Adams-Morgan to get more weekend police presence

Adams-Morgan photo by furcafe.

Yesterday's Washington Times and today's Examiner discuss plans to increase police presence in Adams-Morgan on the weekends--when the population "rises" when people go out to the restaurants and places on the strip. The Examiner focuses on talk about putting in CCTV surveillance, and the privacy concerns.

Phillip Klips, center, of Southeast Washington greets William Hamm of Waldorf. Photo Credit: Stephanie K. Kuykendal For The Washington Post. (See "You Haven't Lived Here if You Haven't . . . Grabbed a Late-Night "Jumbo Slice".) Trash generated by such establishments is a sore point for neighborhood residents.

I wonder about this. Is it really a sign of adept policing strategies to increase night service in an entertainment area, where there are known to be problems? Isn't it obvious that this should be done? And hasn't it been obvious for awhile?

I wrote in March about the Adams-Morgan Transportation Study (in this blog entry and others, "Dr. Transit offers some thoughts on the Adams-Morgan Transportation Study") and I linked to similar studies in London, in dealing with the late night economy (Managing the Evening and Late Night Economy), and how Members of Parliament with oversight for public safety actually walked the streets of Westminster after 11 pm on a Friday night to look into the situation. I suggested the same for Adams-Morgan.

CompStat and CitiStat programs are important and I support such data management programs vociferously. But some of this stuff seems obvious.

In Adams Morgan, Amsterdam Falafelshop offers an alternative to jumbo-slice pizza joints. Photo Credit: Andrea Bruce -- The Washington Post. See "Adams Morgan Acquires Late-Night Jones for Falafel."

Potential hooligans outside of Asylum, photo by furcafe.

Index Keywords: public-safety