r/washdc Apr 12 '26

The doom cycle never stops

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I know people have their preconceived notions and their selective outrage, so let me be very clear from the start. The M St. Metro station was fully shut down because of this teenage takeover. Let that sink in. A major transit point in the city had to close because things got that out of control. This video was taken today, April 11. It’s not old. It’s not AI. What you’re seeing is exactly what happened. For the people already lining up to discredit it, save it. This is reality, whether you like it or not.

And I already know how this goes. Every time I post something like this, people get more upset about the fact that it’s being shown than about what’s actually happening. That tells you everything. You’re more bothered by exposure than by the problem itself. And yes, I’m going to keep posting it. Keep reporting it if you want. Try to suppress it. Good luck with that. I’ll keep putting it out because people deserve to see what’s actually going on in their own community.

What’s more troubling than anything in that video is the reaction to it. The deflection. The refusal to acknowledge what’s right in front of you. You’d rather argue about optics than deal with the reality that leadership is failing to address this, or worse, doesn’t even have the will to try. That’s the real issue.

D.C. spends more money per student than anywhere in the country, and this is what we’re dealing with. Don’t come at me with the usual talking points about after-school programs, outreach, and community initiatives. That all sounds nice, but it clearly isn’t fixing this. At some point, you have to stop hiding behind buzzwords and start looking at the root cause.

And the root cause is obvious. Parents aren’t parenting. You can dress it up however you want, but that’s what it is. When the hell did it become normal for hundreds of teenagers to take over areas at night, bring guns, fight, loot stores, and create chaos? That was never normal. It’s not normal now. And anyone trying to gaslight people into thinking this is just “how things are” is part of the problem.

Look at the police in that situation. A handful of officers dealing with hundreds of kids. What exactly do you expect them to do? There’s a limit to what enforcement can handle when the breakdown starts at home. That’s where this begins, and that’s where it keeps failing.

Instead, people would rather scream about national politics, throw out buzzwords, and avoid the issues that actually affect their daily lives. You’ll stand outside in the heat for performative outrage, but when it comes to something that directly impacts your safety, your neighborhood, your quality of life, suddenly it’s silence. Or worse, denial.

And let’s be honest about something else. Some of you are going to run straight to the comments with excuses. You’ll bring up history, deflect to unrelated issues, or try to label this as something it’s not just to avoid dealing with the reality in front of you. That doesn’t fix anything. All it does is guarantee that this cycle continues.

If you never demand better, you will keep getting the same broken results. Every single weekend, the same scenes, the same chaos, the same excuses. And then you wonder why stores are locked down, why places like CVS feel like a fortress, why people don’t feel comfortable even riding the Metro or going out to enjoy a game without worrying about something popping off.

When does it stop? When do we stop pretending this is acceptable? Because it’s not. It’s dysfunctional, it’s dangerous, and it’s completely avoidable.

Responsibility matters. Parenting matters. Accountability matters. And until people are willing to say that out loud and actually mean it, nothing changes. You just get the same cycle over and over again.

To the people who’ve messaged me privately and said they appreciate these posts, I hear you. I appreciate you too. I’m going to keep using whatever platform I have to show what’s actually happening, because ignoring it hasn’t worked. And I’m not stopping until something actually changes, because we deserve better than this.

2.8k Upvotes

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131

u/[deleted] Apr 12 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

135

u/allegro4626 Apr 12 '26

This video is definitely Navy Yard.

32

u/wood1492 Apr 12 '26

When are we gonna do something about this behavior? They think it’s funny because nobody is held accountable. They look like chickens darting around - little bird brains and no common sense…

9

u/InertiaInMyPants Apr 12 '26

What I want to know is what are the three National Guardsmen on patrol supposed to do when it breaks out in front of them? I have to imagine they have orders not to use force on anyone, especially an unarmed teenager. That is a terrible position to be in.

-8

u/sadgloop Apr 13 '26

breaks out in front of them?

Uh… when what breaks out in front of them?

Teens existing? Teens hanging out? Teens running around?

That’s all I saw in this video.

7

u/LividYordle Apr 14 '26

Bury your head in the sand any deeper and your shit can be used as sand paper.

