WEDNESDAY, JULY 28, 2010


KLMNO Fairfax man is charged with rape


Suspect also stabbed the girl, whom he met on MySpace, police say


by Tom Jackman


A Fairfax County man has been arrested and charged with pick- ing up a 17-year-old girl he met on MySpace, taking her to a town- house in Annandale, and then stabbing and raping her, Fairfax police said Tuesday. The incident occurred Satur-


day morning, and police learned of it after the girl said she had es- caped from the man and called for help, according to a search warrant affidavit written by Fair- fax sex crimes Detective James A. Austin and filed Tuesday in Fair- fax Circuit Court. The girl reported that she had


School budget tactic was underhanded,


some leaders say fairfax from B1


sion, it should have been included at the start of the budget process, not weeks before school begins. “I’m infuriated that this was


not taken care of in the schools’ budget,” McKay said. “And there was no excuse to wedge us against these kids.”


But Dale denied that the schools had been manipulative. He said the funding maneuver was just part of the back-and- forth between the Board of Super- visors, which levies the taxes and decides the lump sum to go to schools, and the School Board and superintendent’s office, which set school policies and decide how the money will be spent. Early this year, faced with a grim budget, Dale said he sub- mitted a proposed budget that did not include funding for Priority Schools transition. The School Board considered adding the money into its formal budget but decided not to.


When the Board of Supervisors


left open the door to a future re- quest for Priority Schools on its own, by passing an amendment saying it would consider funding at a later date, the school district decided to take the supervisors at their word, Dale said. The Priority Initiative schools are among 20 with extra needs targeted for help by Project EX- CEL nearly 12 years ago. All have large numbers of minority and immigrant children, whose benchmarks of achievement have lagged behind whites and Asians. The county’s EXCEL program, which initiated all-day kindergar- ten, longer school days, summer school and smaller classes, aimed to close that achievement gap. But the adoption of state-mandat- ed Standards of Learning require- ments and the countywide imple- mentation of other initiatives, in- cluding all-day kindergarten, prompted the district to modify EXCEL. The $1.3 million is to be distrib- uted among the following el- ementary schools: Bucknell, Cam- eron, Groveton, Hollin Meadows, Hutchison, Mount Eagle, Pine Spring, Riverside, Westlawn, Woodlawn and Woodley Hills. Board of Supervisors Chairman Sharon Bulova (D) said that al- though tough economic times had made budgeting tricky at ev- ery level of government, she crit- icized school officials for not do- ing more to educate the public about their plans or Priority Schools or learn the public’s opin- ion. Once word spread about the cuts, community members pres- sured supervisors. “We heard from the communi-


ty,” she said. kunklef@washpost.com


Cemetery officials failed to fix issues documented by contractor in 2005


arlington from B1


waste occurs,” McCaskill said. “The question is, was there fraud?” Prior subcommittee invita- tions asked that the two be pre- pared to discuss findings from an earlier investigation that “you re- peatedly authorized payment to contractors for IT contracts de- spite ‘grossly inadequate con- tractor progress to justify these expenditures.’ ” The committee report released


Tuesday also criticizes others with supervisory responsibility for Arlington. For instance, the reports says Claudia Tornblom, deputy assistant secretary of the Army for civil works, did not ful- fill her responsibility to oversee the cemetery’s budget and spending.


She and Edward M. Harring- ton, the Army’s deputy assistant secretary for procurement, have been invited to testify. Through an Army spokesman, both de- clined to comment Tuesday. In an interview with The Post last month, Harrington, who oversees $132 billion in spend- ing, said that cuts to his depart- ment have made it more difficult to follow the money flowing in and out of the Army’s budget. “As the contracting dollars


have gone up, the government’s contracting workforce has gone down,” he said. “That left us with


The documents conclude that Army officials did not exercise “even the most basic oversight” when spending was out of hand.


a relatively minimal staff of sen- ior contracting experts.” The Senate staff report also


says that in one instance in 2008, Maj. Gen. Richard Rowe, com- mander of the Military District of Washington, which has shared oversight responsibility for Ar- lington, “ignored reports of man- agement problems.” Rowe is deployed in Iraq, and an Army spokesman said Tues- day that he was unreachable for comment. The report also says the U.S.


