Police Up Presence in and Near G.U. Campus

-More than the usual number of Metropolitan Police Department squad cars and Georgetown University police have been traveling around 35th & Prospect streets as well as parked there, neighbors report. Here are a few crime notes:

After Georgetown University’s Department of Public Safety set up new security measures after a series of burglaries in the dormitory known as Village A, according to The Hoya, a student reported Nov. 9 that upon returning to his apartment at 9 p.m. he found that it had been burglarized and his laptop stolen. Between Oct. 16 and Oct. 31, four burglaries and an attempted burglary occurred in Village A, the newspaper reported. “Following the incidents, campus police increased night patrols and monitoring of overnight vehicular access to campus. DPS has also promised to provide personal safety consultations for Village A residents and set up brighter lighting features.” Village A is the dorm on the western end of Prospect Street between Lauinger Library and the New South building.

Highlighting the issue of students’ carelessness regarding the threat of crime, it was also reported that one Hoya left his room unlocked in Copley dormitory and an Xbox was stolen.

Seeming to say, “We are here,” Metropolitan Police questioned a neighborhood regular on Nov. 11 for fraudulent panhandling. He had been telling passers-by at 35th and Prospect streets that he was collecting donations for the Boys and Girls Club of Washington. A resident had called the 2nd District to complain, according to officer on hand, prompting the individual to be put in the back of the squad car. After letting
this “person of interest” go along his way, one neighbor said that the panhandler, dressed in a peacoat wearing a traditional skullcap, had a house arrest ankle bracelet on, and that his step brother, walking around with him, had an expired arrest warrant.

Also in crime news: The District of Columbia Crime Policy Institute, published through the Urban Institute, released a report showing crime levels for each census block in the city. The worst spots are well known: the center of the city and the eastern end of the District. According to the report, “More than one-fifth of the blocks in the District did not experience any crimes, and more than half saw fewer than five crimes in any given year. On average, then, these blocks saw crime occur less frequently than once every other month. Most crime is concentrated in a relatively small number of blocks in the District—in any given year, more than one-quarter of the crimes occur in just five percent of the blocks.” As for Georgetown, its less-than-best blocks were indicated in the report: around Wisconsin and M, below the C&O Canal to the Potomac, and within the Georgetown University campus.