The official Maryland suburbs of D.C. 2011 murder/crime thread (Columbia: neighborhood, private school)

[uggabugga]

i wonder if this will help-

Prince George's County is bringing in over 100 federal agents to help stay the string of murders that have left more than a dozen dead just days into the new year.
Interim Police Chief Mark Magaw announced Thursday that approximately 135 officers from the FBI, DEA and ATF will be embedded into county homicide units. This follows the Wednesday, Jan. 12 announcement that the body of a woman found the previous Friday was a murder, bringing the death toll up to 13 since the beginning of 2011.
Pr. George's Co. turns to feds for help with murders - wtop.com

[MFThomas301]

its 13 now

[normie]

There was a family in Frederick that was shot yesterday. I'm not sure how many in the family were wounded and how many died, but I believe the shooter also shot himself and died. Do people who shoot themselves get added to the list?

By the way, for anyone reading this thread who is not familiar with the area, the reason this topic is noteworthy is because it's unusual. I don't know why there have been so many killings this year, but it's not typical.

[anon1]

wow... reading this thread is shocking... considering how crime has tapered off since the 80s and 90s. It seemed the same thing was happening to Maryland/DC within these counties until this year...

2008 - 118 I believe I read
2009 - 92 I think
2010 - 88 though someone posted a link that said 91

This year if it has continued this pace will easily be one of the highest on record... Has this problem been fixed thanks to the added police presence?

[PGC301]

Originally Posted by anon1

wow... reading this thread is shocking... considering how crime has tapered off since the 80s and 90s. It seemed the same thing was happening to Maryland/DC within these counties until this year...

2008 - 118 I believe I read
2009 - 92 I think
2010 - 88 though someone posted a link that said 91

This year if it has continued this pace will easily be one of the highest on record... Has this problem been fixed thanks to the added police presence?

It's slowed down quite a bit since they stepped up patrols in the areas where this was happening. There have only been 2 more homicides since the extra patrols started.

[justtitans]

Originally Posted by factcheckerdude

Crown Vic,

Yes, you are correct. I sort of want to wait for the end of the day lol, but here's the total;

Prince George's County, MD (2010: 88, 2011: 9):

-Fatal shooting Saturday in Suitland (Updated 1/10/11)
-Fatal stabbing Saturday in Langley Park (Updated 1/9/11)
-Victim identified in Thursday's fatal shooting near Seat Pleasant (Updated 1/9/11)
-Victim identified in Wednesday's fatal shooting in Oxon Hill (Updated 1/7/11)
-Victim identified in Tuesday's fatal shooting in Hillcrest Heights (Updated 1/6/11)
-Victim identified in the second of two fatal shootings Tuesday in Oxon Hill (Updated 1/6/11)
-Victim identified in the first of two fatal shootings Tuesday in Oxon Hill (Updated 1/6/11)
-Victim identified in Tuesday's fatal shooting in Suitland (Updated 1/5/11)



Towns/Cities in Prince George's with Most Murders

Hillcrest Heights; 2 (22% of 2011 murders happen here) --Inner Beltway (Southern Prince George's County)
Oxon Hill; 2 (22% of 2011 murders happen here) --Inner Beltway (Southern Prince George's County)
Suitland; 2 (22% of 2011 murders happen here) --Inner Beltway (Southern Prince George's County)
Chillum; 1 (11% of 2011 murders happen here) --Inner Beltway (Northern Prince George's County)
Seat Pleasant; 1 (11% of 2011 murders happen here) ----Inner Beltway (Southern Prince George's County)
Langley Park; 1 (11% of 2011 murders happen here) -- --Inner Beltway (Northern Prince George's County)

9 Total 100%

65 Towns,Cities, and CDP in Prince George's County

6/65 = 9% of the County has seen Murders

91% of Prince George's County Maryland Still homicide free lol

Inner Beltway Homicides - 100%

vs

Outer Beltway Homicides - 0%

Wow, if homicide in this County is not extremely concentrated i don't know what is lol. How does the news report murders in Prince George's County?


