SPORTS McINTOSHAHIT ON THE FIELD AND OFF
TRAVEL YOUR GUIDE TO A CARIBBEAN GETAWAY
ARTS THE SOUND CAN MAKE THE MOVIE
METRO A D.C. CHURCH FINDS ITS SAVIOR
Mostly sunny 74/55 • Tomorrow: Showers 75/61 • details, C12
U.S. strikes at the heart of Taliban leadership
BY JOSHUA PARTLOW
maqur, afghanistan — October has been a calamitous month for the Taliban guerrillas waging war from sandy moun- tains and pistachio forests in this corner of northwestern Afghanistan. Thefirst to diewastheir leader,Mullah
Ismail, hunted down and killled by U.S. Special Operations troops.Nextcamethe heir apparent,Mullah Jamaluddin, even before he could take over as Taliban “shadow”governor.Withinaweek, sever- al other top commanders were dead, a newgovernor had been captured and the most powerful among the remaining in- surgents had lit out for theTurkmenistan border — all casualties of the secretive, midnight work ofU.S. commandos. And yet what has happened here in
Badghis province also shows how large a gap remains between killing command- ers and dismantling an insurgency.Near- ly half of the province remains under insurgent control, an Afghan intelligence official estimated. A new Taliban gover- nor has already been dispatched to the province, Afghan officials say, even though NATO portrayedMullah Ismail’s killing as a “huge blow” that would “significantly reduce Taliban influence throughout the region.” “Fighting in Afghanistan is like hitting
coals with a stick, it just spreads to other places,” said Delbar Jan Arman, who as provincial governor is trying to stave off the Taliban advances. “It will continue.” The barrage launched against the Tali-
ban by Special Operations forces here in recent weeks is part of a broader Ameri- can effort that is clearly succeeding. As other U.S. goals in Afghanistan have
afghanistan continued onA18
For beloved ice cream chain, a rocky road
Gifford’s shops close as wholesaler accuses owner of serving another brand
BY MICHAEL S. ROSENWALD One afternoon this summer, Neal Lie-
berman did what Washingtonians have been doing for generations: He took his kids to Gifford’s for ice cream cones. Lieberman was no typical customer.
He owns the Gifford’s wholesale busi- ness, which had recently sold its retail ice cream outlets to a flashy Baltimore-area investor who promised he would keep alive the tradition of cozy parlors dipping Gifford’s super-creamy flavors. But that afternoon, the scoops Lieber-
man said his family was served at the Chevy Chase store were impostors. The sign said Gifford’s, but the ice cream was not. It was Hood, a mass-market brand anyone can buy in a supermarket, al- though a staffer said it was a premium variety of the brand. A formal allegation of the substitution
— along with a photo of Hood ice cream tubs in a Gifford’s store—is included in a breach of contract lawsuit Lieberman’s ownership group filed this summer against Luke Cooper, the 34-year-old Baltimore investor who last winter took control of all four Gifford’s shops from Rockville to downtown Washington. In recent days, all of the Gifford’s stores have closed, marking what many fear is
ice cream continued onA6
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In 2003, Congress blacked out data tying sellers to guns recovered in crimes. Behind the curtain, a few local dealers come up again and again.
TRACINGSECRETS O
STORY BY DAVID S. FALLIS AND PHOTOS BY RICKY CARIOTI
utside a baby shower in Landover three years ago, Erik Kenneth Dixon snapped.Ashe arguedwithhis sister and her boyfriend in a parking lot, the 25-year-old man whipped out a .45-caliber Glock and shot her in the leg. Then he chased down her boy-
friend, firingbetweencarsandat the runningman’s feet untilhe slipped onwet grass.As the proneman held his hands up in futile defense,Dixon executed him, firing seventimes. By law,Dixonwasprohibitedfromowning a gun.
He had spent almost three years in prison for shooting at a man. But three months before the baby-showerkilling,he gavehis girlfriend$335 and tookher toanoldbrickhouseona commercial strip justbeyondtheDistrict lineinForestville,hometoa gunshopcalledRealco. “Heknewwhichonehewantedandpickeditout,” thewomanwouldlater tellpolice.
