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Opinion: The whole city is watching Anacostia
Washington DC -
Louise Davis phoned Tuesday morning to register her extreme displeasure with my column concerning her grandsons, Demarrieo Davis and Robert Bartley. "Those boys have been tried and done their time," she said. "What is she afraid of?" Miss Davis is referring to Tamika Hampton, the Metropolitan Police Department officer who lives across from her in D.C.'s Anacostia Heights. According to Hampton, "those boys" had been taunting and verbally harassing her for months, but taunting turned to threats one day last December. As I wrote Tuesday, Davis and Bartley with about ten friends surrounded Hampton and threatened to blow her head off. Hampton pressed charges. Bartley was tried and found guilty on October 1; Davis pleaded guilty the next day. Neither did much time, returned to the street, and according to Hampton, resumed the harassment. "Those boys don't associate with her," Louise Davis told me. "They grew up with her. It's sad." Agreed -- sad it is. In the tale of the Hamptons and the Davis's, the story of a changing Anacostia unfolds. Miss Davis complained I had told only one side of the story. So here, from my point of view, are both sides, against the backdrop of a criminal justice system that does not always serve law abiding citizens. As Miss Davis said, her grandsons grew up with Hampton, went to the same schools, hung out on the same corners. But they took different paths during and after Ballou High School. Tamika Hampton, with the support of her family, got good grades and excelled at chorus and drama. She bristled at cops who told her to move on, but she obeyed the law and stayed out of trouble. She enrolled in UDC, had a son, spent a short time on welfare, became a cop in 2004. She focused on keeping kids on the right track. Demarrieo Davis and Robert Bartley took a different route. Davis's rap sheet includes arrests for possession of powdered and crack cocaine and marijuana; simple assaults, breaking and entering; and carrying a pistol without a license. Bartley, his younger cousin, has a shorter though no less intimidating arrest record. When Tamika Hampton pressed charges, Davis and Bartley were facing felonies for threats, assaulting a police officer and kidnapping. Under the D.C. Code, they could have gotten 20 years. But the U.S. Attorney's office dropped the charges down to misdemeanors for "attempted threats," thinking that a quick trial by a judge would be fast and effective. It was fast, but not effective. Despite their arrest records and guilty results, they served little time. Tamika Hampton deserved her day in court in a full jury trial, with Miss Davis and her grandsons on the stand. Washingtonians could have seen the two Anacostias. They would have sampled the plight of D.C. cops who attempt to follow political orders and police where they grew up and still live. Now it's up to Miss Davis, a longtime and upstanding member of the community, to keep her grandsons in line. The whole city is watching. ALSO READ: Threaten to kill a cop in D.C., and get street cred |