******If 90-95% of the Murders in Prince George's County happen in one particular area why isn't there more of a police presence in these areas? (Or are there?) I'm not a rocket scientist nor a police officer, but if 95% of a county's murders happen in the same five town/cities, I'd think I'd devote more of the county's crime prevention resources to those areas most affected? (anyone with me on this one? lol )

Also Prince William County another DC County Suburb got their first fatal shooting today

Fatal shooting Monday near Manassas (Prince William County, VA 2011 #1)

This isn't completely accurate.

There were actually two murder that happened outside the beltway and they both happened in Fort Washington. Here goes the information from The Gazette:

Jan. 4

At about 2:30 a.m., Prince George's County police responded to sounds of gunshots and found Mark Andrew Davis Jr., 28, of the 1700 block of Addison Road South in District Heights dead inside a home in the 7200 block of Crafford Place in Fort Washington, according to police reports.

At 7:30 a.m., Prince George's County police responded to Tucker and Palmer roads in Fort Washington and found Larry Junior Watkins, 38, of the 7200 block of Crafford Place in Fort Washington suffering from gunshot wounds, police said. He was pronounced dead on the scene.

[factcheckerdude]

Originally Posted by meatkins

This isn't completely accurate.

There were actually two murder that happened outside the beltway and they both happened in Fort Washington. Here goes the information from The Gazette:

Jan. 4

At about 2:30 a.m., Prince George's County police responded to sounds of gunshots and found Mark Andrew Davis Jr., 28, of the 1700 block of Addison Road South in District Heights dead inside a home in the 7200 block of Crafford Place in Fort Washington, according to police reports.

At 7:30 a.m., Prince George's County police responded to Tucker and Palmer roads in Fort Washington and found Larry Junior Watkins, 38, of the 7200 block of Crafford Place in Fort Washington suffering from gunshot wounds, police said. He was pronounced dead on the scene.

Meatkins,

Thanks for pointing that out, but I think you missed my larger point. This county seems to carry a very bad reputation based on a very small number of towns/areas where almost all of the homicides/violent behavior occurs. Most of my research has indicated that over the past 10-30 years the homicides in Prince George's County have been in very specific areas/towns. It does not seem to be a county wide problem.

I highly doubt 2 murders in Ft.Washington, MD (that i might add all initially started in Suitland, Maryland) are going to change the fact, that by years end the following neighborhoods, towns, cities, and cdp's in Prince George's County Maryland will account for more than 95%-98% of all the murders in the county and roughly 20-45% of murders in the state of Maryland.

Hillcrest Heights; -Inner Beltway (Southern Prince George's County)
Oxon Hill -Inner Beltway (Southern Prince George's County)
Suitland; -Inner Beltway (Southern Prince George's County)
Chillum; -Inner Beltway (Northern Prince George's County)
Seat Pleasant; -Inner Beltway (Southern Prince George's County)
Langley Park; --Inner Beltway (Northern Prince George's County)

Furthermore these neighborhoods have extremely high homicide rates based on their population sizes. In fact they're actually worse or on par with homicide rates in larger cities. However, the majority of towns/cities/cdp's in Prince George's County Maryland are well below the national averages for homicides/murders. (for reference the national average is about 5.3 per 100,000 people and has been dropping significantly over the last 30 years.) -Check out the Department of Justice website for more accurate details.

I think the bigger point i was making indicates Prince George's County is clearly a tale of two vastly different stories. In some parts of the County (typically the southern inner most beltway area that boarders the South Eastern Portion of the District of Columbia) people are truly living a tougher life, but in other parts of the county a majority of people have relatively no contact with this kind of violent behavior.

I'll go out on a limb, but i highly doubt two Black/African American families (or white families for that matter), one living in Hilcrest Heights Maryland, the other living in the town of Woodmore, MD would ever come into contact with one another or socialize with the same types of people. What do you think? (I honestly don't think the people that live outside of these neighborhoods are terribly concerned with homicides, that are not in their town/cdp/locations etc. Perhaps indifference is part of the problem?