Crime guns traced to Maryland dealers
Te five active retailers that had the most crime guns recovered in D.C. and Prince George’s County between 1992 to 2009:
Ratio of crime guns to every gun sold:
washingtonpost.com/guns 6
Documentary: The Post’s Ben de la Cruz retraces the life of a crime gun from Realco.
Turning point: At the urging of the National Rifle Association, Congress in 2003 threw a cloak of secrecy around a government database used to expose firearms trafficking. A11
Dixon’s Glock was one of 86 guns sold by Realco
that have been linked to homicide cases during the past 18 years, far outstripping the total from any other store inthe region, aWashingtonPost investi- gation has found. Over that period, police have recovered more than 2,500 guns sold by the shop, including over 300 used in non-fatal shootings, assaults androbberies. Realco has been known as a leading seller of
“crime guns” seized by local police, but a year-long Post investigation reveals themagnitude ofRealco’s
Realco Guns 2,534
Forestville
Maryland Small Arms Range Upper Marlboro
624
Atlantic Guns Silver Spring
522
pattern and links the guns sold by the store to specificcrimes.ThePostcompileditsowndatabases ofmore than 35,000 gun traces bymining unpubli- cizedstatedatabases andlocalpolice evidence logs. The Post investigation found that a small per-
centage of gun stores sells most of the weapons recovered by police in crimes — re-confirming the major finding of studies that came out before federal gun-tracing datawere removed frompublic view by an act of Congress in 2003. For the most part, these sales are legal, but an unknown number involve persons who buy for those who cannot, including convicted felons such as Dixon, in a process knownas a “strawpurchase.” Suchsales are illegal for the buyer and the store, if it knowingly allowsastrawpurchase.Butcasesarehardtoprove. Law enforcement officials rarely prosecute gun stores,deterredbyhighbureaucratichurdles,polit-
guns continued onA10
Fred’s Sports and Furniture Waldorf
248
Te Gun Rack Burtonsville
231 1 out of 8 1 out of 24 1 out of 36 1 out of 37 1 out of 69
ABCDE Amovementwithout a compass
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2010
The tea party A close look at the movement and the
role it might play in next week’s elections. A8-9
Interviews with tea party members reveal varying goals, levels of organization
BY AMY GARDNER
But dismantling insurgency remains a challenge in NW Afghan province
In an unruly, unpredictable and chaot-
Magazine Tea party road trip: Can an Ohio group’s vision of patriotism reshape America?
Outlook Are you part of the new elite? Take our quiz. B1
ic election year, no group has asserted its presence and demanded to be heard more forcefully than the tea party. The grass-roots movement that was spawned with a rant has gone on to upend the existing political order, reshaping the debate inWashington, defeating a num- ber of prominent lawmakers and elevat- ing a fresh cast of conservative stars. But a newWashington Post canvass of hundreds of local tea party groups re-
veals a different sort of organization, one that is not so much a movement as a disparate band of vaguely connected gatherings that do surprisingly little to engage in the political process. The results come from a months-long
effort by The Post to contact every tea party group in the nation, an unprece- dented attempt to understand the net- work of individuals and organizations at the heart of the nascent movement. Seventy percent of the grass-roots
groups said they have not participated in any political campaigning this year. As a whole, they have no official candidate slates, have not rallied behind any partic- ular national leader, have little money on hand,andremainambivalent about their goals and the political process in general. “We’re not wanting to be a third party,” said Matt Ney, 55, the owner of a Pilates
studio and a founder of the Pearland Tea PartyPatriots inPearland,Tex. “We’re not wanting to endorse individual candi- dates ever. What we’re trying to do is be activists by pushing a conservative idea.” The group, with 25 active members,
meets to discuss policies and listen to speakers,Ney said. “We provide opportu- nities for like-minded people to get to- gether,” he said. The local groups stand in contrast to—
and, in their minds, apart from — a handful of large national groups that claim the tea party label. Most of those outfits, including FreedomWorks and Tea Party Express, are headed by long- time political players who have used their resources and know-how to help elect a number of candidates.
tea party continued onA8
Prices may vary in areas outside metropolitan Washington.
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THE HIDDEN LIFE OF GUNS AWASHINGTON POST INVESTIGATION
The Washington Post Year 133, No. 323
CONTENT © 2010
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