DC Noir

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Recently, on the way to a witness interview on the 1600 block of W Street, S.E. with detectives from Washington, D.C.’s MPD Violent Crimes Branch, I passed through the low-rise, government-assisted dwellings off Langston Place in Ward 7. There, in a dirt and concrete courtyard patched with the last of winter’s snow, was a make-shift memorial of sorts to a teenaged murder victim who had allegedly been in the life himself. Grouped around a steel pole were various forms of stuffed animals, teddy bears and the like, along with plastic flowers and some balloons, long depleted of their helium, lying on the ground. The site contained no R.I.P. tags or name identifications of any kind. It’s what’s known as a “tribute” in this part of town.

That night, in the comfort of my home, I sat down to read the Washington Post. The above-the-fold story on the front page of the Style section, which jumped inside and took up many column inches, concerned an author from wealthy, mostly-white Ward 3, who had written a book about the anxiety of today’s Washington woman, who has to deal with “soul-draining perfectionism,” shuttling kids to soccer matches, nighttime Girl Scout cookie meetings, and finding the right art camp and piano teacher for her kids. Buried in the Metro section of that same newspaper were the latest crime fatalities, all occurring far away from those houses on the high ground of Cleveland Park and Chevy Chase. The victims, many unnamed, all young, got two paragraphs of space inside the section.

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