I thought about that, but it’s actually a closer walk from the metro than Buna. Petworth is weird with its metro stop basically being the southwest corner of the neighborhood.

That was it, I forgot to mentally walk down Upshur.

Also the Starbucks in Safeway and Dunkin Donuts, if you’re feeling corporate.

Qualia, Buna, ETA Cafe, Amen Cafe, the Coupe, and I feel like I’m forgetting one.

I hate you now.

You have it backwards—serial killers aren’t deterred by good policing because they are motivated by a psychological need to kill. The random kid who gets pissed off is exactly who is more likely to be deterred by the knowledge they will likely just get arrested.

There are confounding variables in terms of how likely they are to be charged and how severe the sentencing is, but you really quickly hit diminishing returns there. Otherwise, the deterrence effect of the certainty of getting caught is one of the most consistent findings in research on crime reduction.

And good policing does result in more evidence. One of the factors that makes it hard to catch killers is distrust between the police and the community, which means people are less likely to come forward to help the investigation. Again, there is some really solid data demonstrating this over time. Heck, there is even some research showing that better policing directly reduces murders—one reason that beefs get so bad is distrust in the formal system to deliver justice, so people take matters into their own hands.

The whole point is that it isn’t simply “more” cops, but better cops. Adding more cops when the cops are shit doesn’t help and can hurt.

And, sure, I agree that reducing the number of guns would be great too, but sadly I suspect we have far more policy control over the cops. And how do you expect to remove illegal guns from hands without more and better policing?

Here is the list of contractors supporting DOEE’s permeable paver program. You wouldn’t be eligible for any of the rebates, but they would be a good starting point.

> At best it’ll make it more likely the murderers are arrested.

Making it more likely that murders are arrested is one of the best ways to prevent murders. Certainty of being caught has consistently been found to be one of the most powerful deterrents to crime.

So I see where you’re coming from and generally am on board with what you’re saying. I’m a little skeptical that chases, stops, and warrant servicing are the best interactions for developing the sorts of relationships that get you good intelligence, but that’d be a better discussion to have over beers if the opportunity ever presented itself.

The problem with the union response is that this sort of knee-jerk excuse to justify a return to the MOST divisive police practices makes it really hard for those of us who want to reform policing with a sympathetic ear toward the actual experience of those policing.

Sure, a chokehold can be a really good way to restrain someone. But it’s also a really good way to inadvertently kill people and generally a bad way to rebuild relations with a community that fundamentally doesn’t trust you. Of ALL the tools you would want as a cop, that seems like a really bad hill to die on. You could also argue that a spiked club is a probably a pretty useful tool for subduing people, but we’re not about to let the cops walk around with them.

The unions here are doing the line duty cop no favors. It’s hard to convince people to have sympathy for the genuinely tough spot many cops find themselves in when all the public sees is stuff like this. It’d be easier if we ever saw ANY sense of real self-awareness and desire to improve from within the policing world rather than the knee-jerk defensiveness and refusal to accept any responsibility.

> The police union said certain reforms – including chokehold bans, the improvement of public access to body camera footage and expanded civilian review boards – are responsible for the high homicide numbers.

JFC, police unions, people weren’t restraining themselves from shooting at each other because they were worried you were going to roll up to choke them and then avoid accountability.

Maybe it has more to do with the fact that your murder clearances have been falling since the early 2010s and now there are headlines claiming that you can kill someone and there’s a better than even chance you’ll get away with it. And, funny enough, getting the sort of cooperation from potential witnesses often requires the sort of community trust that comes with NOT choking people out and then accepting public accountability.

DC zoning rules are often more restrictive than the Congressional height limit, so there is plenty of space to improve using just what is within DC’s own power to change.

Just looking at Columbia Heights, for example, all of those RA-2 areas are limited to 50 ft, which is why you have all those 4-5 story buildings between 14th and 16th. The height restriction is 90ft for those blocks, which means we can almost double the available volume just by fixing the zoning.

The bigger question is whether to let denser apartments encroach into the townhouses. You could add a lot of housing to that neighborhood simply by expanding RA-4 to 13 between Girard and Park.

Apparently the fire started just as people were arriving and everyone evacuated safely. The fire seems to be in the attic, so maybe they can get it out before too much is damaged?

Edit: The fire is reportedly out. So hopefully not too bad!