US: DC Police Mishandle Sexual Assault Cases
Victims of sexual assault in Washington, DC, are not getting the effective response they deserve and should expect from the district’s Metropolitan Police Department (MPD). Sexual assault cases are too often not properly documented or investigated and victims may face callous, traumatizing treatment, despite official departmental policy to the contrary.
The 196-page report, “Capitol Offense: Police Mishandling of Sexual Assault Cases in the District of Columbia,” concludes that in many sexual assault cases, the police did not file incident reports, which are required to proceed with an investigation, or misclassified serious sexual assaults as lesser or other crimes. Human Rights Watch also found that the police presented cases to prosecutors for warrants that were so inadequately investigated that prosecutors had little choice but to refuse them and that procedural formalities were used to close cases with only minimal investigation. The mayor and City Council should create an independent mechanism to monitor police department response to sexual assault complaints.Read more after the jump.
2012 Mariam Dwedar/Human Rights Watch
Pretty shocking stuff.
Spotted in D.C. today: A DJ, busking for donations. I wonder if this is how Skrillex got his start. The stuff you see on inauguration weekend … — Ernie @ SFB
EDIT: From the comments: “albertis said: Skrillex got his start being the front man of a band named From First to Last.” Thanks for taking my snark seriously, pal.
The Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department is investigating whether any city laws were violated when NBC’s David Gregory displayed what appeared to be a 30-round gun magazine on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, a spokesman confirmed to POLITICO.
hahahahahahahaha.
Meet the depressed.
Here’s the official Million Puppet March route map! See you in DC on 11/3
So this is apparently happening right now.
The differences in the two scenarios are most significant for the Maryland and Delaware beaches, where the exact storm track will have a big impact on the severity of coastal flooding. For inland areas (including Washington, D.C. and Baltimore), because this storm is so large, we will experience heavy rain amounts and strong winds in either case. It doesn’t matter if the storm first crosses land in central New Jersey or Chincoteague.Capital Weather Gang’s Jason Samenow • Discussing the scenarios for more-inland residents dealing with Hurricane Sandy, including those in Baltimore and Washington, DC, whether the scenario is “very bad” (a near-direct hit in northern Delaware and southern New Jersey — 70 percent chance) or “worst case” (a direct hit in Delaware and northern Maryland — 30 percent chance) as far as a hurricane hit. Both will bring flooding and damage. One will bring worse flooding and damage than the other, and temperatures will dip as low as the 30s in some spots — which is unseasonably cool for the region.
There you have it: Per Capital Weather Gang, this year is the warmest on record for DC:
2012 continues to be the warmest year on record. With the September data, we now find DCA running 1.6F warmer than the second place tied years of 1991 and 2010. Here are the latest rankings:
We could’ve told you this by walking outside.
This is not the campaign that we intended to run. I got into this for the right reasons.Washington D.C. mayor Vincent Gray • Regarding the controversy around his 2010 election, which has been shrouded in scandal in recent months. On Tuesday, one of his campaign aides pleaded guilty to accepting payment from a businessman in the city to run a “shadow” campaign — spending $650,000 in illicit funds, kept off the books, to help promote Gray’s campaign. The news comes on top of other scandals the city’s government has faced — and led to three city council members asking for Gray’s resignation.
Tarmac melts, causing flight cancellations at USA’s capital airport, Reagan National, Washington DC. This demonstrates the need for climate adaptation of America’s (rather embarrassing) infrastructure.
Via NYC Aviation FB.
Yes, those are sunken-in wheels. Holy wow.
Yahoo wants to buy Hulu now too. They’re going on an “I...
I’m moving back to New York in a few days. Unlike past...
OMG. I got so...
In this week’s Newsweek, a little...
Tumblr this morning. [h/t anne]
#@#$%!.tumblr.com
Here’s a hidden feature that shipped in...
More damage at 5th and N street, NW. Photo from Michelle Fereng on twitter.
YES!
For fans of trees knocked over by huge storms.
We have more than half our system down. This is definitely going to be a multi-day outage.Pepco spokeswoman Myra Oppel • Discussing the major power outage in the Washington DC metro region, which turned off the lights for more than 2 million people last night. (Including us. Thank God for tethering. — ed) The power outage came after a short-but-powerful storm in the wake of a record heat wave on Friday — the temperature hit 104.
Very happy to announce that as of this morning, Heather and I are legally married (at least in DC). 20 years to the day after our first date.Dick Cheney’s daughter, Mary • Revealing that she got married to her longtime partner, Heather Poe, on Friday. The couple, which has two children, lives in Northern Virginia, but got married in Washington DC, one of the areas where gay marriage is legal. Congrats guys!
How the WMATA Rush+ Maps Are Printed
Many thanks to Matt Johnson for telling me about this amazing photoset on Flickr that details the process involved in printing the new Rush+ station maps for Washington, DC’s Metro system. Click through to see the whole set!
Even as an experienced graphic designer, I was amazed to see that the maps are screen printed - each colour on the map is printed one after the other, each using a separate screen with its own spot colour ink. With a map as complex as this, that means that there are a whopping twelve different colours to print! These being: river blue, park green, National Mall green, Blue Line, Orange Line, Yellow Line, Green Line, Red Line, Silver Line, District/County border grey, Beltway grey, and finally, black.
I would have thought with the advances in digital printing and stochastic (micro) screening, that these could be produced digitally in one step instead of twelve, but maybe these are special long-lasting UV inks that will withstand many years of use without fading - an important consideration for station maps! In any case, these photos are a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at a process that many people may not even think about.
EDIT: A tweet from a Metro representative confirms that there are THIRTEEN colours used in the printing: 4 greys (Silver Line, Beltway grey, county border grey, and icon grey), 3 greens (parks, Mall, Green Line), 2 Blues (river, Blue Line), Black, Red, Yellow and Orange.
OH MY GOD! I <3 <3 <3 this more than that time I met Bieber.
Dear fans of DC Metro maps: Here’s how they make them. Wow. Awesome.
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