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friday, june 4, 2010
LOCAL HOME PAGE
77, 9 a.m. 85, noon 89, 5 p.m. 80, 9 p.m.
Obituaries Emmy-winning actress Rue McClanahan, 76, was best known for her roles on “The Golden Girls” and “Maude.” B7
John Kelly’s Washington
The columnist will be online at noon Friday to discuss his writings and Washington’s offbeat stories. Go to
postlocal.com.
THE DISTRICT
Road closures ahead
Streets are already affected for Saturday’s Susan G. Komen Global Race for the Cure, whose route will go through the Mall. B10
rt
C ST.
Saturday’s race route
CONSTITUTION AVE. MADISON DR. JEFFERSON DR.
Finish
Drug search on D.C. teen deemed illegal
PREVIOUS RULING OVERTURNED
Disorderly conduct arrest flawed, appeals court says
by Mary Pat Flaherty
A few days before Christmas 2005 at nearly midnight, a uniformed District police officer patrolling the Sursum Cor- da neighborhood in Northwest heard a
16-year-old on a corner call out his name and ask, “What’s up?” That was before the yelling. And it was the yelling — not the $974 in cash or the 24 baggies of crack cocaine that police later found on the teenager —
that landed Officer Robert Elliott and the juvenile in a rare but important case be- fore the D.C. Court of Appeals. The appeals court said Thursday that the teen had been searched unreason- ably after a flawed arrest for disorderly conduct. The decision angered the city’s police union and overturned a lower court’s decision that concluded that the youth had been disorderly and had crack that he intended to distribute. If prosecutors wanted to retry the
teenager, identified in court papers as T.L., for drug possession, they “theoret-
ically” were free to do so, the appeals court said. But prosecutors cannot use the crack they found hidden in T.L.’s pants because they had searched him il- legally. As described in the appeals court opin-
ion:
Elliott was driving in the 1100 block of First Place NW in the neighborhood near Union Station on Dec. 22, 2005, when he saw men on a corner “notorious” for drive-by shootings and drug dealing.
appeal continued on B10
I before E, except after C . . .
PETULA DVORAK
Lured by the cool, deadly waters of the Potomac
W
hen it gets hot and dog’s-breath humid, we are drawn to the water’s edge.
For some, that means the cold, chlorine water and soundtrack of screams, splashes and the lifeguard’s frantic whistle at the pool. Or it’s the salty air of the ocean beach,
gulls caw-cawing, the skin on your back and shoulders tight from the sunburn after a day of building sand castles and chasing crabs. But when you’re broke and you’ve
worked all week and you get just one day to cool off, summer usually means the muddy, grassy riverside. Swimming holes. Foam coolers. Bug repellent. And that’s where Olga Arontico Gaspar, 35, and her daughter, Emily Escalante, 13, were on Memorial Day with the rest of their family, tossing a ball back and forth, eating, drinking and escaping their home town of Herndon’s brutal 90 degrees.
Along the banks of the Potomac River, you see people like Olga and her daughter every summer weekend. They come in big groups with picnics, blankets and children. Many are immigrants who come to the river because they’ve got no money for fancier recreating. Or they’re fishing for dinner. Or it’s not about money, but simply woven into their culture — the need to be with the trees, the grass and the water. “I’ve traveled all over Central America, and this is what they do everywhere: come to the river,” said Gary Miller, a Montgomery County firefighter. “They do it to be with family, to be with their friends. To celebrate. I’ve seen picnics in the river. Parties in the river. Even weddings. I’d always see people right out there, standing in the middle of the river.” And too many times, Miller has seen
folks try to do the same when they come to this river, which is very deceptive. On the surface, you can watch a fallen leaf float, motionless. But underneath that glass, a deep river is churning and roiling. The edge may be a sandy bank, but a couple of feet out, the bottom is jagged rocks and deep drop-offs, carved even deeper this spring after a record-breaking snowfall last winter. “It’s one of the most dangerous
stretches of white water on the East Coast,” said Chief Richard Bowers of Montgomery County Fire and Rescue. And for about 15 years, the National
Park Service and Maryland rescuers saw a trend that sent them plunging into the lethal waters again and again on rescue missions. It was consistently a recent immigrant, usually Latino or Vietnamese. In 2005, the National Park Service put up signs in Vietnamese and Spanish all over the Potomac Gorge area, on the Maryland and Virginia sides of the river. They warned of the current, the undertow, the rocky bottom. And for five years, the deaths stopped.
Until last year, when six people drowned. “Frankly, I just think we were lucky,”
Miller said. “And now we’re seeing more people out here. A lot more. They’re coming here instead of the beach. The economy, you know. It’s cheaper to come out here.” That was the scene Memorial Day.
dvorak continued on B10
Mehgan Abdel-Moneim, 13, has a straightforward style.
