12th & U NW: “Mama said there’ll be days like this…”
Tuesday night/Wednesday morning: This Cadillac SUV was blocked, stripped and plundered in the parking lot of the Thurgood Marshall Service Center near 12th & U Streets NW.
Somehow I don’t think the condo sales offices on U Street will be using this photo in their marketing materials. But, as The Shirelles 1961 song goes… “Mama said there’ll be days like this.” (My genuine condolences to the owner of the car.)
A friend who lives near 12th and U Streets NW sent us this photo, which he took this morning. The car was in the parking lot of the Thurgood Marshall Service Center at 1816 12th Street NW. Our source said a neighbor looked out her window at 4 a.m. this morning and saw that the Cadillac Escalade had already been blocked, stripped and plundered.
Some types of crime may be down in DC (depending on where you live), but thefts from autos are NOT down. It’s a huge problem in Borderstan and surrounding areas (see postings here and here). During the past year—Sept. 8, 2008 to Sept. 8, 2009—there were 329 thefts from autos in the Borderstan crime area.¹ This compares to 243 for the same period the previous year (Sept. 8, 2007 to Sept. 8, 2008). This is a 35 percent increase.
For the entire city, the number of thefts from autos is up by 7 percent over the past year, according to the MPD crime database:
- Thefts from autos in DC – Sept. 8, 2007, to Sept. 8, 2008: 8,423
- Thefts from autos in DC – Sept. 8, 2008 to Sept. 8, 2009: 8,973
Or to slice and dice the stats another way, on a year-to-date basis, thefts from autos are up 1 percent this year:
- Thefts from autos in DC – Jan. 1 to Sept. 8, 2008: 6,017
- Thefts from autos in DC – Jan. 1, 2009 to Sept. 8, 2009: 6,056
¹ The Borderstan crime reporting area covers a circular area that radiates 1,500 feet from 15th and Corcoran Streets NW—an area that runs from 13th Street/Logan Circle west to New Hampshire Avenue/half way between 17th and 18th Streets… and from Rhode Island Avenue/O Street in the south to T/Caroline Streets in the north. The Borderstan crime reporting area is divided between Police Service Area (PSA) 208 (west of 15th) and PSA 307 (east of 15th), with a sliver of PSA 305.
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[…] No cash, no clunker and no wheels: Photo of a Cadillac SUV at 12th and U NW and some really interesting and alarming statistics on thefts from autos assembled by Borderstan […]
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that’s a shame. an urban dweller friend commented to me about the romantic notion of living downtown or in an urban core and how it’s not so romantic as people imagine. the romantic notion? enjoy great restaurants, walk or Metro everywhere and access cultural events without lots of fuss or the drive back to Potomac. the romance is all there but the flip side, the reality, is that it’s not carefree, requires urban survival skills and citizen involvement. if you see something like the above in progress, click on that cellphone, dial up the police and call the perpetrators out. volunteering in your community helps too. maybe that romantic notion will be a little less romantic and a little more real.