Category: Washington

The End of Days: Some MSNBC reporter gets mugged in D.C.

Mika Brzezinski (some reporterette for MSNBC) was robbed for $6 outside a hotel in Washington, D.C. today.

Yeah, I have no idea who she is either.

Pompous blow-hard Joe Scarborough decided to make a big point of it during his interview with D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty this morning.

Since then, the story has made the Washington Times and WTOP. Both of those stories are linked off of the Drudge Report as well.

Now, the last I checked, people get robbed, raped, or killed in D.C. almost everyday. None of those stories make it onto Drudge, or even the Washington Times or WTOP in some cases.

I’m not sure whether to attribute this to economic status (rich people hate it when stuff happens to them) or racial status (ditto for the crackers).

An affluent, white couple gets killed in N.W. D.C. and the media reports “detectives are working overtime” to catch their killers. Within 24 hours, their killer is arrested and within 48 hours, an accomplice is also arrested.

Meanwhile, there are dozens of open cases for shootings and murders in Trinidad this year that haven’t been closed.

Or maybe it’s just sheer arrogance on the media’s part?

I remember back in the early or mid ’90s (back when D.C. was real bad) when some reporter for a local affiliate got carjacked, the news station had a month long exposé on the traumatic effects of carjacking and how to protect yourself from being carjacked (no mention of owning a gun through!), etc. It was just nauseating.

It also reminds me of the media’s treatment of casualties in Iraq or Afghanistan. When a soldier, seaman, Marine, or airmen gets killed, the story goes something like this: “[Rank of person injured] [name] was killed in Iraq as a result of [cause of death]. This marks the [insert number]th American military personnel killed in the conflict.”

However, when a reporter or “journalist” gets injured or killed: “The injury of [reporter’s name] has brought the war home for us here at [insert network]. Reporter [name] was injured in Iraq today. Correspondent [name] has an extended story on [reporter’s name]’s injuries and reactions from his family and from his friends at [employer name].”

The whole display is just nauseating, they don’t care when military personnel get killed, but if a reporter or “journalist” gets hurt you hear about it for a week. I guess they think since they’re part of a privileged class (the media), nothing bad should happen to them. No one would ever want to rob, carjack, or kill them.

The lowly serfs (people not in the media) should get that treatment but not the graduates of journalism school! After all, they’re out to make the world a better place!

Snort.

When will they disbar this idiot?

NBC 4:

A former judge who sued a D.C. dry cleaner for $54 million over a missing pair of pants is heading back to court.

Roy Pearson sued Custom Cleaners more than three years ago for $67 million in 2005 after the cleaners misplaced a pair of his trousers. He later lowered his demand to $54 million.

The D.C. Court of Appeals is scheduled to review the case Wednesday.

“Roving groups of teens and young adults”? Is that what the Washington, D.C. police are calling gangs now?

Well, they already were refusing to use the word “gangs” and opting to use the word “crews” instead. But this takes the cake (WTOP):

D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier says officers are seeing an uptick in assaults and robberies by roving groups of teens and young adults.

She says there have been between seven and 11 “pack robberies” in the past month around Adams Morgan in Northwest Washington. Meanwhile, five people were mugged by groups of teens in one eight-hour period last week in the Southwest waterfront area.

Lanier says the groups are looking for quick cash, credit cards and cell phones.

Big Brother called; he wants to talk to you.

WTOP:

Homeland security officials in the Washington area plan to dramatically expand the use of automated license plate readers to prevent possible terrorist attacks.

Officials from Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia have agreed to install 200 license plate readers on police vehicles, at airports and along roads. The plan announced Friday will be funded by federal homeland security grants for the area.

Britain used the readers in the 1990s to deter Irish Republican Army attacks. But in the United States, the devices have mostly been used to regulate parking or catch car thieves.

The readers will scan every license plate that passes by and will run the numbers through federal criminal and terrorist databases.

New York officials recently said they plan to scan license plates of all cars entering Manhattan.

Privacy experts say it’s a vast expansion of the use of technology for security.

Well, duh.

I’m sure there’s a way to harness the power created by George Orwell rolling over in his grave.

H/t: Matt “threat to democracy” Drudge

And for those wondering why I refer to Matt Drudge as Matt “threat to democracy” Drudge, it’s because Ted Baxter — I mean Bill O’Reilly — referred to Drudge as such after Drudge posted O’Reilly’s less than stellar book sales figures.

Roll the transcript!:

[BILL] O’REILLY: Now I want to make it quite clear to everybody that the right-wing Web sites do this, too. I mean you can’t believe a word Matt Drudge says, for example. They’ll just spin it and twist it and take it out of proportion every which way.

[…]

O’REILLY: Well, who knows this? Who said this? Now you’ve got the Matt Drudges of the world and these other people, Michael Moore and all of these crazies, all right, no responsibility, and legitimate journalists — I see stuff in “The New York Times” taken off Web sites all the time by their columnists and reporters. They just throw it in there. And then…

[…]

O’REILLY: And I mean that is — that is a threat to democracy, I think.

Yes, damn those people. They have some nerve expressing their opinions. Only I, your pretentious, self-absorbed Overlord at Fox News should be able to do that!

Why do people still watch that dork?

Adrian Fenty, Cathy Lanier, Interim AG Peter Nickles Resignation Watch, Day 27: 36,000 registered handguns unaccounted for.

WTOP:

As the District prepares to begin accepting applications for handgun permits, police are having a tough time finding tens of thousands of guns already registered in the city.

About 41,000 handguns are registered in D.C., but more than 36,000 of those guns are owned by residents who registered prior to the 1976 ban.

On WTOP’s Ask the Chief program, D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier says police don’t know where the 36,000 registered handguns are because the department has not done an audit of registered guns.

