In a virtually-unprecedented incident in the posh Chevy Chase neighborhood of Kenwood, someone has spray-painted gang-tag-style graffiti on the stately community sign on Dorset Avenue near Little Falls Parkway. Also hit were an electrical box and a sign along the Capital Crescent Trail nearby. The initials "KYS" and "FTP" are repeated in the motifs; the other two are unintelligible.
It's a sad commentary on our soft-on-crime Montgomery County Council. Setting standards really starts at the top, and the leadership there has been sorely lacking. As Jack Kemp once said, "Weakness is provocative."
This is a lot more original and elegant than what was posted at the former Barnes & Noble.
ReplyDeleteClutch the pearls!
ReplyDeleteYouth dared to graffiti-up the chosen land.
Clutch your iPhones & wedding rings when they climb the stairs above the *$ into the Bethesda magazine land with spray cans and machete's!!!
DeleteIsn't this recent focus on graffiti just encouraging more?
ReplyDelete"As Jack Kemp once said, "Weakness is provocative.""
ReplyDeleteKemp may have said this, but he is not by any means the individual associated with this phrase. The original coiner was Fritz G.A. Kraemer, arguably the founder of the Ne-Conservative movement.
However, the phrase is most commonly associated with Donald Rumsfeld, and his speech at his resignation as Sec'y of Defense in 2007.
And he most certainly was not referring to grafiti.
Uhhh, washington episcopal has had graffiti on the side of its gym facing little falls for a long time. whoever did that, likely did this. the taggers didn't do this b/c of soft on crime. They did it because this is what taggers do. They like to be brazen. Also, this isn't that shocking or praise-worthy even by tagging standards. These aren't challenging areas to get to nor is the tag artistic even. What a bunch of idiots or one idiot who did this act.
ReplyDeleteThey just wanted attention and you gave it to them and made them feel cool by reacting like dennis the menace's geezer neighbor.
Lawless Council encourages lawlessness.
ReplyDeleteThis is by white high school students. Any idiot can tell the difference.
ReplyDeleteat least its soy based paint so kenwood peeps dont get offended.....
ReplyDeleteI'm sure the community is shaken to the core. ADT sales are up, and all the soccer moms and au pairs are watching their kiddies like hawks now that this unforeseen criminal element has dared to invade the sanctity of the Chosen...;)
ReplyDeleteSomeone is going to complain about the runoff water when they powerwash the graffiti.
ReplyDeleteThere goes the neighborhood! Time to pack it up and move!
ReplyDeleteCommon Sense Spray Paint Laws..
ReplyDeleteI can't recall a brazen attack on the Kenwood neighborhood like this.
ReplyDeleteWhere was their private security man? Asleep at the wheel.
An armed neighborhood militia might be in order!
ReplyDeleteWeakness is provocative.
ReplyDeleteNobody's weaker than our soft-on-crime, gang-loving County Council. Super low-energy.
ReplyDeleteWhat would you have done that would have prevented this incident of graffiti, Robert?
ReplyDeleteWord on the street is MS 13 is looking for you Dyer, they want to terrorize you and your mom
ReplyDelete"over the years that weakness is provocative the"
ReplyDeleteDa fuq you talkin bout, Whitey?
Robert: To you, everything is "a sad commentary on the Montgomery County Council" and you are partipating in the same fear-mongering nonsense going on nationwide by bigoted Trump supporters. Crime is low in Montgomery County, lower in Bethesda, and still lower in the Kenwood area. Where is this "wave of gang-related crime" anywhere close to Kenwood? There is plenty of graffiti in the area, but not a lot of crime, certainly not much violent crime. Take a walk along the famed Willett Branch that you've written about extensively and you will find a treasure trove of graffiti throughout the tunnels. The Kenwood event is not unprecendented at all. There is plenty of graffiti throughout the area and all or most of it is almost certainly done by area youth, not violent gangs.
ReplyDeleteIf we're undergoing such a "wave of gang-related violence" caused by the MCC, why not call Governor Hogan and tell him to send the National Guard and State Police to quell the violence so we can go out on the streets again?
ReplyDelete1:27: A lot to unpack there, Saul Alinsky. First, murders are up 31% in Montgomery County.
ReplyDeleteSecond, you are the one claiming high crime in Bethesda - there was no such statement in my article. Frankly, with the County taking out the crime database for about 6 months, I honestly have no idea what the crime situation is in Bethesda - up, down, the same - we don't know. Now that it appears to be working again, I look forward to again following the trending crime activity.
Third, I said the defacing of Kenwood was unprecedented. It is. I never claimed there was never graffiti in Bethesda. I said defacing the Kenwood sign was unprecedented, and it is.
3:49: I'm not a councilmember - I can't stop crime until you elect me.
Actually, murders are down for the year to date. With 2018 already one-third over, there have been 3 homicides - if the trend continues, that will mean 9 murders for all of 2018. That's a 57% drop from 2017, and a 25% drop from 2016, and a whopping 70% drop from 2015.
ReplyDelete#ThanksHans
"I said the defacing of Kenwood was unprecedented. It is. I never claimed there was never graffiti in Bethesda. I said defacing the Kenwood sign was unprecedented, and it is."
ReplyDelete#TheEntireKnownUniverseRevolvesAroundWestbard
7:11: Total nutjob - you don't get to call the year in April. Murders are up 31%.
ReplyDeleteMurders in 2017 were down 27% over 2015. There is no disputing that simple fact.
ReplyDelete"Frankly, with the County taking out the crime database for about 6 months, I honestly have no idea what the crime situation is in Bethesda - up, down, the same - we don't know. Now that it appears to be working again, I look forward to again following the trending crime activity."
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bethesdamagazine.com/Bethesda-Beat/2018/Police-Blotter-Two-Robbed-by-Groups-of-Men-in-Downtown-Silver-Spring-Vehicle-Thefts-in-Potomac-and-Bethesda/
7:28: Dude, you sound desperate. WTF does it matter, when murders spiked 31% in the most recent year?
ReplyDelete7:38: Lol, you actually believe that short list you are linking to were the only crimes that occurred that week? Dyer prints the full list, and it's way longer than that. Dyers crime reports were probably why the County disabled the crime data. Dyer, PLEASE bring back your crime reports now that the data is working again!
Overfitting occurs when a statistical model fits the noise rather than the signal. The model overfits the particular data or observations rather than fitting a generalizable pattern in a general population.
ReplyDeleteRobert: (1) Your article implied that crime was high in the area, otherwise your comment that "It's a sad commentary on our soft-on-crime Montgomery County Council" doesn't really make any sense. (2) Your article was also at best unclear about what you were referring to as "virtually unprecedented", the Kenwood sign graffiti alone or the three graffiti incidents that you mention. (3) and, if you were only refering to the Kenwood sign graffiti, why would you say "virtually unprecedented" and not just "unprecedented"? What, has this only happened one other time? a few other times? If its happened at all before, it doesn't seem either particularly noteworthy or necessarily related to the current MCC.
ReplyDelete8:22: The proliferation of gangs in Montgomery County is indeed a sad commentary on our soft-on-crime County Council.
ReplyDeleteYour "concern" about "virtually vs. unprecedented" is classic Saul Alinsky. You would jump on the statement either way, but cannot by my use of the modifier "virtually." No, I've never seen graffiti on the Kenwood sign, but if I were to say unprecedented, you would drag out some old fogey to say it happened in 1958. No dice.
Yes, the graffiti is related to the Council. "Weakness is provocative."