P.G. County murders 2011: A tale of one county, split in two | TBD.com

"Though county police and county leaders and county prosecutors are charged with stemming the problem, it would be misleading to call this a countywide scourge. Eleven of the homicides occurred in the portion of Prince George's County that lies inside the Beltway. It's one of the places where the region stores its social problems — high unemployment, a dreary housing stock, an impoverished retail landscape, and lots of crime. The key locales in this sliver of the county — Landover, Capitol Heights, District Heights — have starring roles in regional crime blotters. " - article link

"The two-county theme surfaces in government data. In the part of Temple Hills where two homicides were recorded on Jan. 4, the median household income is $53,331, according to the latest available Census data. Contrast that profile with the numbers a little jump outside the Beltway, where only two of the deaths have taken place, and median household quickly begins to run between about $62,000 and $98,000. Even further out, in the tony development called Holloway Estates Park, where exactly no deaths have been reported, it jumps to $103,000." = article link


I'll post more stats/figures for Maryland in general and Prince George's County (I've just been busy )

[boreatwork]

The thing about PG especially if you go to high school is that everybody does co-mingle...whether you from a hood area or not...I went to Largo..it was Largo/forestville kids(men)...Then I went to Flowers....it was Largo/Mitchellville/Landover...The 2 sides of pg parallel each other so its not like if you live outside the beltway you stay there and vice versa...The kids from the hood area experience how fortunate those outside the beltway are and the kids outside the beltway understand the hardships of the kids inside the beltway and develop friendships/beefs/mutual respect...so if you thrown in that water you goin either sink or swim....I grew fins and gills

[PGC301]

Originally Posted by boreatwork

The thing about PG especially if you go to high school is that everybody does co-mingle...whether you from a hood area or not...I went to Largo..it was Largo/forestville kids(men)...Then I went to Flowers....it was Largo/Mitchellville/Landover...The 2 sides of pg parallel each other so its not like if you live outside the beltway you stay there and vice versa...The kids from the hood area experience how fortunate those outside the beltway are and the kids outside the beltway understand the hardships of the kids inside the beltway and develop friendships/beefs/mutual respect...so if you thrown in that water you goin either sink or swim....I grew fins and gills

The way the school boundaries are set up, kids from some areas that are inside the beltway go to schools outside of it, but not the other way around. For example, kids in Langley Park go to High Point, and some kids in Forestville go to Wise. But kids from Bowie or Upper Marlboro aren't going to Suitland or Bladensburg, for example, unless they're in a specific program at that school.

I lived in Bowie when I was in high school, but I went to Roosevelt because I was in Science & Tech. Most of the kids there were from Greenbelt or Berwyn Heights, but there were alot of kids from Hyattsville, Cheverly, Bladensburg, Landover, etc that went there because of Science & Tech.

[factcheckerdude]

Originally Posted by PGC301

The way the school boundaries are set up, kids from some areas that are inside the beltway go to schools outside of it, but not the other way around. For example, kids in Langley Park go to High Point, and some kids in Forestville go to Wise. But kids from Bowie or Upper Marlboro aren't going to Suitland or Bladensburg, for example, unless they're in a specific program at that school.

I lived in Bowie when I was in high school, but I went to Roosevelt because I was in Science & Tech. Most of the kids there were from Greenbelt or Berwyn Heights, but there were alot of kids from Hyattsville, Cheverly, Bladensburg, Landover, etc that went there because of Science & Tech.

No offense, but this is more of what i heard, but i was not dealing with high-school kids during my visit i was dealing with adults. These adults had families and were college graduates. I do mean to say they were snuddy/snobby, but they certainly weren't talking about gangster rap or episodes of Luguna Beach. A lot of them mentioned their kids were in private school. I think Prince George's County, Maryland has the highest number of students in Private School in the Washington DC Metro area, but i would have to check the figures again, before i make that a true statement. Maybe in another thread lol.

It did not seem from my perspective there was a lot of mingling amongst the adult populations from outside the beltway with those on the inside of the beltway. I can't think of any guest that arrived at their house that wasn't in the same profession, lived in their neighborhood, or lived down the street in another neighborhood of close proximity.

This leads me to believe I would had a similar adult experience if i visited a family living in Hilcrest Heights. This again was my perception based on a short visit, it is by no means meant to be a factual or overly generalized statement. Please keep that in mind. I think in generally kids/teenagers are not as segregated by profession, education level, socio-economics, race etc, because they tend to be a lot more open minded than a large portion of adults etcs.