Can the Truce Last?

Only time will tell; but for now the signs are encouraging because two violent crews from one of the District's historic inner city neighborhoods have agreed to stop the violence. On camera this week leaders from the Seventh and O and Fifth and O crews agreed to stop shooting at one another. The gunplay dates back so long ago that most gang members who talked with me on Tuesday said they couldn't recall how it all began. A respected community activist who has documented the shootings figures there have been as many as 40 separate shootings in the past several months. Some of them have made TV news. A few weeks ago, on a Sunday as church was letting out, two 19-year-old men were shot. Before that a 15-year-old girl was wounded. I met with the Crew leaders in the offices of the Alliance of Concerned men. This is a group that helped broker truces between warring factions in the Benning Road area of Southeast, DC. Maybe you had to be there to really get a good sense of the importance of this event. Everyone of the men raised his hand when I asked how many of you have been shot at. The video is chilling. They said kids as young as 12 and 13 have become part of the violence. Concerning the truce, one young man, identified as Mike said "It takes a lot of heart to sit in a room with someone who may have been shooting at you or attacking your boy". A group of ex-offenders, many of them only recently released from prison helped bring about the peace. They insisted not only that the two sides meet to discuss their differences, but that they sit next to their rivals in the rooms and not their fellow crew members.
If the truce holds and these young men keep the peace they will have been able to accomplish what all the mother's and grandmother's prayers and all the police reinforcements could not...the good citizens of the Shaw and Mount Vernon neighborhoods will get their streets and sidewalks back.
Other groups including the Peaceaholics, the Red Hat Patrol, Scripture Cathedral, and the ANC's have been on the frontlines; Now It's time for the DC Government agencies to step up with services. Mayor Adrian Fenty should order his team to cut the red tape and provide the Crew members with Jobs and job training and GED's; whatever is needed to help keep the peace. Let's also not forget that the Ninth and O Crew and the Ledroit Park Crew are still out there and capable of creating their own havoc in the area. Someone has to reach out to these young people as well.

No, Thank You!

Like all of my fellow Anchors and Reporters here at Channel 9, I give a lot of speeches, especially around this time of year. Sometimes in the future when I’m thinking about turning down a request to speak to young people, I’ll think back to the email I got a couple of days ago following my address to the National Honor Society Inductees at a DC Charter Middle School. It’s printed below:

Mr. Johnson-

I would like to take the time to thank you so much for the words of encouragement you gave today at the Induction Ceremony @ Friendship Edision-Blow Pierce. I am the proud mother of the only boy inducted today (Mykal), and the speech you gave really instilled something in myself as well as my son. I am a single mother of 3 boys (the one inducted today is my middle son), and I have been pushing my boys to be something great! When you spoke about your mother sending you away so you could achieve, reminds me of why I send my boys from Ward 4 to attend one of the best middle schools in the city.

In a time when the city is changing, I have been steadfast in continually surrounding them with experiences that will broaden their horizons. My son Mykal, was robbed earlier this year while standing at the bus stop, and me being mom, I was not sure how to teach him how to be strong. All I could do was comfort him and attempt to ease his fears. At that time, I told him that he was doing the right thing by not hanging out on the corners, going to school and striving for more. When you said today that "it's easy to stand on the corner," my son looked back at me and said, "mom, you told me that."

So, in closing, I would like to say thank you, thank you, thank you!

Cheryl

Why would the City put people up at the President Inn?

The pictures of the President Inn that appear on the web are okay. They tout moderate priced rooms to tourists not looking to pay the price of a three, four or five star hotel stay when they come to DC. What the visitors got for their money (less than $100 per night) was a nightmare and terrible impression of the nation’s capitol to take back home. The visitors have swamped websites that rate hotels and motels with their criticisms of the President’s Inn on New York Avenue in North east. One woman from Oregon claims she became sick after sleeping in a bed with bugs. Others complain about the smell, the rats, the filth, graffiti and staff that sit behind bullet proof security glass at night. Did I mention the bars on the windows and the hookers that check in from time to time? After being turned away at the front desk we sent a cameraman into the President Inn. After he was checked into a second floor room with a camera hidden in a suitcase, he caught on tape much of what the tourists had complained about. There was also human hair left in the bed and the bathroom and evidence that a few fires had been set in his room. We later learned that the DC government had a contract with the managers of the Inn to house displaced families there. 12 homeless families had been staying at the President Inn this past March and April under the contract that calls for the city to pay the motel owners up to $75 thousand dollars per year. Who made this deal? After seeing our reports on TV and the Web, the director of the DC Emergency Management Agency sent an email out saying he would not longer be dispatching homeless families to the motel. The city also sent a team of Inspectors in to look for code violations. All this begs the question; did anybody visit the President Inn for the city before awarding this contract? Turns out, the DC Consumer Protection office was getting tourists complaints about the President Inn at the very same time that the Emergency management Agency was checking people into this place at city expense.