Petworth

“Dear PoPville,

The residents of Hamilton Street would like to make sure our neighbors are aware of a recent mini crime wave that is impact our community. Over the past several weeks we’ve experienced several burglaries in the vicinity of Hamilton/Gallatin/Ingraham Streets between 5th and 8th Streets NW. The burglaries occurred during day light hours–a neighbor came outside Tuesday morning around 9:30 am to witness two young men helping hoist each other up to the porch roof of another home and attempt to enter the home through the upper level windows. A family brand new to our block, living in a home with an alarm system, also experienced a forced entry and property was stolen from their residence.

I’ve lived on Hamilton Street since 2011 and cannot say more about how wonderful my community is. Many neighbors have lived on the street, and in the same homes, for their entire lives and cannot recall a time when there has been such a rash of property crime. It is not typical, and certainly not acceptable to any members of our community. Nothing about choosing to live in a city means that any of us should simply shake our heads when our neighbors are victims of crime.

Many residents of our area attended our local neighborhood meeting last night and asked to speak about the recent crime spurt and learn more about what we, and our city and law enforcement officers, can do to address this. We were told, however, that the entirety of the meeting would be devoted to discussing a new community center. While we all understand that it is important to speak to community services and recreation, the response to our concern over the recent spike in crime was frustrating and absolutely not what one would expect from our community leadership.

We will be circulating a letter of concern through the neighborhood, and directly speaking with our 4th District police, and hope to receive an improved response from our community leadership.”

1240 Upshur St, NW

“Dear PoPville,

I thought you’d be interested in this program Annie’s just set up. The female employees, as well a couple of gay men, have experienced harassment from customers. Some of the harassment is not such a big deal, and some of it’s pretty threatening.

Female workers who interact with the public often face harassment, and I imagine it’s more frequent at a hardware store because until recently hardware stores were men-only spaces.

Rather than tell the employees that “the customer is always right,” Anne Stom teamed up with my group, Defend Yourself, to train the Annie’s staff.

The male employees are learning bystander intervention techniques so that they can stand up for and be allies to their female and LGBTQ counterparts. The female and LGBTQ employees are learning assertiveness.

All of this in a context that is both customer-friendly and designed to make Annie’s safe and welcoming for all.”