Armed Robbery Outside Eliot-Hine Middle School

Submitted by AndreTippettPoint t3_1154hnb in washingtondc

Today, children were robbed at gunpoint at Eliot-Hine Middle School on Capitol Hill. This is my child’s school, and I really hope DC government thinks long and hard about how it approaches public safety and the consequences for criminals.

Principal’s letter to parents tonight:

February 17, 2023

Dear Eliot-Hine Middle School Parents and Families,

At Eliot-Hine, we highly value and are committed to fostering a secure learning environment. A large part of that commitment is communicating about potential issues that impact our school community.

Today, after dismissal, several Eliot-Hine Middle School and Eastern High School students were victims of a crime that occurred on our campus. The students were approached by an unknown SUV, and individuals in the vehicle brandished firearms and used physical force to remove property from a few students.

Thankfully, the students are safe. The group of students were visibly upset by this incident and returned to the Eliot-Hine building and reported the crime to school staff. Following proper protocols, we immediately contacted the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) and DCPS School Police. Law enforcement promptly arrived to address the incident, make a report, and will manage any further investigation. Our school security and operations teams are also aware of this incident and will review any available security footage that may assist MPD with its investigation.

Due to timing, students who were outside this afternoon may have witnessed or heard the incident. Additionally, any Eliot-Hine student present after school was escorted inside when the incident occurred and were safely dismissed when their parent or guardian arrived.

I recognize this is a distressing and frightening event. Coping with the effects of neighborhood violence and conflict is a challenging experience for students, and we want to support our community when such events occur. We will support the students who experienced this alarming incident, and ongoing support will be available to any student needing time or space to process recent incidents in our community. Please reach out if your student expresses a need for assistance in dealing with any events school related or otherwise, and we will connect them with our school-based mental health team. We care, and we are here to help.

Please be assured the safety of our students is always paramount. If you have any questions about this incident, please call the school office or contact me via email at [redacted].

Thank you for your continued support.

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Comments

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DCRealEstateAgent t1_j8zuvox wrote

This crime here is more ridiculous by the day. Middle school kids. Like middle school doesn’t suck enough, they get robbed too. I hope these f*ckers rot in hell.

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DC_Commanders_Fan_ t1_j931mho wrote

It probably retaliation from the other middle school 8th graders who have been robbing people...

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squuidlees t1_j8zy8d7 wrote

Nothing will happen, as per usual.

Those poor kids. :(

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surfingwithgators t1_j91i4nd wrote

Robbing middle school kids at gunpoint is some pathetic shit man

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roofrat69 t1_j91pxfs wrote

Our AG and most of our city council members seem to believe that the appropriate response to centuries of racism and discrimination, and police misconduct, is to let Black teenagers do crimes.

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clairancetaway2 t1_j95wab4 wrote

And you think we should harshly punish them? If you’re going to school in Capitol Hill you can afford to handover whatever’s on you to a minority in this city. If you Gentrifiers don’t like it then GTFO or vote for someone else. These council members are elected. You gentrifiers don’t belong.

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Zwicker101 t1_j9633yv wrote

I'm so confused. I think this guy is trolling.

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fronthacker t1_j9kvy3p wrote

Pretty sure those kids who got robbed weren't gentrifiers

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DrunkWoodchuck t1_j8zvehc wrote

> I really hope DC government thinks long and hard about how it approaches public safety and the consequences for criminals.

Obligatory reminder that there are complex interconnected reasons why “DC government” cannot unilaterally fix this problem, including but not limited to: out of state populace committing crimes; DC Government having no control over federal prosecutors who handle adult crime; MPD culture of doing nothing while blaming USAO for similarly doing nothing; and of course, because the one thing they can directly control, sentencing limits, has no impact on crime whatsoever.

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Deanocracy t1_j90snsi wrote

  1. This is recognition of a problem..l literally step one. Good

  2. DC govt has control over OAG and youth prosecution and that is even lighter in holding violent criminals responsible

  3. Our sentencing limits are fine. If properly applied they of course reduce crime by removing criminals from society. The problem is the lack of any sentencing not the limits. You don’t need to spam “longer sentences don’t reduce crime” like a bot. No one wants harsher sentences on the books.

  4. You have completely limited the liability of the situation we are in. YOU know about it how? What wapo articles have you read discussing the USAO awful track record? Where did this understanding off the ineffectiveness of USAO you allude to come from?

Why isn’t it a step that our media needs to be reporting the courts? Why shouldn’t we desire a full transparency into our judicial system? Heck they could keep it anon and just discuss the case and it would be effective.

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BrightThru2014 t1_j90lasx wrote

Sentencing limits having NO impact on crime does not feel accurate.