Army Corps of Engineers-Balti- more District approved a tech- nology contract for Arlington that it did not have the expertise to oversee. But the subcommittee report puts the responsibility for that error on Higginbotham, who the report says shopped around for approval for the con- tract and persuaded the Army Corps to award it on an emergen-


COURTLAND MILLOY milloy from B1


downhill so fast? Just two years ago, I was kissing white babies all over the country. They were cooing “mama,” “dada” “O-ba-ma.” Now I’m accused of being in league with the New Black Panther Party and out to kill every white baby in America. Steele: So, to prove he’s not a


“reverse racist,” my evil twin throws the sister under the bus? Obama: I gave Sherrod a personal presidential apology; virtually guarantees her a lucrative book contract. I pulled the sister from under the bus and put her in the driver’s seat. Besides, people might even read the book and learn something about the Sherrod family legacy of civil rights activism — instead of everybody acting like me and the white people in my


administration were the only ones who didn’t know about it. Steele: Word on the street is


that Barry-O could use a friend — a black friend — to help school him on racial politics. Obama: You applying for the


job, Mini-Me? You know the NAACP also denounced Sherrod. And the doctored videotape was from a speech she gave at an NAACP conference. NAACP President Ben Jealous admitted that his group was “snookered,” too.


Steele: “Snookered?” What kind of word is that? Sounds like Ben could use a black friend, too. Obama: Every time we talk


about race, they accuse us of playing the race card. Steele: What do you mean


‘we’? Just the other day, on “Good Morning America,” George Stephanopoulos asked whether


race gave me a “slimmer margin for error.” I said: “The honest answer is yes. It just is.” Then I said: “Barack Obama has a slimmer margin.” See, I speak up for you, too, bro. Obama: Gee, thanks. But


maybe we should stick to speaking up for ourselves. Which gives me an idea: Why don’t we have a televised debate — not about race, but about freedom? Race and freedom are inextricably linked, so we’d still be talking about race, by proxy, without the spectacle of black versus white. Steele: Who better than us to


frame the debate, define the terms and set the tone? Obama: I do wonder whether the country really wants to deal with race. The latest rap against me is that I favor blacks over whites. At least nobody can say


that about you. Steele: And they shouldn’t be


saying it about you, either, pal. But we’re still in this together. If the country wanted to duck the race issue, there wouldn’t be two black guys in these jobs. The only way the country gets beyond race is by going through it, not by trying to wish it away, and we have been put in a position to lead the way. Obama: So maybe we start by arguing the meaning of freedom and the responsibilities of a free people — me as a black liberal Democrat from Hawaii, and you as a black conservative Republican from Maryland. Steele: Be careful. A lot of white people might find out that all blacks don’t think alike. Obama: Or worse, that a lot of black and white people do. milloyc@washpost.com


cy basis. The report finds that from 2003 to the present, as much as $8 million has been spent by Ar- lington officials on questionable technology contracts in the name of digitizing its interment rec- ords. That’s up from the $5.5 mil- lion the Army inspector general’s office estimated last month. By comparison, the Depart- ment of Veterans Affairs, which manages 131 cemeteries with 3million graves, started digitiz- ing all new interments in 1994. In 2003, it launched a five-year project to digitize its older rec- ords, which date to 1862. That project cost $1.5 million. Arlington officials told Con- gress and the Office of Manage- ment and Budget that the VA’s system couldn’t be adapted to suit Arlington’s needs. But Sen- ate investigators found that Ar- lington officials failed to men- tion an Air Force study that found that the cemetery could make the VA system work at Ar- lington. In fact, Arlington Cem- etery had been using a modified version of the VA’s system, known as the Burial Operations Support System, for scheduling burials and ordering headstones. VA officials even “offered to work with cemetery officials to make the necessary changes,” ac- cording to the Senate report. davisa@washpost.com


davenportc@washpost.com


become friends with a man on the social networking site My- Space, and that they had planned to go to Tysons Corner for a meal and a movie, Officer Don Gotthardt said. The man picked the girl up at her residence in Fair- fax about 11 a.m., Austin wrote. Before they went to


