not crazy, my female neighbor saw it too. And there’s a flasher.

Have you had any other reports like this???”

Ed. Note: In August we had a report of a flasher in Meridian Hill Park.