Teen violence fractures community’s pride in diversity

WASHINGTON (Map, News) - Brutal attacks by young teenagers on residents in Capitol Hill East are creating a division in a community that has prided itself on its diversity and inclusiveness, local residents said.

The groups of teens have preyed on bicyclists and joggers, and thrown rocks at families. One man was knocked unconscious and suffered a badly broken jaw in an attack that appeared to have no motive other than to hurt the victim.

When personal accounts of the crimes landed on the New Hill East online discussion group, it spurred some neighbors to try to take justice into their own hands by organizing a march on nearby public housing complexes.

The episodes of violence, and the reaction to them, has created an undertone of racial disharmony, locals said.

“These crimes are producing a sickening racial backlash within the community that I have never witnessed in all of my years of living in Washington, D.C.,” said Neil Glick of the Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner 6B.

Jim Myers, a Hill East activist, said the tensions have increased as the racial mix in the neighborhood have gone from mostly black to mixed.

“One factor is that young black groups appear in these stories to be attacking white adults who are representative of the new people who are moving into the area,” said Myers, who has written a book about race relations. “Black kids have been attacked, robbed for a long time. That’s not new here. What’s new here is that white kids are being attacked.”

The closing of the neighborhood’s Boys and Girls Club last year aggravated the problem, he said.

The angry tone of the online debate prompted D.C. Council Member Tommy Wells to call for a series of Friday night potluck dinners, beginning at 6 tonight at the Potomac Gardens apartments. Wells hopes the dinners will take some of the heat out of the conversations and start a constructive dialogue, his spokesman Charles Allen said.

On Thursday, 1st District Police Cmdr. David Kamperin urged the residents to “be cautious about being paranoid and spreading the fear of crime throughout the community.”

smccabe@dcexaminer.com

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