Tysons, the man told the girl that he had to stop at his “aunt’s house.” The girl went inside with the man and the at- tack began, Austin wrote. After she was sexually molest- ed, the girl reported, the man produced a folding knife and stabbed her numerous times. He dragged her to a bathroom, then to some stairs and raped her as she tried to fight him off, the girl told police, according to the affi- davit. She said the man tried to


Herrera


clean up the blood she had spilled around the townhouse during the struggle, Austin’s affidavit says. Detectives interviewed the vic- tim at the Inova Fairfax Hospital emergency room Saturday and found injuries consis- tent with her report. On Sunday, officers drove her from her home in an attempt to find the man’s townhouse. They located a townhouse in the 6800 block of Lafa- yette Park Drive, just off


Little River Turnpike in the An- nandale area. On Monday, police arrested


Rony N. Herrera Deleon, 27, who lives in the 6700 block of Barrett Road in the Falls Church area. Herrera was hanging cleaning business brochures on front doors when he was picked up, Austin wrote. His car, a white


Water, water everywhere at U and Florida


Toyota, had a round object with feathers attached hanging from the rearview mirror, which the victim had described to police, the affidavit said, and the victim’s description of her assailant matched Herrera. The brochures and the Toyota were registered to the cleaning business, the police affidavit said. Gotthardt said he did not know whether Herrera worked for the service or had been inside any- one’s home as a cleaner. Herrera was charged with ab-


duction, malicious wounding, rape and sexual penetration with an inanimate object. He was be- ing held in the Fairfax jail Tues- day without bond. On Monday night, police searched the townhouse on Lafa- yette Park Drive and obtained DNA samples from Herrera in jail, court records show. jackmant@washpost.com


S OBITUARIES


B5


RON RIESTERER/ASSOCIATED PRESS


Oakland Raiders No. 32, Jack Tatum, hits New England Patriots receiver Darryl Stingley in 1978, leaving Stingley paralyzed.


JACK TATUM, 61


‘Assassin’ showed no mercy on gridiron


Within a year, the NFL by Matt Schudel


Jack Tatum, 61, a defensive back for the Oakland Raiders whose bone-jarring tackles earned him the nickname “the Assassin,” died July 27 at a hospi- tal in Oakland, Calif., after a heart attack. Mr. Tatum, a free safety whose


TRACY A. WOODWARD/THE WASHINGTON POST


Workers lift a steel plate to gain access to a water main that flooded Florida Avenue and U Street NW with as much as a foot of water. The D.C. Water and Sewer Authority said a new valve had malfunctioned.


relatively slight size belied his fe- rocity on the field, was a three- time All Pro player with the Raid- ers during his 10-year career. An NFL Films documentary ranked him as the sixth-hardest hitter in pro football history. His tackle of Minnesota Vik- ings receiver Sammy White in the 1977 Super Bowl has become fa- mous in video features of foot- ball’s most devastating tackles. White had just caught a pass in the center of the field when Mr. Tatum ran into him, colliding head-to-head. White’s helmet flew off and rolled five yards up the field. “I play a hard-hitting game,”