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Deanocracy t1_j90tbcm wrote

It’s a twist of the logic. Having a stiffer penalty won’t stop someone from deciding to be an anti-social menace. They won’t weigh the consequences and see a difference between 5 years and 10 years for example.

And I’d agree that high functioning time preference and long term planning isn’t a strength of most violent criminals.

Believing there is no punishment (or a very small likelihood which is what DC is) would explode crime. See porch pirates.

So they say longer sentences to obscure reality. We want say…5 years for being a felon with a gun with the serial number her shaved off,,, that seems reasonable. They get zero too often.

They hear “longer sentences” because 5 is more than 0 and repeat mindlessly “longer sentences don’t reduce crime”.

My fellow citizen… we want A sentence… not 40 years for shoplifting,

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TooSwang t1_j914q43 wrote

Have you ever heard someone complaining about speed cameras that actually considers not speeding in the future? Do you think the reasoning is all that different for someone committing armed robbery, whether it’s 8 or 12 years in prison?

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BrightThru2014 t1_j91cp02 wrote

I mean I definitely don’t speed on certain streets where I know there are speed cameras.

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thepulloutmethod t1_j93bh06 wrote

Yeah I was gonna say...every time Waze alerts me to a speed camera I slow the fuck down and drive like grandma. You only need to get one of those lovely camera citations in the mail to change your behavior. It works.

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Deanocracy t1_j91fbty wrote

Do you believe that the current frustration with the justice system is that they are consistently only sentencibg armed robbers to 8 years when the vocal rabble of reddit demands 12?

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OctoberCaddis t1_j91vzvd wrote

Find me an armed robber in DC who got 8 years. A guy got 82 months (<8 years) for murder last week.

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TooSwang t1_j91ggge wrote

This probably isn’t the most welcome sentiment especially in this sub, but I think “frustration with the Justice system” is a little generous to people up in arms about crime. Crime is down. You can go to MPD’s statistics if you want to check. Motor vehicle thefts are the one thing unambiguously up, and that’s almost certainly that MPD is not using the tools at its disposal to stop that - if you think it’s hard to track hundreds of stolen vehicles I would encourage you to speak to literally any law enforcement. I think we can always pull one-off incidents and point to them as alarming but there is ample research showing public perceptions of crime have virtually no relationship with actual trends. When people talk about their “feeling” of safety, they are much more often talking about how they’ve let themselves be whipped into a panic by pro-police voices in politics, the media, and their communities, than they actually are talking about a truly felt threat to their safety. So no, I don’t think the source of frustrations is about minor differences in sentencing, I think it’s something else entirely.

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OctoberCaddis t1_j91w9ae wrote

Crime is not down. A reading of crime stats with an intended outcome might tell you violent crime is down, but that’s only because carjacking is counted as auto theft in the nonviolent category.

Overall crime is up 20%, according to a Georgetown crime apologist.

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TooSwang t1_j91wrmb wrote

Carjacking and motor vehicle theft are separate crimes nimrod, they’re literally broken out separately

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OctoberCaddis t1_j97873z wrote

https://mpdc.dc.gov/page/district-crime-data-glance

Sure they are

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TooSwang t1_j97b7i8 wrote

Carjacking, when someone has their car stolen while they are in it, is a violent crime included under robbery, not a property crime included under motor vehicle theft. This is explained where they say how the terms are defined. For the good of your family and neighbors please learn to read, I worry knowing there are folks like you in the area living in such an illiterate fog.

https://code.dccouncil.gov/us/dc/council/code/sections/23-1331

“(4) The term “crime of violence” means aggravated assault; act of terrorism; arson; assault on a police officer (felony); assault with a dangerous weapon; assault with intent to kill, commit first degree sexual abuse, commit second degree sexual abuse, or commit child sexual abuse; assault with significant bodily injury; assault with intent to commit any other offense; burglary; carjacking; armed carjacking; child sexual abuse; cruelty to children in the first degree; extortion or blackmail accompanied by threats of violence; gang recruitment, participation, or retention by the use or threatened use of force, coercion, or intimidation; kidnapping; malicious disfigurement; manslaughter; manufacture or possession of a weapon of mass destruction; mayhem; murder; robbery; sexual abuse in the first, second, or third degrees; use, dissemination, or detonation of a weapon of mass destruction; or an attempt, solicitation, or conspiracy to commit any of the foregoing offenses.”

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js8806485 t1_j91bicx wrote

What about juvenile crime which amounts to at least half of all crime committed in the District?

