Washington Post reports: “Gay and lesbian gangs” add to fights, theft at Verizon Center, Metro mayhem
Life inside his McDonald’s has stabilized, but uprisings occasionally flare up. The gangs come from Anacostia, parts of Maryland, Arlington and Alexandria. There are gay gangs and there are lesbian gangs, he said.
Washington Post reporter Ian Shapira relaying the observations of Spencer Johnson, a security guard at McDonald.s on 7th Street, NW. (Washington Post Story Lab)
Many of the kids on the Portrait Gallery steps are openly gay. In McBride’s group, some say they are into girls, one says she’s bisexual, and McBride is straight. She says sexual preference is not a big deal among her peers…. ”And now it’s like, ‘Oh, that person is gay. Okay. And so is that person and that person.”’ ”Do I look straight to you?” she asks Asia Houser at one point. … At another point in the evening, the girls debate whether they would rather suck on someone’s toes or perform oral sex on a woman.
Washington Post reporter Annys Shin talking to a group of bored teens at the National Portrait Gallery which is next to the Verizon Center on 7th Street. (Washington Post Story Lab)
They steal phones and wallets, he says, and they fight with each other, mostly on the weekend. He knows the crews: the gay kids and the Muslim kids and the hoodrats and the rich kids from the suburbs. ”I’ve seen them fight against each other. ….. All sorts of fights: gay against Muslim, black against white, black against black.”
Washington Post reporter Kevin Sieff talking with Alton Barrett, a street denizen of the Chinatown area of DC. (Washington Post Story Lab)
Coachman spends a lot of time listening. He’s gleaned quite a bit about the scene. He claims some of the worst troublemakers belong to a gay gang called ”Check It.” He says they snatch iPhones and wallets from unsuspecting tourists.
More of Kevin Sieff’s study of 7th Street NW, here talking to Aubrey Coachman, a security guard tasked with watching over the soda fountain at Chipotle. (Washington Post Story Lab)
When the train arrives, a group of six women in baggy shorts and oversized collared polos enter the same car. One starts doing pull-ups on the train’s metal bar…. One of the women, who doesn’t want to be identified but appears to be in her 30s, starts mocking a 58-year-old woman named Carol…. Then the barrage of insults starts. The woman leans over and puts her nose in Carol’s hair. ”You smell like cat piss, you stupid bitch,… It’s because of you that I’m gay…. Don’t hate me because I’m loud and gay,” the woman says.
Kevin Sieff’s final observation of an exchange on a Metro train that involved a drunk African American woman berating another who’s trying to read a book and hoping that the city’s “Guardian Angels” would do something to help her. (Washington Post Story Lab)
The Washington Post says, with these reports, that they set out to observe the Verizon Center area after a huge fight began there last Friday. People involved in that incident reportedly moved the argument to the Metro trains, then they spilled out into the L’Enfant Plaza Station where many dozens of participants engaged in a protracted brawl.
Over the last decade, the Verizon Center area has been developed into a hub of commercial activity for tourists plus suburban and city youth. As noted here, the area marks a convergence of several Metro lines coming from Maryland to the north and east, Virginia to the South, and the Anacostia area of Southeast DC. The reporters’ entries speak of obnoxious behaviour by all types of people, but highlight a number of gay-specific incidents.
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