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‘Nobody Is Safe Around Here’: Crime Wave Cripples Once-Trendy Blue City Neighborhood

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Crime in Washington, D.C., is spiking in a neighborhood that, up until recently, was growing in popularity and recovering from decades of violence, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.

Many residents in the Shaw neighborhood of Washington are too afraid to walk alone even during the day, and one resident said that she spends weekends with her daughter in Maryland because she feels endangered by the rising crime, according to the WSJ. Shaw, a relatively wealthy neighborhood with million-dollar condos and trendy restaurants, has had a 110% increase in violent crime since 2022, police data showed.

“People don’t want to come hang out in Shaw anymore, period,” Steven Cassell, a landlord in the neighborhood, told the WSJ. “There’s just a ton of investment that’s going down the tubes.”

Business owners in the area reported that they have experienced less foot traffic over the past year, and one business told the WSJ that they intend to leave the area after their lease expires. Another business owner reported that she and a customer were standing outside of her store when a man began running around with a knife and threatened to stab a passerby.

“We just stood there and screamed,” Wanda Henderson, the business owner, told the WSJ.

Violence and crime has escalated across the city, as violent crime has gone up nearly 40% and arson has increased by 125%, according to police data. So far this year, 217 people have been murdered and 2,674 people have been robbed.

Retail theft has also exploded across the city, causing some supermarkets to lock up products like deodorant and toothpaste, and forcing others to resort to removing products like Tide and Advil from their shelves entirely. One CVS in the Columbia Heights neighborhood, just half a mile away from Howard University, remains open despite having almost no inventory left to sell after being robbed daily by large groups of kids before and after school. “I’m not safe,” Leola Smith, a D.C. resident, told the WSJ. “Nobody is safe around here.”

The D.C. police department did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

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One Comment

  1. The problem is obvious for anyone with any common sense. Not just in D.C. but look at L.A., Chicago, NYC, or Memphis, or Baltimore, or St. Louis, or New Orleans (now the murder capital of the U.S.) or name any Democrat controlled city. We can see hundreds of documented cases of criminals released because of Democrat “no bail” laws committing additional crimes up to and including rape and murder. We can watch dozens of videos showing gangs of thugs looting jewelry stores and liquor stores and Department stores or gangs of thugs beating up innocents. Even worse, if you are a juvenile you likely won’t do any jail time (even if you kill someone) or, at most, go to a juvenile detention center until you are 18 and then have your record expunged. In California if you steal under $950 worth of merchandise then it’s just a misdemeanor, so crooks are stealing with almost no fear of being apprehended and businesses are closing.

    The Democrats are causing this with their “no bail” and defund the police policies and Soros backed prosecutors that pander to criminals and don’t give a damn about their victims. Policies supported by the President and the Democratic leadership. numbers. Unless this is stopped and these policies reversed to start caring more about victims than criminals; our cities will continue to descend into third world crime ridden hell holes.

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