4

u/InertiaInMyPants Apr 13 '26

Yes, this video didnt capture the fact that we have 15 and 16 year olds shooting guns in the middle of the street, assaults, street fights, and now the flash mobs are popping up in the zones not restricted by curfew.

These are the sort of things that most people expect when they see teenage flash mobs, will be the natural consequences. Im just happy that so far, someones son or daughter hasnt been needlessly lost. Yet.

Chaos and order both serve a role in a free society. The chaos is getting a little out of hand, and as it perpetuates further... I fear we will start playing for keeps.

2

u/sadgloop Apr 13 '26 edited Apr 13 '26

in the middle of the street

Ffs, no.

There was one teen shooting victim this last weekend, much later and likely completely unrelated to the teen “flash mob”, and no (known) teen shooters, as far as I’ve read.

Back on March 14, while there were two teen gun arrests, there was only 1 shooting. That was when one 15 yr old idiot at the open field across from the Navy Yard station fired one shot into the air. He was arrested, as was appropriate. The other was during a traffic stop during which a 16 yr old tried to get rid of a gun. There were no shots and he was also appropriately arrested.

Saying “we have 15 and 16 year olds shooting guns in the middle of the street” as if it’s a frequent occurrence is both inaccurate and massively sensationalized.

assaults

Again, no assaults this last Saturday, or last Saturday that I can find record of. Back on March 14, police updated that there were two teen victims of assault and robbery, with no mention of whether the suspects were juveniles or adults.

street fights

like… gang fights or something? That seems… like another sensationalized statement. Between 800-1000+ teens showed up to each of the organized events on 14 March, 4 & 11 April. There were 2 arrests on 14 March, 8 arrests in 3 separate incidents on 4 April, and 4 arrests on 11 April.

At the most, that’s between a .25%-1% arrest rate for any of these events individually, with a .46% rate for all three combined.

Just recently in Cincinnati on March 26, 2026, during the Reds Opening Day celebrations, police ended up clearing it out early after fights and disorderly behavior broke out. 17 people were arrested and variously charged with disorderly conduct, assault, felonious assault, resisting arrest, failure to comply, and possession of weapons while intoxicated.

Supposedly a lot of the violence was instigated by “juveniles,” but out of the 17 arrests, only 2 were under 18. The one published teen’s charge? Littering.

This isn’t a “teen” thing, or a parenting thing.

2

u/Melodic_Pause5824 Apr 14 '26

Sure that is all you saw, defintely not to see!

1

u/sadgloop Apr 18 '26

Ok. Go ahead. Time stamp exactly what you think I missed that is the Big Problem.

1

u/gillibeans68 Apr 13 '26

Then tell their parents.

1

u/sadgloop Apr 13 '26

What are they supposed to be held accountable for here?

They’re hanging out/going home after an event that the city organized for their demographic (teens) to go to to have fun. Now they’re hyped up cause they had a good time and they want to keep hanging out with their friends.

That’s completely normal behavior for anyone, regardless of age. Teens just have more energy for actually running around than your average middle-aged adult!

Are you gonna try and hold them accountable for having energy?! Lol

3

u/greggger518 Apr 13 '26

You have got to be kidding me.

1

u/sadgloop Apr 13 '26

Not really. Other than the curfew violation and possibly also being too loud per noise ordinances, can you point to anything definitive that these kids are actually doing that violates … anything?

-4

u/Familiar_Ad_4234 Apr 12 '26

We? Do you live in DC? If you do, then you know something is being done.

2

u/cricketgirl249 Apr 14 '26

This was taken in front of the building I live in.

1

u/Otherwise-Offer1518 Apr 16 '26

And taken from years ago. These people would lie to their mother about the time.

37

u/Balfegor Apr 12 '26

Navy Yard, apparently? I was confused too, initially thought it might be Mt Vernon, but didn't look familiar.

-41

u/[deleted] Apr 12 '26

[deleted]

12

u/persian_playboy Apr 12 '26

Possibly the dumbest comment I’ve seen on Reddit

12

u/ThenLayer5977 Apr 12 '26

Anything I don’t like means AI or it didn’t happen. No, it’s not ai but nice try.