There’ll be no walks in their park
for 2 years
Alexandria residents angry that Jones Point makeover won’t be done in phases
by David Nakamura
After nearly a decade of bird-dogging the noise, pollution and logistical has- sles created by the construction of the new Woodrow Wilson Bridge, residents of Old Town Alexandria had reason to celebrate when the project was complet- ed two years ago. Their party was short-lived. Civic leaders are now outraged by a plan to close the 65-acre Jones Point Park, which runs north and south from below the bridge, for up to two years for a makeover the Virginia Department of Transportation promised as part of a beautification effort tied to the bridge project. Under the $19million project, sched- uled to begin in October, contractors will add an athletic field, two basketball courts, and a kayak and canoe launch pier; restore a fishing pier and historic lighthouse; and create an entry road and 110 parking spaces, authorities said. But residents are lobbying Alexandria Mayor William D. Euille (D) and the City Council to pressure VDOT and the Na- tional Park Service, which owns the land, to do the work in phases so por- tions of the park can remain open. “People go there to picnic, play soccer.
Noah Gershenson, 10, also competes in geography bees.
There’s a waterfront where people fish all the time,” said Eric Stark, who has lived near the park for five years. “It is incumbent on the mayor to reflect the will of the citizens. Without pointing blame, it hasn’t happened. The mayor and City Council are taking steps, but is it too late?” Euille said it’s not too late, pledging to work with residents to find an accept- able alternative. He is scheduled to dis- cuss the matter with Rep. James P. Mo-
park continued on B5
Esther Park, 14, advances to Friday’s semifinals.
Z
PHOTOS BY RICKY CARIOTI/THE WASHINGTON POST
Vothom Son Lu, 11, grows weary waiting for his turn at the microphone in the preliminaries.
aibatsu. Vibrissae. Biauriculate. These are the easy words. And they were on the list for the first day of oral competition at the National
Spelling Bee. Jittery nerves, theatrical flourishes and good humor were on display Thursday at the Grand Hyatt in Washington, where 273 spellers took the stage for two words each. Forty-eight students advanced to the semifinals based on a combined score from a written exam, taken Wednesday, and their oral-round performance. At stake for the young competitors, ages 8 to 15, are a championship trophy and $40,000 in prizes. Friday’s semifinals will be televised at 10 a.m. on ESPN, and the finals will be on ABC at 8 p.m.
Defendant in Wone case shown talking of an intruder
by Maria Glod
In a small D.C. police interview room,
Dakota Daniel Jones, 13, is amused by pronouncer Jacques Bailly, who wrote funny sentences to give bee words context.
Headless chicken sets off wild-goose chase
Quest to find Montgomery agency to pick up dead animal provokes quite a few cackles
by Katherine Shaver
It wasn’t typical fare for the neighbor- hood e-mail discussion group, but Jean Teichroew hoped that another Silver Spring resident might know the answer to her question: “Whose responsibility in the county is it to remove a dead chicken?” The rust-colored, feathered corpse had been lying rear-up near an empty Heineken box at 16th Street and Second Avenue, just north of downtown Silver
Spring, since late last week, Teichroew wrote on the North Woodside forum Tuesday. After it had begun to “ripen” in the heat, she wrote, she called Mont- gomery County’s Animal Services divi- sion but was told that officers couldn’t retrieve it unless the bird was “the size of a vulture.” “I believe the chicken is missing its
head,” Teichroew wrote. “Please, hold your guffaws.” Her query set off a stream of chicken
jokes, including questions about “fowl play.” What became known as “The Dead
Chicken Story” ended Wednesday morn- ing, when a Montgomery County Coun- cil member’s staff intervened and red- shirted “ambassadors” from downtown Silver Spring’s Urban District were sent to pick it up. Teichroew said that the chicken, which she had to pass daily on her walk to work, “pretty disgusting.” Even so, when asked where she thinks the chick- en came from, she didn’t miss a beat: “From across the road? I don’t know.”
chicken continued on B4
Joseph R. Price described the moment he came upon his college friend, bleed- ing to death from stab wounds, and knelt beside him trying to stanch the blood. Price said he could come up with only one explanation for the brutal attack in his Northwest townhouse. “I know it may sound [expletive] crazy, but it is crazy,” Price told a detective hours after the Aug. 2, 2006, slaying of Washington lawyer Robert Wone. “Someone came in the back of our house . . . looking for something to sell or what- ever, came upstairs, stumbled on to a surprise, and, you know, stabbed the guy and took off. . . . I mean, that’s my theo- ry.”
Federal prosecutors, who played the videotaped statement on Thursday, the 12th day of the trial of Price and his two housemates on charges of conspiracy, obstruction of justice and tampering with evidence, have a different theory. They are trying to prove that Price, 39, Victor J. Zaborsky, 44, and Dylan M. Ward, 40, know who killed Wone and are covering up for the killer or killers. The men say they are in a three-way commit- ted relationship. Wone, 32, general counsel for Radio
Free Asia, was slain at the house the three defendants shared at 1509 Swann St. NW. Wone had arranged to sleep there after making plans to work late, to avoid the commute to the Oakton home he shared with his wife. No one has been charged with murder
wone continued on B6
Walkers’ start
Capitol U.S.
VIRGINIA
Stop! (In the name of safety.)
Arlington County will install four red-light cameras at busy intersections. “Our focus is on safety, not on generating revenue,” Detective Crystal L. Nosal said. B4
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