More Morning News: Murder on U Street

THE BEST PART OF WAKING UP is most definitely not murder. But residents living near the eastern end of the U Street corridor awoke today to exactly that, when, at approximately 6 a.m., six gunshots were fired near the intersection of V and 10th Streets NW. An unidentified man was found injured in the parking lot of the Christian Tabernacle Church of God Day Care Center and was hurried to Howard University Hospital, where he was pronounced dead shortly thereafter, according to a story on washingtonpost.com by The Post's Debbi Wilgoren.

According to The Post, one witness reports hearing four shots. As it happens, everything went down at the corner of the street I live on now and the street I lived on a year ago, and I was able to distinguish six shots and also confirm the same with neighbors. The police are now searching for a silver Nissan or Honda with Virginia plates (JZG5667), but a neighbor and friend living on 10th St. NW spotted a red Honda hatchback driving erratically immediately after the incident. (He's contacted the police with the information.)

My neighbors and I remark often on the diminished police presence on U Street. Three years ago or so, you would usually find a squad car parked outside Garnett Patterson Middle School on weekend nights. But given this incident, the February murder following a parking dispute, and the usual spate of petty crimes and break-ins, it doesn't seem that gentrification alone will secure the neighborhood.