More than 500 Dominion customers are without power at this hour due to a reported equipment problem.
As of 11:55 p.m., 541 Dominion customers were in the dark. The outage is centered around the High View Park neighborhood, along the Lee Highway corridor.
At the outage’s peak, more than 1,000 Dominion customers lost their electricity.
The power company says it hopes to have the problem fixed and power restored by 2 a.m.
(Updated at 5:10 p.m.) Arlington County Police and the county fire marshal are investigating the death of a woman in the High View Park neighborhood.
The 69-year-old woman’s son found her dead from in the kitchen of her home on 18th Street N., near Virginia Hospital Center, said Arlington County Police spokeswoman Ashley Savage. Three people, including the woman and her son, live in the home, she said.
Authorities were initially investigating a report of an explosion in the kitchen, according to scanner traffic. An explosion has since been ruled out, Savage said, but there was some sort of a fire inside the home.
The stove burners were on when the woman was first found but police have not determined whether she died from an accident, from natural causes or otherwise, Savage said. At this time foul play is not suspected, she added, nor is there believed to be any sort of gas leak in the area.
“There’s no threat to the public,” said Savage, “but this is an active investigation.”
A fire truck was dispatched to the home to assist with ventilation, Savage confirmed. The street has been closed to traffic by police, though neighbors are being allowed to walk to their homes.
Property records show that the couple who owns the home has owned it for at least 23 years.
School Board Candidates Sound Off — The two candidates for the Democratic endorsement for Arlington School Board, Reid Goldstein and Sharon Dorsey, formally announced their candidacies last week, making the case to fellow Democrats for why they should be on the board. The Democratic School Board caucuses will be held in May. [InsideNova]
Arlington Explains Salt Shortage — Updated at 1:15 p.m. — Arlington County officials are explaining last week’s road salt shortage. County officials say a 4,000 ton order for salt placed by the county on Jan. 19 was never filled, due to high demand for salt among eastern seaboard states that have been buried by heavy snowfall this winter. The county was expecting a 2,000 ton salt delivery from Pittsburgh Friday evening. An Arlington official explained the shortage but did not apologize for it, as earlier reported, according to a county spokeswoman. [WTOP]
100 Montaditos Files for Bankruptcy — The company that owns 100 Montaditos, the Spanish mini-sandwich restaurant in Rosslyn, has filed for bankruptcy. No word yet on whether the restaurant or its other chain locations, in Florida, will remain open. [Miami Herald]
Barbershop Owner Profiled — Jim Moore, the owner of Moore’s Barber Shop on Lee Highway in the High View Park neighborhood, is profiled in an article that also chronicles the shop’s 55 year history. [Arlington Connection]
A D.C. man is wanted for a shooting in Arlington’s High View Park neighborhood.
Police say 23-year-old Jeffrey Gaskins showed up to his ex-girlfriend’s house on the 1900 block of N. Culpeper Street around 9:35 p.m. this past Sunday. He tried to kick in the front door, police said, and when that didn’t work he went to the back of the home, took out a gun and allegedly fired four shots at the house.
The ex-girlfriend, her two young children and an adult male were inside the home at the time but were uninjured. The man fled the scene after firing the shots and remains at large, according to a crime report.
“Warrants for four counts of attempted malicious shooting, shooting into an occupied dwelling, attempted burglary with the intent to commit murder, use of a firearm in commission of a felony and misdemeanor assault were issued” for Gaskins, police said.
Update on 8/8/12 — ACPD has confirmed that they’re investigating the deaths as a double homicide.
(Updated at 2:55 p.m.) Police are investigating another possible homicide, this time in the Hall’s Hill/High View Park neighborhood.
A maintenance worker found two men dead in the living room of an apartment on the 1900 block of N. Culpeper Street, after a family member had called because they hadn’t seen the resident for awhile, according to Arlington County Police spokesman Dustin Sternbeck. A television was on in the apartment and blood could be seen, but no weapon was found, Sternbeck said.
