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saturday, april 3, 2010

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57, 9 a.m. 71, noon 78, 5 p.m. 69, 9 p.m.

Obituaries John Forsythe, 92, was one of the lead actors in “Dynasty” and a starring voice in “Charlie’s Angels.” B4

Blossoms are fading

This weekend might be your last, best chance to see the cherry blossoms this year. Find everything you need at

washingtonpost.com/local.

VISIONS OF FAITH

Good Friday images

See Katherine Frey’s photos of a Way of the Cross procession in Takoma Park and Silver Spring that reenacted the suffering of Jesus.

B2, washingtonpost.com/photo

THE DISTRICT

Shelter operator fired

Families Forward will no longer run the crowded facility amid sexual allegations, and police are considering bringing criminal charges against two former employees. B3

Murder suspect no stranger to juvenile court

14-YEAR-OLD’S 1ST ARREST AT 9

He can’t be charged as adult in D.C. shootings

by Keith L. Alexander and Henri E. Cauvin

PHOTOS BY TRACY A. WOODWARD/THE WASHINGTON POST

Ryan Salcetti, left, Colin MacCarthy, Ryan Mooney and Omar Haleem are employed at Potomac Pizza in Chevy Chase. “They talk on the phone to their friends outside” is one of Haleem’s complaints about some workers. For a poll and photo gallery, visit washingtonpost.com/local.

Working hard, or hardly working?

Study casts doubt on millennials’ effort, but they say it’s not all about a 9-to-5 life

by Ian Shapira

J

ared Rogalia, 25, a Hertz rental car man- ager-trainee in Alexandria, is as cranky as someone twice his age when he complains about his generation’s work ethic. Here’s how Rogalia characterizes his age group:

“The first is, really spoiled and lazy. The sec- ond is, we’re free-spirited. And the third is, they’d rather be poorer and have free time than have a lot of money.” The millennial generation — about 50 mil- lion people between ages 18 and 29 — is the only age group in the nation that doesn’t cite work ethic as one of its “principal claims to distinctiveness,” according to a new Pew Re- search Center study, “Millennials: Confident. Connected. Open to Change.” The Washing- ton-based nonprofit group found that young adults and their elders agree: Baby boomers and Generation Xers have better work ethics and moral values than those in their 20s. In a survey of about 1,200 people of all ages, millennials chose other traits to define them- selves: 24 percent said “technology use,” 11 per- cent went with “music/pop culture,” 7 percent chose “liberal/tolerant” and 6 percent said “smarter.” Only 5 percent noted their genera- tion’s “work ethic” — the same portion as who chose “clothes.” Among older generations, at least twice as

many people cited work ethic as a badge of their age group’s identity: 17 percent of boom- ers, 11 percent of Gen Xers and 10 percent of those 65 and older. The older three genera- tions also take pride in their strong values or morals and in being “respectful,” terms that hardly any millennials in the survey used. “Millennials may be a self-confident genera-

tion,” the study concluded, “but they display little appetite for claims of moral superiority.” Some young adults — much like Generation

Xers who found themselves labeled as slackers in the 1990s— believe such generalizations are nonsense. Maya Enista, 26, chief executive at Mobi- lize.org, a District-based advocacy group for

on washingtonpost.com/onfaith

‘Hell is not hot’

Video: Newsweek religion editor Lisa Miller, author of the new book “Heaven,” talks to On Faith’s Sally Quinn about why fewer people today believe in eternal punishment.

The 14-year-old suspect who police said drove the minivan during Tuesday night’s mass shooting in Southeast Washing- ton was first arrested when he was 9 for simple assault, accord- ing to law enforcement officials and court records. The teen, slightly built and wearing a hooded jacket and shoulder-length dreadlocks, stood in shackles before a D.C. Su- perior Court judge Wednesday charged as a juvenile with first- degree murder in one of the Dis- trict’s deadliest outbreaks of vio- lence in years. The shootings left four people dead and five others wounded.

Also charged in the shooting

were two District men, Orlando Carter, 20, and Nathaniel Simms, 26. Police were looking for a fourth suspect Friday. The teen is no stranger to juve-

nile court. Since age 9, he’s been charged with nine offenses, in- cluding multiple assault charges —once on a police officer — theft, riding in a stolen car and failure to appear in court. The teen also walked away from a medium- security residential facility twice — most recently just days before his arrest Tuesday. Reggie Sanders, a spokesman for the District’s Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services, said he could not comment on the agency’s involvement with any ju- venile because of confidentiality rules.

Although it is not unusual for juveniles accused of serious crimes in the District to be pros- ecuted as adults, that won’t hap- pen in this case, authorities said. Under D.C. law, a juvenile

younger than 15 cannot be treated as an adult in the courts, what- ever the alleged offense. If the teen is found culpable for

murder, a family court judge can- not order confinement. A respon- dent can be placed on probation or committed to the custody of the DYRS. Under D.C. law, the de- partment decides whether a juve- nile offender should be held in a detention facility and for how long, a source of frustration for many judges.

shooting continued on B3

D.C. schools face funding squeeze

Under Fenty’s plan, per-pupil boost goes to citywide programs

by Bill Turque

Mayor Adrian M. Fenty’s edu-

Pedro Cuc, left, and Andy Harris, right, take orders at Potomac Pizza in Chevy Chase. Omar Haleem, center, 22 and an assistant manager, said he values his employees’ work but is often put in the awkward position of haranguing colleagues his own age when they’re slacking off.

young adults, said the term “work ethic” is misleading. “It’s not about being at a desk from 9 to 5. I work part of every hour I am awake.” Enista said her fellow 20-somethings’ constant connection to technology keeps them at least as tethered to their jobs as older work- ers are. “It’s a given that we work hard, because the reality is that millennials are the most edu- cated and most in debt.”

