Here again is another installment of Rockville Central‘s mapped police blotters. This is for the September 8 report, which covers the last half of Labor Day weekend, from the Rockville Police:

Remember, the map may not come through in the email or in newsfeeds, so you will have to come back to the blog to see it!

As always, I will try to keep making these maps as time allows. (It can take some doing sometimes.)

Please note that by posting this information, I am not rendering any opinion about guilt or innocence; this is just police data. Also, as I am an unofficial source, I may make mistakes.

Here again is another installment of Rockville Central‘s mapped police blotters. This is for the last half of August, reports for the 18th and 25th from the Rockville Police:

Remember, the map may not come through in the email or in newsfeeds, so you will have to come back to the blog to see it!

As always, I will try to keep making these maps as time allows.

Please note that by posting this information, I am not rendering any opinion about guilt or innocence; this is just police data. Also, as I am an unofficial source, I may make mistakes.

I am told that Rockville Central readers like our police blotters. So, while it is still a bit time consuming, we are happy to present a new mapped incident report.

Here is the last two reports’ worth worth of crime information (August 4 and August 11, 2008) from the Rockville Police:

Remember, the map may not come through in the email or in newsfeeds, so you will have to come back to the blog to see it!

As always, I will try to keep making these maps as time allows.

Please note that by posting this information, I am not rendering any opinion about guilt or innocence; this is just police data. Also, as I am an unofficial source, I may make mistakes.

Well, if that place is somewhere in D.C. now is the time to write about it because Hitotoki has come to D.C. The editors tell me the deadline for submissions has been extended. Hitotoki is “an online literary project collecting stories of singular experiences tied to locations in cities worldwide.” In other words, a narrative map of the world that lets readers experience cities through peoples’ stories. (Part of each submission is a Google Map place mark.)

Already in Tokyo, London, and New York, the D.C. launch is scheduled for March. Editors are looking for “short narratives (between 200-500 words) describing pivotal moments of elation, confusion, absurdity, love or grief — or anything in between — inseparably tied” to a specific place in D.C.

Hitotoki is a Japanese word that is often translated as “a moment.” Hitotoki, the site, was launched in May 2007 in Tokyo. One of the things I especially like about it is that it’s beautiful (writers love to be published — beautifully published is a very nice bonus.)

Rockville Central friend Brenda Dunham noticed it, too. She writes:

A hot button of mine involves what I think is an error that has been widely propagated. Let’s take this recent entry in the police blotter: 02/06/08: (6:00 p.m. — 10:30 p.m.) Unit block of Mannakee Street, unknown suspect(s) removed a wallet containing U.S. currency, credit cards and a driver’s license from a purse in a college classroom.

I live on Anderson near the intersection of Anderson and Mannakee. I think that the unit block of Mannakee Street is near the intersection of Mannakee and West Montgomery. Mapquest thinks so too. The houses near me on Mannakee have single digit addresses.

However, for years, I have read in the police reports in the Gazette, and now these lovely police blotters, that the unit block of Mannakee is at Montgomery College, at the intersection of Mannakee and Hungerford Drive.

I read about a lot more crime events near the community college than I read about crime events on my end of Mannakee. However, all the community college’s events are placed near me.

I flipped when my insurance agent wanted to raise my rates because I lived in an area with elevated crime, and he cited the police reports. He showed me the reports (they all mentioned the college) and I showed him a map. He didn’t raise my rates, but he had to jump through hoops to stop it.

I wonder how many other people have had adverse effects, and not even noticed, due to this widely propagated error?

An excellent question.

Curious, I hopped in the Rockville Central sled and drove the length of Mannakee. I can only describe what I found as “mind boggling.”

I started by the community college, which has an address of “51 Mannakee Street.” You can follow along with my travels using this handy map:

So, starting out at Montgomery College, you’d think that this part of Mannakee surely would be the “unit block,” that is, the the block where the numbers terminate. But, keep traveling south and suddenly you get to the blue section I have indicated, where the numbers go (from north to south) 590 up to about 610 or so. Normally, traveling south, numbers are going down.

Oh, and here’s a funny thing: the numbers on the same side of the street as Montgomery College are all even — while the address for the school is odd. Odd indeed.

