Sunday, September 10, 2006

Armed Robbery in Buckingham

Pershing Drive Popeye’s Robbed at Gunpoint.

It should have been a good day to rip-off the Popeye’s Chicken and Biscuits on Pershing Drive. It was raining Tuesday Sept. 5, and that usually means busy traffic for the restaurant and more cash in the register.


In fact, Popeye’s store manager, Karla Garcia, thinks the man who came into the store and knocked Assistant Manager Salman Ali in the head with a pistol knew this and chose the rainy day for that reason.
As it was, the thief made off with hundreds of dollars, she said, not as much as he might have gotten on another rainy day.

The police arrived, including K-9 units which tracked the man west on Pershing and then down Thomas Street toward Arlington Boulevard when the track disappeared, said Det. Steve Gomez of the Arlington County Police.

“I don’t believe we have any main suspects at this point,” Det. Gomez said, adding later that police take armed robbery very seriously. “They are going to put a lot of effort into it [the investigation].”

Although Mr. Ali was generally OK, Ms. Garcia said he was “in shock” and hadn’t returned to work by Friday. She spoke during her lunch break with two other Popeye’s employees.

“We’re feeling better now,” she said, and the other workers nodded their agreement. Ms. Garcia said everyone in the store just stood back and let the man steal.

“What could we do?” she asked, after all, the man had a gun.

The police describe the suspect as a black male, six feet tall, with short hair and a neatly trimmed beard, last seen wearing a long white shirt, blue jeans, a black jacket, tan work boots, and a blue baseball cap with a “B.”
Det. Gomez said the man was not wearing a mask and the video surveillance camera was running.


“We eventually might put a picture out there,” he said.

Police have been canvassing the neighborhood and they have some leads, he said.

“There are people who met that description,” he said, adding, “Hopefully that will match pictures that we have.”

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Dunkin’ Donuts

The Washington Post on Thursday
covered the new Dunkin’ Donuts campaign to win the coffee wars against Starbucks. If the Post reported accurately, Dunkin’ Donuts plans to expand into the Baltimore-Washington area with more than 300 stores!
That story provoked this:

Ode to the donut shoppe
(for Gary Shiffman)

I dare not hope
But do I see
A Dunkin’ Donuts
Set upon Glebe?
Where once there were some donuts found
Alas there is a Subway now.
RinConCito Chapin
Has not brewed decaf. And if
I set off on a long trip
With fried plantains I shouldn’t bother
To hold them in one hand, the wheel the other.
A donut glazed
Or toasted bagel
Decaf with these, I would finagle
To steer with knees.

Ravi Kabob, KFC,
Ol’ El Paso and the Pines of Italy
Provide fine food this is true
But for breakfast? They won’t do.
I’ve rested hope
Upon Dunkin’s Jacquelyn
Who tells me she will know
Where all the shiny stores will go.
She gave the dope, no stores are planned
For Arlington
As yet.

And therein lies my hope for the ‘hood
That if they’d look they just could
Find room to land
Some place to settle
Where I could walk
Not drive or pedal
To grab coffee and donuts in Buckingham.

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Movie in the Woods

I brought my daughter to Long Branch Nature Center Friday to see “
Being Carribou.” I’d never gone to any programs at their amphitheatre, and it was very pleasant. They have bricked terraces hemmed in with landscaping timbers, and about 30 of us fit in pretty nicely. Note if you go: bring your own lawn chairs, otherwise it’s wooden benches for you. The crickets chirped from under dead leaves and the cicadas buzzed loudly from the treetops (one buzzed particularly loudly due to its unfortunate seat in the beak of a bird).

The documentary was quite interesting as the husband and wife team of
Leanne Allison and Karsten Heuer follow huge heards of caribou from the Yukon to the northern Alaskan coast. Mind you they do this wearing 60 to 80 pound packs, and they’re cross-country skiing. They stay on the tundra from mid-spring to late summer. Plus, they’re newly weds who don’t kill/eat one another by the end of the film. No small feat.

The best part for you greenies out there is that they (and of course the reindeer) end up in the oil-rich Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge to show how beautiful it really is and to speak of the effects drilling would have on the herd. Also, they bring along a President Bush doll to show him what it’s really like up there. Sweet.

My daughter is six, but she made it through, past her bedtime, and was intrigued by much or all of it. A few scenes might not be for all viewers—hunting, animal attacks, etc.

There’s another movie in the woods this October. Look for it on the
county’s calendar (I’d do it for you, but the web site isn’t responding for me right now).

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Department of Corrections:

Nick Penning, in his column this week in the Arlington Connection, said that the residents of Buckingham Village were trying to have BV added to the National Register of Historic Places. That’s not actually the historic designation they’re looking for, however. They want to be labeled historic by the county and fall under the auspices of the Historical Affairs and Landmark Review Board. This county board has teeth and would have the power to stop most changes to the apartment complex.

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