Mr. Tatum said in the NFL Films documentary. “I just like to have the receivers think about me a lit- tle bit while they’re trying to catch the ball.” Mr. Tatum’s most notorious tackle occurred in a preseason game in 1978, when he leveled wide receiver Darryl Stingley of the New England Patriots. Stin- gley was leaping to catch a pass when Mr. Tatum drilled him, breaking two vertebrae in Stin- gley’s back. Stingley remained paralyzed until his death in 2007. Mr. Tatum never apologized for his crushing tackle, which was le- gal under NFL rules, and some football historians think his lack of remorse kept him out of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. “It was one of those things that happens that everyone regrets,” Gene Upshaw, a Raiders lineman in that game who became exec- utive director of the NFL Players Association, later said. “I know a lot of people in New England think differently, but Jack had no intention of hurting him. I saw him hit people like that a lot of times. That was the way he played.” Mr. Tatum said he attempted to visit Stingley in the hospital but was rebuffed by Stingley’s family.


Jeffrey Welch HEALTH-CARE CONSULTANT


Jeffrey Welch, 55, a retired Air


Force master sergeant who had been working for the past 18 years as a health-care systems consultant, died June 28 of gas- tric cancer at Georgetown Uni- versity Hospital. He was a Manas- sas resident. Sgt. Welch served in the Air


Force from 1972 to 1992. He was a combat medic during the Viet- nam War and a veteran of the 1991 Persian Gulf War. He spent the bulk of his military career working to streamline and im- prove health-care systems in hos- pitals. After retiring, he continued


that work as a consultant to pri- vate and public hospitals. At the time of his death, he was working


changed some of its rules regard- ing pass defense, and many of Mr. Tatum’s signature helmet-to-hel- met tackles would not be allowed in today’s game. John David Tatum was born


Nov. 18, 1948, in Cherryville, N.C., and grew up in Passaic, N.J. Even though he did not play football until his sophomore year of high school, he became an all-state standout and was recruited to Ohio State University as a run- ning back. The Buckeyes’ coach, Woody


Hayes, converted the 5-foot-10, 200-pound Mr. Tatum to defen- sive back, where he became a two-time all-American. He was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame in 2004. With the Raiders, Mr. Tatum joined a talented secondary that included Willie Brown and George Atkinson. Known mostly for his fearsome tackles, Mr. Ta- tum was hardly a one-dimension- al player. He intercepted 37 pass- es during his NFL career, includ- ing six in 1976, when the Raiders had a regular-season record of 13-1. They capped their year by defeating Minnesota, 32-14, in Super Bowl XI. In a 1972 playoff game against


the Pittsburgh Steelers, Mr. Ta- tum had a role in the “Immac- ulate Reception” play that has be- come one of the most famous mo- ments in NFL history. With 22 seconds left in the game, and the Raiders leading 7-6, Steelers quarterback Terry Bradshaw threw a fourth-down pass to run- ning back John “Frenchy” Fuqua. Mr. Tatum crashed into Fuqua at the moment the pass arrived, sending the ball hurtling through the air.


Steelers running back Franco


Harris grabbed the deflected pass just before it touched the ground and rambled into the end zone to complete a 60-yard touchdown play and give the Steelers the win. In retirement, Mr. Tatum in- vested in real estate and restau- rants and wrote three autobiog- raphies, each with the word “as- sassin” in the title. He suffered from diabetes and, several years ago, had a leg amputated. Survivors include his wife, De- nise; and three children. schudelm@washpost.com


for PriceWaterhouse Coopers. Jeffrey Alan Welch was born in Columbus, Ohio, and moved to Northern Virginia when he was a boy. He was a 1972 graduate of Wakefield High School in Arling- ton County. He received an associate’s de- gree in hospital administration from the Community College of the Air Force in 1986. In 1995, he received a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Strayer University. His military decorations in- cluded two awards of the Bronze Star and two awards of the Purple Heart. His marriage to Teresita Jamir


Welch ended in divorce. Survivors include a son, Chris- topher M. Welch of Vacaville, Calif.; and two grandchildren. — Emma Brown


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