Detectives are investigating the incident as a possible homicide or double homicide, though so far police are only officially saying the deaths are “suspicious.” The deceased men have been identified by police as Keefe Spriggs, 59, of Arlington, and Carl Moten, 31, of no fixed address.
The men are acquaintances and the apartment belongs to Spriggs, Sternbeck said. Asked whether a killer is still on the loose, Sternbeck was vague.
“We do believe it’s an isolated incident,” he said. “We are very early in this investigation. The detectives that are working the case will be processing the scene, interviewing all the neighbors [and] last known contacts of these individuals.”
Several people, including a woman believed to be Spriggs’ sister, have already been interviewed by detectives on the scene.
This could be the third homicide in Arlington in as many weeks. On July 24, a woman was killed in a murder-suicide near Fairlington. On July 27, a jewelry store owner was killed during an armed robbery on Columbia Pike. A 53-year-old D.C. man was charged with murder last week for the latter crime.
Prior to July, there had not been a homicide in Arlington since March 14, 2010.
(Updated at 2:30 p.m.) Arlington County will renovate High View Park and will make improvements to eight other parks following County Board approval of the projects over the weekend.
The work planned for High View Park (1945 N. Dinwiddie Street) includes renovating the worn-out playground and picnic areas and improving access to those with disabilities. The $628,082 project will add a large kid’s play structure with swings, a boulder and a climbing wall, as well as a sand play area with swings, a water spigot and a play structure for younger children.
Another $83,637 will be used for the following projects:
- Landscaping at the I-395 ramp/Arlington Ridge Road intersection
- Invasive plant removal at Zachary Taylor Park
- Improvements to the entrance to the Shirlington Community Canine Area
- Invasive plant removal at the Bluemont Park Trail entrance and a park information kiosk
- New benches and picnic tables at the old Westover Library site
- Discovery play area at Long Branch Nature Center, plus invasive plant removal
- Bike rack, two benches, recycling can, two bat houses and educational signage at Prospect Hill Park
- Spanish translation of Buckingham Village history sign at Henry Wright Park
- Adding boulders near the Fort Scott Park parking lot
The rabbit population is on the rise in Arlington.
A resident of the High View Park neighborhood, just north of Virginia Hospital Center, tells us that neighbors have been buzzing with talk of a bunny boom.
“I’ve noticed something odd in Arlington this summer and the more I talk to other residents the more aware I become that this is happening all over the county (at least north Arlington, anyway). Namely, there has been an explosion in the rabbit population this year,” he writes. “I’m used to bunny sightings being a very rare thing, but this year I keep seeing them on a regular basis. I’m spotting rabbits more frequently than I have spotted squirrels.”
Those observations are backed up by Arlington County Parks spokesman Nathan Spillman, who confirms that naturalists have observed a rapidly increasing rabbit population.
“It is indeed a boom year for rabbits in the county,” Spillman said, “Rabbit populations here are cyclical and about every seven or eight years you see a large spike in the population followed by a relatively steep (and quick) decrease as the boom attracts predators like foxes and hawks which bring the population down… It’s likely the decline will start to become noticeable as early as this November,”
According to a just-released inventory of wildlife in Arlington, the rabbit population in Arlington (made up mostly of Eastern Cottontails, pictured) typically moves in cycles with the population of its primary predator, the fox. That’s consistent with anecdotal evidence cited by Sean, our tipstser.
“[A relative] who lives near Marymount University mentioned that she has seen dead foxes on the road numerous times and speculated that the loss of these predators might have resulted in the rabbit increase,” Sean wrote. “That seems to tie in with this article about the loss of predators in general.”
The population boom may not be limited to Arlington. Earlier this month, a Washington City Paper article declared that “bunnies are everywhere” in parts of Montgomery County and Northwest D.C.
“The manicured lawns of Chevy Chase are covered with rabbit families munching away on annuals and woody plants in the early morning,” a member of a neighborhood listserv is quoted as writing. “Early runs in various neighborhoods sometime remind me of Watership Down or the ‘tribbles’ in one of those Star Trek episodes.”
Photo via Wikipedia