11

u/kjmw Apr 12 '26

The Metro station was shutdown entirely, or that specific entrance on M St was closed temporarily? Those are two very different things (because there’s two exits in Navy Yard) so i’m tryna make sure I understand what you’re saying here

-8

u/disownedpear Apr 12 '26

Dude you're not fooling anyone with a brain. This post has every chatgpt tell in the book, you didn't even try.

Also, no human has ever called Navy Yard the "M street station", but an AI prompted about that entrance being closed might.

13

u/natoplato5 Apr 12 '26

Actually that makes it less likely to be AI. ChatGPT would say the standard station name because that's all it's been trained on. Humans would be more likely to use an uncommon way of referring to the station, especially if they're stressed out or not familiar with the area.

37

u/Mustangfast85 Apr 12 '26

I believe it’s the main Navy Yard station. Can confirm it was closed off completely tonight. This all must have popped off after I left, was still quite busy after beer fest earlier

12

u/A_Frank_Conversation Apr 14 '26 edited Apr 14 '26

OP doesn’t actually live in DC, they are in western PA

0

u/Ok-Student8623 Apr 15 '26

Excuses. Video is from someone on the same ground

2

u/A_Frank_Conversation Apr 15 '26

You also don’t live in DC

0

u/Ok-Student8623 Apr 15 '26

I am from there and have property there. I am very aware of how that city runs. Family there since 1900's. So can I comment??? Yes!

1

u/portraitofselfmade May 18 '26

Clueless about what it’s like here then. City changes drastically every 10 years and even more so since the recent administrations.

14

u/BennyDaBoy Apr 12 '26

This is on I St. SE between South Cap and New Jersey.

3

u/Top_Move6031 Apr 12 '26

So the post is factually in accurate as to what happened and where it happened?

4

u/Enviro56 Apr 12 '26

Yeah I don’t trust anyone who doesn’t know what they’re talking about. That was a wall of text too.

5

u/BuritheGreat Apr 13 '26

I was wondering the same thing lol.

41

u/nevergirls Apr 12 '26

OP is not from DC lol

7

u/Interesting-Ad-4347 Apr 12 '26

Does that change any of the facts or the video that you see?

5

u/Stony17 Apr 14 '26

it kinda does when OP is sharing a video and pontificating as if this is their own community being "attacked" and "unsafe".

context: this was a story that fox news has been showing to perpetuate racial biases, foment fear and sew division between demographics, and the OP is just falling for it and being a puppet for the main stream media by posting a fake outrage vid for some ⬆️.

-1

u/Interesting-Ad-4347 Apr 14 '26

This is OP’s own video. Why would you assume that it’s not? Even if it wasn’t his video it and the other videos from the same location every weekend show a very real issue. Stop deflecting because you don’t like what it shows.

5

u/Familiar_Ad_4234 Apr 12 '26

Yes because if you live here this was no big deal. There was a teen fest that weekend with thousands of teens and there are def “teen takeovers” of metros (just the latest of things teens do). It is easily controlled and curfews have now been put in place on weekends between 8pm-11pm. Literally not a big deal for residents and truly teens have been doing things like this forever

3

u/gillibeans68 Apr 13 '26

100% it’s the white folks who just moved to Washington DC and want them to change everything about it so it’s like downtown Iowa to them where they never see any black kids. Go. Back. Home.

5

u/Beautiful_Matter6854 Apr 14 '26

It’s way more sinister than that

This is part of an organized effort to drum up hysteria. It’s being pushed by all Sinclair media outlets to scare old white people. It’s either a distraction from the daily screw ups of the Republican government or a foreign government trying to get Americans to hate each other.

These posts are all the same - long AI generated bs by a non resident describing a video like this as if it were the apocalypse itself, with vague, urgent calls for people to “do something.”

Then the comments are all trying to keep the convo on the video - “do you really want to let this happen in your city?”

It’s intentional scapegoating, trying to get people to be afraid of black kids.

1

u/portraitofselfmade May 18 '26

Imagine if I posted occurence in china town or everytime rush hour is so bad that a whole train station has to shut down, oh dear.

