U Street: Snowpocalypse Pummels Would-Be Criminals in February

We are doing something new here at Borderstan with crime stats. In the past we reported monthly crime numbers for an area around the 1600 block of 15th Street NW and occasionally for Police Service Areas 208 (Dupont) and 307 (Logan). Starting this month we will run postings with crime stats for areas that are hubs of three of the main business and commercial corridors in the Dupont–Logan–U Street area: 12th and U NW; 14th and Q NW; and 17th and Q NW. These are approximately the centers of the U Street, 14th Street and 17th Street commercial corridors.

Why the switch? The area’s commercial strips are centers for neighborhood life–and as a result they can also be crime magnets. All three of the reporting areas listed above will encompass surrounding residential areas as well, as shown in the map above for the U Street corridor.

The first posting is for the U Street corridor, centered at 12th and U Streets NW. The U Street Corridor crime reporting area (see map above) covers a circular area that radiates 1,000 feet from 12th and U NW–an area that roughly runs  from 14th Street on the west to 9th Street on the east and from W Street on the north to S Street on the south.

Summary of February Crime Stats for U Street Corridor

• Due to the major snowstorms and severe weather, crime was down throughout DC (See “DC Crime Plummets During Snowpocalypse.”) This was evident in the February numbers for the U Street corridor: 13 total crimes this year compared to 33 in February 2009 and 40 in 2008. This is a 61 percent drop from February 2009 to February 2010.
• There were only two violent crimes the entire month of February 2010, both of them robberies (one with a gun). This compares to 6 violent crimes the previous February and 4 in the same month of 2008.
• As for property crimes, the blizzards and cold temperatures deterred would-be thieves. The number of thefts from autos (“smash and grabs”) plummeted to 7 in February of this year–this compares to 13 in February 2009 and 19 the year before that. In fact, there were no reported stolen autos in the area for the entire month of February 2010. The total number of property crimes in February of this year was just 11, which compares to 27 in 2009 and 36 in 2008.

Total crime stats for February 2008, 2009 and 2010 below the fold.

U Street Corridor¹ Crime Stats for February

Crime Type	2008	2009	2010
Homicide	0	0	0
Sex Abuse	0	0	0
Robbery Excluding Gun	2	4	1
Robbery With Gun	2	2	1
Assault with a Dangerous Weapon (ADW) Excluding Gun	0	0	0
Assault with a Dangerous Weapon (ADW) With Gun	0	0	0
Total Violent Crime	4	6	2
Burglary	4	0	0
Theft	7	8	4
Theft From Auto	19	13	7
Stolen Auto	6	6	0
Arson	0	0	0
Total Property Crime	36	27	11
Total Crime	40	33	13

¹ The U Street Corridor crime reporting area (see map above) covers a circular area that radiates 1,000 feet from 12th and U NW–an area that roughly runs  from 14th Street on the west to 9th Street on the east and from W Street on the north to S Street on the south. This area is in Police Service Area (PSA) 305, which is part of MPD’s Third District.