Richard's 2.5 Rules for City Living...

The girlfriend of Washington Nationals baseball player Jose Guillen was robbed after cashing a $10,000 check at this storefront check cashing establishment on the 1100 block of H Street NE. Photo by Inked78.

Since coming to DC in 1987, I have read the Washington Post most every day. I don't have a photographic memory, but there is a reason that I joke that the Metro section should be retitled "Bad Things." And for years, I used to read the crime statistics every week in the District Extra section. The stories add up...

Anyway, my two rules for getting by at night in urban settings are:

1. Don't buy gas at night in the city (how many times have you read stories about people being robbed, carjacked, or killed at night buying gas in the city?);

2. Don't go to ATMs at night in the city (again, how many times have you read stories about people being robbed at ATMs at night in the city).

Rule .5 is don't go to the bank in areas where you feel uncomfortable. For example, given the lack of maintenance of the facility, the hordes of people milling about on the street, etc., frankly, I don't feel comfortable going to the banks at the intersection of 8th and H Streets NE, so I don't go there.

A corollary would be, don't cash large value checks in places like H Street NE.

If you're the girlfriend of a wealthy baseball player, have your boyfriend ask the Baseball team to call their bank to ask if they will cash the check as a courtesy.

Don't go to some storefront on H Street... see "CHECK-CASHING SERVICE: Girlfriend of Nats Player Is Robbed."

Cash such a check in a place where you're not likely to stick out like a sore thumb, and have people watching that you've been in the check cashing store for 30 minutes plus.

cf. Streetwise and Code of the Street: Decency, Violence, and Moral Life of the City by Elijah Anderson, Charles and William Day Distinguished Professor of the Social Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania.

Also see this op-ed by Elijah Anderson, "Code of the street is keeping crime alive," from April 2005 in the Philadelphia Inquirer. From the op-ed:

In the code of the street, a set of informal rules governs interpersonal public behavior, including violence. The rules prescribe both a proper comportment and the proper way to respond if challenged. They supply a rationale that allows those who are inclined to aggression to precipitate violent encounters in an approved way.

In this setting, there is tremendous jealousy and envy. For a person to "have something" can be seen as disrespecting another; it can be confused with making the other feel small. So if another person has money, material things, or even simply good looks - anything that can be taken as a social good - such possession can be cause for an altercation to settle things.

On the streets, the distinction between street and decent is often irrelevant; everybody knows that if the rules are violated, there are penalties. Knowledge of the code is essential for operating in public. Families with a decency orientation often reluctantly encourage their children's familiarity with it.

Let's just say I have learned these rules, and others, through hard experience.



Index Keywords: public-safety