But other young people in the Washington area — and their older managers — can be their generation’s harshest critics. At Potomac Pizza in Chevy Chase, Omar Haleem, 22, an as- sistant manager, said he likes being with his colleagues but is often put in the awkward po- sition of haranguing those who are his own age.

“I have to call out their faults and make it real obvious that they’re not doing their job,”

he said. “If they’re standing there watching TV, I say, ‘Okay . . . you don’t want to work as many shifts?’ They leave food on the line that’s ready to be delivered to tables or put in bags. They’ll order food in the middle of a dinner rush and enjoy their slice and not answer phones, which is really annoying. And they talk on the phone to their friends outside.” Rea Pyle, 34, Potomac Pizza’s owner, said

many younger workers do not accept that it takes long, concerted effort to build a career. “They’ve been blessed with parents and grand- parents laying the foundation to give them a better life,” he said. “But that hunger is not really in them. But the desire for success is. They want to make money” but don’t want to put in the required hours or effort, he added.

work ethic continued on B6

cation spending plan for 2011 would increase per-student fund- ing for citywide programs but freeze a key stream of money that goes directly to schools, sharply squeezing their programs, ac- cording to documents submitted to the D.C. Council. When he unveiled his budget

Thursday, Fenty (D) highlighted a proposed $175 per-student in- crease in funding for the 75,000 students in the city’s regular and charter schools, to $8,945. The money would support programs such as special education, food service and early-childhood ini- tiatives.

But for individual schools, the

budget picture is more severe. Direct funding to the District’s 123 public schools under Fenty’s plan would remain at the current $614.3million in the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1. That means

schools would face funding shortages because of annual cost increases, most of them involving salaries and benefits for teachers and administrators. The average cost of a teacher, in salary and benefits, will rise to $84,026 next year from $81,815. The average principal will cost $138,710, up from $134,019. The fiscal flat line poses chal-

lenges for schools seeking to maintain staff and programs. For Woodrow Wilson High School in Tenleytown, for example, keeping all of its faculty and administra- tive staff next year would exceed its budget by more than $700,000, even though its enroll- ment of 1,500 students is project- ed to remain nearly constant. As a result of the shortage, the school is expected to lose 10 teaching and staff positions. “The larger the school, the big-

ger the impact of the salary in- creases,” said Cathy Reilly, direc- tor of Senior High Alliance of Par- ents, Principals and Educators (SHAPPE). The D.C. Council will review

and act on Fenty’s budget this spring.

schools continued on B6

One homeless man held in another’s death

Pr. George’s slaying

may be linked to threat by victim, police say

by Matt Zapotosky and Ruben Castaneda

“Belief in heaven is pretty stable — around 80 percent. Belief in hell is just going down that toilet, and I think that is partially because Americans are more and more willing to see there are many paths to God. . . . Hell is not hot anymore. It’s not. And, of course, even people who do believe in hell don’t think that they personally are going to go there.”

Prince George’s County police arrested a homeless man they say beat another homeless man to death with a tree branch, accord- ing to authorities and police charging documents.

Carlos Eduardo Guzman, 34, was charged Thursday with first- degree murder and related counts in the death of Alvaro Martinez, 51, whose body was

found in a wooded area near the 2200 block of University Boule- vard in Lewisdale on March 27, authorities said. On Friday, a District Court

judge ordered Guzman to be held without bond.

Guzman might have beaten

Martinez to death after Martinez threatened to kill someone, ac- cording to authorities and police charging documents. The arrest is a victory for the

department’s homicide unit, which is coming off a year in which it boasted a 79 percent clo- sure rate.

Killings of homeless people are notoriously hard to solve, and when officers first found Marti- nez’s body under power lines,

they didn’t even know his name, police said. “These homicides are infor- mally known as ‘whodunits’ in the homicide unit,” said Deputy Chief Kevin Davis, who heads the department’s bureau of support services. “When it involves a homeless person who starts out as a John Doe, it presents an enormous challenge to homicide detectives.”

“Our homicide detectives work each homicide just as vigorously, regardless of the lot in life that our victim had,” Davis said. “These homicide victims are the forgotten, nameless, faceless vic- tims in society, and all too often, their murders go without clo- sure.”

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Detectives conducted exten- sive neighborhood canvasses, from which a tip ultimately led to Guzman’s arrest, Davis said. According to police charging

documents, investigators have at least two witnesses in the case, one who saw Guzman beat Marti- nez and another who heard Mar- tinez say he was going to kill someone. Both witnesses, who are not named in the documents, picked Guzman out of a photo ar- ray, the documents say. Court records did not list an at-

torney for Guzman, whose arrest brings the department’s homi- cide closure rate to 56 percent for 2010, authorities said.

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