Noise device irks young ears, disperses loiterers

By Theresa Vargas

WASHINGTON

Business owners in Gallery Place, one of Washington's busiest retail and entertainment strips, met with District officials a few weeks ago to voice their concern that loitering teenagers who sometimes get into fights are costing them customers. The result of that session premiered last week: a device that emits a high-pitched, headache-inducing sound that only young ears can hear.

The Mosquito, as the $1,000 device is called, hangs outside the Chinatown entrance to the Gallery Place Metro station, annoying its intended targets and then some. The young and a few not-so-young could hear the piercing, constant beeeeep, beeeeep, beeeeep.

"I can definitely hear it very loudly," 19-year-old Brooke Sawinski said. "It's pretty blasting."

Beeeeep, beeeeep, beeeeep.

"I'm about to leave because it's annoying," said her friend, Cassie Boiselair, 20.

Gallery Place has become a popular hangout spot for teenagers in recent years and was the site of a brawl last month that spilled into the Metro system and left several passengers injured, ending with the arrests of three teenagers.

It was around that time that business owners arranged to meet with a staff member of D.C. Council member Jack Evans. About a dozen people gathered, including representatives of the city's police department, transportation department and Metro.

"There was a general concern of lawlessness on the streets," said Evans, who represents the East End business area. "I am concerned anytime residents and businesses complain to us about feeling unsafe."

Evans did not attend the meeting and said the device was purchased by Herbert Miller, founder of Western Development, which built Gallery Place. Miller did not return calls for comment.

"Our role - I want to stress this - was convening a meeting," Evans said. "We had absolutely nothing to do with this Mosquito."

Mike Gibson, president of Moving Sound Technologies, which distributes the Mosquito, said the device emits a tone set at 17.5 kilohertz, the high end of the hearing range for 13- to 25-year-olds. "The bottom line is that the Mosquito is installed where 13- to 25-year-olds aren't supposed to be," Gibson said. "Adults just walk through the sound."

The device, he said, is sold mainly to schools, which activate the sound at night to ward off vandals, and to skateboard parks, tennis courts and playgrounds.

"It drives kids crazy," said Don Hemingway, vice president for business development at Miracle Recreation Equipment, a Missouri company that uses the Mosquito as part of a larger security device sold to playground owners. "It's pretty cool stuff. It gets in your head and it's just annoying, and you just want to get the heck out of there."

At Gallery Place, some passersby traced the noise to the device mounted on the building's exterior - a small, white box too high to reach - but most continued, unbothered. Henry Ralls, 40, leaned against the wall a few feet away, hearing nothing but the music of Bone Thugs-N-Harmony coming from a player in his hands.

"I think it's a good thing," he said. "All the youngsters do is fight. The police be trying, but they can't stop it."

Maurice Arnold, 19, and Dwayne Cooper, 19, said they could barely hear the tone. Just a tiny beep, beep, beep.

Arnold said use of the device was "discrimination against young black teenagers," who make up the majority of the teenage crowd hanging around the block at night. "It's kind of mean, ain't it?" he said. "Even if a child were to complain, they aren't going to take it seriously. They don't see us as having a voice."