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http://dcrussell.esmartweb.com/2005/03/gory-prince-georges-comments-o...
Wednesday, March 16, 2005
Grandstanding outside a "crime-ridden apartment development" very near
the former, long-time home of Rep. Steny Hoyer, on March 14, Prince
George's County Executive Jack B. Johnson blamed the owners of 22
apartment developments for much of the crime on the county.
Threatening apartment owners. Repeating threats he made in the most
recent of a series of ineffective and largely unimplemented
crime-fighting plans (Jan. 26, Jan. 25, Jan. 14, Jan. 10, etc.),
Johnson threatened to harass the owners and shut down the 22
developments. According to reports of this publicity event by Sudarsan
Raghavan in the March 15 Post, and by Robert Arkell in the March 15
Examiner, apartment owners were taken by surprise, receiving little or
no advance notice from Johnson's office. One apartment manager
complained that requests by apartment owners to meet with Johnson have
not been successful.
Misleading information.
From Johnson's press release about the event:
"Johnson used the Glenarden Apartments as a prime
example. Five of the 33 homicides this year have occurred
within a one-mile radius of those apartments."
Unfortunately, that statement does not appear to be quite true.
Measuring from the approximate center of the Glenarden development,
there has been only one homicide well within a one-mile radius, that
of Linda Teresa Humphries, about 0.27 of a mile away.
Three other homicides occurred between about 0.84 and 1.02 miles of
the development's center; to be fair, each may have happened within
one mile of some corner of the development: Michael Edward Montgomery,
Darnell Anthony Wright, and Carlos Leon Taylor.
The next closes homicide, presumably the fifth counted by Johnson, was
that of Kerry Antonio Bennett, about 1.87 miles from the center of the
apartments.
Both Bennett and Humphries were killed in their homes, away from the
apartment development. Humphries was the victim of a domestic killing.
It is difficult to see how proximity to the Glenarden A partments
could have had anything at all to do with these murders.
Looking at the homicide data from a slighly different perspective . . .
There have been even more homicides within the same distance of police
headquarters in Palmer Park (about a mile from the Glenarden
Apartments).
* Darnell Anthony Wright (0.21)
* Michael Montgomery (0.22)
* Kerry Antonio Bennett (0.99)
* Carlos Leon Taylor (1.05)
* Linda Teresa Humphries (1.25)
* Elliott Lamar Hebb (1.43)
Does Johnson plan to blame the staff at police headquarters for nearby
murders in in the same way he blames apartment owners for murders near
their developments?
Little correlation between murders and targeted apartments.
The March 15 Post has a map of the 22 apartment developments
threatened by Johnson. Laying those locations over a map of 2005
homicides shows that thre is very little correlation. While the
developments cited by Johnson may account for many crime reports, they
are not located in the homicide hot-spots.
Where will the people go?
Prince George's County has an affordable-housing crisis. Johnson is
threatening to close down apartment developments with relatively low
rents and thousands of low- and moderate-income minority residents.
Where will they go? It is very unlikely that the existing county
housing stock can accommodate them. County policies for the past
several years have sharply discouraged any development of housing,
especially low-cost housing. What little new construction has been
allowed is slow, mired in excessive red-tape, with new taxes and fees
planned, and is far, far beyond the means of most residents of the 22
developments threatened by Johnson.
So, where will the people go? Johnson's press release is silent on the
issue. According to press reports, Del. Joanne C. Benson (D-24), says
the county will take care of the residents and "not put them on the
street." But Benson doesn't provide any specifics and since she is a
state, not county, official, there is no way she can either deliver on
such a claim or be held accountable if her claim turns out to be
untrue.
Both Johnson and Benson are Black Democrats so the press is apparently
giving them a pass on the havoc Johnson's plan could wreak in Prince
George's County's lower-income African-American community. Were they
white Republicans, they would probably be accused of gentrification,
if not of conspiring to drive undesireables (minorities) out of the
county.
List of 2005 homicides.
http://dcrussell.esmartweb.com/gory2005.htm
Map of 2005 homicides.
http://dcrussell.esmartweb.com/gmap2005.htm
Map of 2005 homicides compared to targeted apartments.
http://dcrussell.esmartweb.com/gmap-apt.htm
Post map of targeted apartments.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/metro/daily/graphics/pgcrime_031...
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