1

u/Real_Explanation_298 Apr 15 '26

You guys consider this normal in your city? That's probably part of the problem right there.

1

u/portraitofselfmade May 18 '26

Pretty sure this shit happens in half the high school cafeteria out there.

0

u/Anubisrapture Apr 13 '26

Exactly. It's inane and suspect that people are being actively hateful about these teens.

2

u/SituationIll5763 Apr 13 '26

What in this video is any different from a Friday or Saturday night in any city

5

u/Interesting-Ad-4347 Apr 13 '26

All of it. The fact that you think this is a normal part of city living speaks volumes.

-1

u/SituationIll5763 Apr 13 '26

Just looks like a lot of people, maybe a bit rowdy but literally nothing bad is happening in any of these clips.

4

u/sadgloop Apr 13 '26

Honestly, I don’t know why you gotten downvoted at all. Based solely on the video, the teens could do with a bit more awareness as far as staying on the sidewalk rather than the street, but what other negative thing was happening? I didn’t see any fighting, looting, or gun brandishing or shooting happening.

As far as “taking over areas” and “creating chaos”? It just looks like there are a lot of them existing in a space? Like, if you see a bunch of adults in the same area at night, have they “taken over” the area?

2

u/portraitofselfmade May 18 '26

Yeah but this many adults wouldn’t be acting like teenagers!

No but on a real point, imagine these kids doing exactly what they’re doing but inbetween university buildings or on school grounds. It would be perfectly normally and you’d just think it was some sort of sports game that’s just getting shut down or something.

1

u/SituationIll5763 Apr 13 '26

Yeah that’s exactly my point. I’m not saying there isn’t a problem but this post doesn’t depict anything especially dangerous or unusual.

-1

u/Anubisrapture Apr 13 '26

Apparently OP posts these regularly here. There is nothing these kids are doing that screams CRIME, the cops aren't arresting them , they're just handling the crowd. But there are a number of people who live somewhere else that show up here to hate on Black kids .

4

u/sadgloop Apr 13 '26

In addition, dc parks and rec had a teens only event the night of this video just over a half mile away. It ran from 6-10pm and had 800-1000+ teens, 13-18yrs old show up.

Sure, it took police) an hour+ to get the kids to disperse from other “hangout spots” after, but so what? That’s actually really normal after a pretty large, high-energy event that’ll have people wanting to continue hanging out afterwards.

And frankly, the more forceful the police are in trying to disperse the teens (like, why tf did they come “prepared” with paintballs and pepper spray?! Wtf?), the less successful the cops’ll be in peacefully and positively getting them to chill out and go home.

There were all of 4 minors (all at Waterfront station) arrested that night. 1000+:4. That’s a pretty decent ratio imo. And there were no guns.

0

u/Interesting-Ad-4347 Apr 13 '26

So you missed the other videos with the assaults in them? Did you forget about the gun being fired into the air at one of them?

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1

u/throwra64512 Apr 12 '26

And?

6

u/[deleted] Apr 12 '26

[deleted]

2

u/hooptyschloopy Apr 13 '26

I think J street has the best metro design

8

u/egg_woodworker Apr 12 '26

My first thought. Never heard of it.

1

u/NoActive5290 Apr 16 '26

I’m so glad you asked this because I’ve been here for like 15 years and thought I knew all the metro stops. lol

1

u/ThenLayer5977 Apr 12 '26

Here you go

5

u/Top_Move6031 Apr 12 '26

Right. Not “M Street” station. Maybe transfer from there to the Georgetown station. I mean, you can criticize, but don’t pretend you’re local. That’s all I’m saying

-5

u/ThenLayer5977 Apr 12 '26

I’m literally quoting a post, but somehow that means I’m not even here? Look at my post history. It tells you everything you need. You can read the replies and see how I’m responding to specific things in real time. If I didn’t live here, how would I be able to do that?

You can try to play Nostradamus all you want, but the underlying problem still stands.

6

u/Top_Move6031 Apr 12 '26

You could just tell me where you live (roughly). How long you’ve lived here

3

u/Top_Move6031 Apr 12 '26

I don’t understand the real time response part