But stay with me. Now we hit the brownish line on my map. Here, the numbers still go up as you drive south, but the block of numbers drops down a hundred, and starts at 500. So you go from 610 to 500, then the next house you see is 502, etc. (note that I can’t quite read my notes so the numbers are approximate — but you get the gist).

It is not until you get to the green line in my map that things get seemingly normal: addresses dropping as you drive south, in an orderly fashion.

That is, until you cross the traffic circle, then the numbers go from the 100′s to the single digits, skipping over double-digits — no doubt, because there is a double-digit address ‘way over at the other end of the street.

So I believe we have identified the culprit here: Montgomery College has a funky address (I hasten to add that it is excellent in all other respects). When police report a crime incident on the “unit block” of Mannakee, when they mean 51 Mannakee, it appears to actually be occurring many blocks away when you map it out, because of the strange quirks of the numbering.

It stands to reason, because it is an area with more coming and going throughout the day than the surrounding neighborhood, and has a high concentration of parked cars, we would see relatively more incidents there than elsewhere (this is not a statement on the security at Montgomery College in any way).

So, I humbly offer this suggestion to Our Fair City’s police department: when recording incidents that occur around Montgomery College, dispense with the typical practice of just naming the block but instead say “51 Mannakee.” That way the silly mapping programs will know where it is and, more important, folks down at the other end of the street won’t worry they are in the middle of a crime wave!

Just a thought.

(Remember, if you are receiving this in the email announcement, the map does not come through and you will have to visit the blog itself.)

Click on the little flag to learn more about each reported incident.

Each week’s police report is a separate map. Click here for a list of all of them.

There’s a van driven by Rockville City Police that goes from spot to spot with a camera, on the prowl for speeders. Arguably, this is a more important function than the red light cameras, as speeding is much more common. I can’t tell you how often I have yelled at vehicles zipping around my residential traffic circle, filled with parents in a rush to pick their elementary school children from Beall, or with students late for a class at Montgomery College.

That said, Rockville Central wants to help you slow down. This is not a list to help you evade detection as you zip through Our Fair City, but a reminder that there are some spots where the temptation to speed is great — and that therefore caution is warranted.

Click on each little purple camera for more information. Click “view larger map” to open up the map in a larger screen. (Remember, this embedded map does not come through in the announcement email or in feed readers; you will need to come to the blog to see it.)

Here’s the list:

• Mt. Vernon Place near Richard Montgomery High
• Nelson Street north of W. Montgomery Ave
• Nelson Street near Madison St
• W. Montgomery E. of I-270
• Rollins Ave near Montrose Woods Park
• Twinbrook Parkway near Meadow Hall Elem.
• Twinbrook Parkway near Carl Sandburg Learning Center
• Baltimore Road east of the Rockville Metro Station
• Baltimore Rd. at Rockville High School (FIXED)
• College Parkway near College Gardens Park
• College Parkway (800-900 blocks)
• First Street near Maryvale Elem
• Gaither Road north of King Farm Blvd
• Redland Bl. in King Farm
• Great Falls Road near Julius West Middle School
• Wootton Pkwy near Wootton High (FIXED)

Be careful out there!

A committee has worked hard to develop a set of ordnances, and a number of information sessions have been held. (The last one was January 10.) Now, it’s time for the City to begin to get public input. The first opportunity to speak up about the RORZOR plan will come on January 23 at 7:00 pm at City Hall in the Mayor and Council chambers (that’s upstairs).

It might be a good idea to begin thinking now of what you might want to say. Rockville Central friend Helen Triolo, who runs the excellent resource Rockville Living (a model for local information sources), has developed an interactive map of Rockville that contains all the proposed zoning areas.

She says the map will get new overlays and content as time goes on (Rockville Living is a veritable potpourri of business and event listings which are just ripe for such a mapped approach). But, for now, it’s a zoning map — exactly what we need.

Thank you for this important resource, Helen.

I urge readers to visit the map, and poke around. Look at the way your favorite Rockville spots are zoned, what they are next to, and the like. Bank that up against the draft zoning ordnance. And, on the 23rd, come with comments!

Click on a pushpin to learn more about each reported incident.

Each week’s police report is a separate map. Click here for a list of all of them.