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AndreTippettPoint OP t1_j91vpe7 wrote

This is the third rail, because the “catch and release” model hasn’t exactly worked, but consigning a child to incarceration is a last resort. Of course, “last resort” doesn’t mean it’s never an appropriate consequence.

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js8806485 t1_j922wyc wrote

Yeah definitely agree that one off instances of petty crime shouldn’t lead to severe punishment, but we have kids who’ve committed like 10+ armed carjackings let back free on the streets the same day they get caught. Seems like awfully low hanging fruit to stiffen enforcement.

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topher180 t1_j90agm3 wrote

Well summarized. It’s shitty but it’s accurate.

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gnocchicotti t1_j90owcd wrote

A lot of US cities have serious crime problems on the scale of DC and none of the others have this dynamic.

Just the next post down on my Reddit feed shows homicide rate of NBA team cities, where DC is sandwiched between Milwaukee and Philadelphia.

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AndreTippettPoint OP t1_j91w59v wrote

Hmm, as a Celtics fan in DC I guess I average out to somewhere between the Pacers and Hawks…

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[deleted] t1_j90hq7d wrote

Homeless person here; the cops chased me down for stealing a sandwich, drink, and candy bar out of a Wawa(3 streets/.2 miles)

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Swampoodle1984 t1_j91682c wrote

The criminals keep on getting bolder and bolder. A man was carjacked and beaten near Lincoln Park around the same time.

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[deleted] t1_j91jd3f wrote

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[deleted] t1_j91oud7 wrote

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[deleted] t1_j91w7v0 wrote

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[deleted] t1_j91ok3h wrote

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StarBabyDreamChild t1_j92n6jj wrote

And no media coverage of this that I (yet) see. ‘Nothing to see here, people - move along.‘ Sad.

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Professional_Yam5208 t1_j91dbfg wrote

I agree deanocracy with you that zero far too often is definitely the biggest problem. Very much not convinced however that sentencing length has no impact whatsoever.

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Poomped t1_j93rjev wrote

Why was bowser re-elected again

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free_helly t1_j975rml wrote

Cameras. Police. Jail.

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ilikeathesauce t1_j91t7uv wrote

Oh you haven’t heard? The solution is simple: Make it as difficult as possible for law abiding citizens to defend themselves or defend other victims, limit the police ability to respond and then refuse to prosecute if anyone gets arrested. Finally, if a violent offender ever does somehow accidentally slip through the cracks and gets convicted by mistake then we’ll simply ‘catch and release’ them back into the community ASAP.

After all, it would be unfair to hold an individual responsible for a violent crime they’ve committed because as we all know: violence is caused solely by inanimate objects.

/s

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LoganSquire t1_j91wrkw wrote

Yeah, it would be much better if middle schoolers could legally carry guns to defend themselves.

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ilikeathesauce t1_j91x0h2 wrote

I’m sure an ‘assault weapons ban’ would have prevented it from ever happening

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NorseTikiBar t1_j91xrx9 wrote

So when that story came out about a 6 year old bringing a gun to school in Virginia, were you rooting for the kid?

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ilikeathesauce t1_j9200fp wrote

Let me guess. The kid’s punishment should only be ‘grounded for the weekend’ since he’s a juvenile and his parents should serve life sentences for attempted murder right?

The gun he used should get the harshest punishment of all since it was the one that caused the harm.

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NorseTikiBar t1_j924wx0 wrote

So that's a yes?

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ilikeathesauce t1_j92hf7h wrote

I would have preferred if the teacher had shot the 6 year old. I assume you think the kid shouldn’t be punished

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LevelDrawers t1_j93nzj8 wrote

Thank god there's a vast, vast gray area between those two extremes.

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Zwicker101 t1_j963lwi wrote

Ah yes, the dichotomy of the situation: 1) Kid gets shot or 2) Teacher gets shot.

Certainly no middle ground.

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[deleted] t1_j8zvjoz wrote

[deleted]

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rolo-lolo t1_j9013md wrote

Add the 8 robberies in NW that happened today in the middle of the day, plus the carjacking around Lincoln Park, the carjacking around the Supreme Court and the robbery outside of the middle school and that annual drop will start getting smaller and smaller. Motor vehicle thefts have doubled from the same period a year ago. https://mpdc.dc.gov/page/district-crime-data-glance. Sure, it ain’t the 90s but we sure as hell don’t wanna get to a point the city mayor is asking the National Guard to help the city fight crime, nor is it a good example to compare crime now to what it was when DC was the nation’s murder capital. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1991/01/02/washington-areas-703-homicides-in-1990-set-a-record/ee71dd1f-59c8-4f03-af62-05b0a6134365/

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NPRjunkieDC t1_j91idkq wrote

What 8 robberies in NW in one day?

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