Crime in D.C. schools
Last April, TBD reporter Sarah Larimer filed a Freedom of Information Act request to D.C. police for all records of incident reports at public and private schools in the District going back to 2009. This past August, after Larimer took a job at Grantland.com, the documents started to roll in. The police sent TBD a document listing every incident (PDF) as well as hundreds of individual incident reports. They’re presented here with all original spelling intact and only the names of suspects and victims redacted in the rare cases that they’ve been left in. Some of the reports are heartbreaking, some are bizarre, and more than you’d think involve weaponized tape dispensers. There are lots of banal incidents, and a couple that should probably be feature stories (like this one). You can download the original spreadsheet we made here or sort these data yourself in the table below.
–Data wrangling by Andrew Beaujon, Caroline Smith, and Ryan O'Malley.
| Event Date sort | Complaint No. sort | Police District sort | School sort | Event Type sort |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2/24/2010 | 10023008 | 1D | Jefferson Middle School | Destruction of Property <=200 |
| Weapons: None Specified Property: Damaged - Destroyed: Other miscellaneous item - water fountain | Description: ON THE ABOVE DATE AND TIME, AT THE LISTED LOCATION, THE UNDERSIGNED WAS CALLED TO THE SECOND FLOOR BY THE PRINCIPAL, AND SHE SHOWED ME A WATER FOUNTAIN THAT WAS RIPPED FROM THE WALL AND LYING ON THE FLOOR. S-1 WAS STANDING 10 FEET AWAY FROM THE WATER FOUNTAIN, PACING BACK AND FOURTH. R-1 STATES THAT HERSELF AND SPO PARSON, ASKED S-1 TO GIVE THEM SOME HAIR EXTENSIONS THAT HE HAD IN HIS HAND. S-1 REFUSED TO GIVE THE HAIR EXTENSIONS TO THE PRINCIPAL, BUT TURNED THEM OVER TO SPO PARSON. S-1 WAS THEN TOLD TO GO TO CLASS. BOTH SPO PARSON, AND THE R-1 WENT TO ATTEND TO OTHER STUDENTS. A COUPLE OF MINUTES LATER SPO PARSON OVSERVED A WATER FOUNTAIN RIPPED FROM THE WALL AND S-1 STAMDOMG 1- FEET AWAY FROM IT. S-1 WAS STOPPED BY THE UNDERSIGNED AND TAKEN TO THE SCHOOL MEDIATION CENTER AND INTERVIEWED. WHEN S-1 WAS ASKED WHO RIPPED THE WATER FOUNTAIN OFF THE WALL, S-1 STATED "I DID IT", AND THAT HE RIPPED THE WATER FOUNTAIN OFF THE WALL BECAUSE HE WAS MAD. Permanent link | |||