I thought registration of firearms would end all gun crime in the whole wide world according to the moron politicians out there.

If they have no idea where said registered firearms are, how the heck is that going to stop crime?

Adrian Fenty, Cathy Lanier, Interim AG Peter Nickles Resignation Watch, Day 14. Police union: Lanier lied about police officer training.

The Examiner:

D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier gave “demonstrably false” testimony when she denied reports that untrained officers were dispatched to her controversial neighborhood barricades, a union representing D.C.’s rank-and-file police officers charged Monday.

Requesting a formal inspector general’s investigation into Lanier’s testimony on her neighborhood quarantine program, Fraternal Order of Police Chairman Kristopher Baumann said Lanier “may have provided misleading and inaccurate information” to the D.C. Council.

At the heart of Monday’s complaint is Lanier’s denial of an account in the June 10 edition of The Examiner. The newspaper reported that officers were sent to checkpoints despite not having gone through constitutional training that Lanier promised every officer would undergo before standing at the barricades.

I have a question: What’s scarier here?: The fact that Lanier is a liar and can’t keep track of her police department?; or, the fact that police officer don’t have constitutional training to begin with?

“That is inaccurate, that is false, that is not true,” Lanier said in response to a question about the report. “I don’t know what The Examiner is talking about.”

I know nothing!

In his letter to the inspector general, Baumann attaches five statements from police officers who staffed the barricades in Trinidad. The officers’ names are redacted, but they all claim that they weren’t trained before being sent to the checkpoints.

[…]

When Lanier, Mayor Adrian Fenty and acting Attorney General Peter Nickles began the checkpoint program in violence-wracked Trinidad, they promised to train officers thoroughly to circumvent civil rights lawsuits.

[…]

Baumann, a critic of the checkpoints as well as the chief, said he was unimpressed with Lanier’s testimony.

“Either the chief of police is lying to the council, or she has no idea what is going on in her own police department,” he said.

Well, those two are not mutually exclusive!

Adrian Fenty, Cathy Lanier, Interim AG Peter Nickles Resignation Watch, Day 5: I kid you not: Four teens stabbed at NE “peace” festival.

Well, at least no one was shot!

The Washington Post:

Four teenagers, all female, were stabbed in a Northeast Washington neighborhood yesterday shortly after the close of activities there promoting “Peace in the Streets.”

The teenagers, who range in age from 15 to 18, suffered wounds that were not believed life-threatening. The incident occurred about 7 p.m. near Nannie Helen Burroughs and Division avenues NE, according to police and fire department officials.

There was no indication of what prompted the stabbings and no report of arrests.

Adrian Fenty, Cathy Lanier, Interim AG Peter Nickles Resignation Watch, Day 3: Quagmire: Unconstitutional checkpoints in Trinidad neighborhood suspended after eight shootings in the Green Zone.

The Washington Post:

D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier yesterday suspended the checkpoint program that screened people driving into the troubled Trinidad neighborhood, acting after a night that left eight people shot at six locations elsewhere in the city.

Officials have not ruled out setting up checkpoints in Trinidad and other areas in the future, but there are no immediate plans to do so, authorities said.

None of the violence took place in the 5th Police District, the section of Northeast Washington where police have stepped up enforcement after recent killings. Police began operating a checkpoint Saturday night on Montello Avenue NE, and it was up and running Wednesday, its last day in operation.

All the victims survived. They included three men, hit in a drive-by shooting; a woman, shot in the back; and an 11-year-old, grazed in the wrist when he and friends allegedly played with a gun, police said. In the other cases, a man was shot during a confrontation with police, a woman was wounded when she and a friend were attacked by a group of assailants and a man was shot leaving a carry-out restaurant.

Police said the shootings are not related. No one has been arrested in any of the cases.

Well, I guess you should close down all of D.C. and run everyone’s papers.

[…]

The program, in which all drivers must justify their purpose for being in a targeted area, has been criticized by civil rights groups, D.C. council members and residents who said police are overstepping their power.

“As crime occurs elsewhere in this city, they’re going to have to go back to community policing,” said council member Phil Mendelson (D-At Large), who is holding a hearing Monday on the initiative.

“Checkpoints aren’t going to stop crime,” Mendelson said.

Adrian Fenty, Cathy Lanier, Interim AG Peter Nickles Resignation Watch, Day 2.

The Examiner reports that Fenty and Lanier will continue their unconstitutional military-style checkpoints for the time being.

Meanwhile outside the “Red Zone” (the Trinidad neighborhood), in what I would guess you would call the “Green Zone”, at least eight people were shot and wounded (luckily, no fatalities), including a 12 year-old boy and a 19 year-old woman. One of the shootings was officer involved. The office shot and wounded a man after the officer was attacked with his own baton (The Washington Post).

Maybe the officer would have had backup and wouldn’t have been forced to shoot the guy if you didn’t have dozens of officers manning unconstitutional checkpoints?

In all of these incidents, a firearm was used. Guns are illegal in Washington, D.C.

If someone violates the utterly useless firearm ban, do you expect them to tell the truth to police officers at a checkpoint (a great question The Examiner asks)?

Does anyone remember when Lanier said that the city doesn’t have any gangs? Instead, they have “crews” which are distinguished from gangs because crews are created for self-defense and not for criminal enterprises (she must have never taken a college class on gangs and isn’t aware the fact that gangs are created as a means for teenagers to protect themselves and usually evolve into a group that commits crimes) (The Washington Times, American Street Gangs, p. 112).

Apparently, the “Skull Krusher Crew” (the actual name) in Prince George’s County didn’t get that memo when they robbed and beat to death a 56 year-old West African immigrant (The Washington Post).

And perhaps the greatest political cartoon ever (from The Examiner):