ABCDE METRO friday, june 18, 2010 LOCAL HOME PAGE 73, 9 a.m. 83, noon 86, 5 p.m. 78, 9 p.m.
Obituaries Neurologist Fred Plum, 86, was an authority on comatose patients and an advocate for the right to die. B6
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.
POSTLOCAL
It’s a gas Thursday was Dump the Pump Day, when residents were urged to use public transportation. Readers debate the event’s usefulness. B2
Not just any headstone — his dad’s
Photo of veteran’s old marker in Arlington Cemetery creek startles and infuriates son
by Christian Davenport
It was around lunchtime Thursday when Mike McLaughlin settled into a chair in his family room and opened the newspaper. There, on the front page, was a photograph of a burial marker lying in a stream at Arlington National Cemetery and an article that led to a sudden realiza-
Metro hits fast lane to implement fare hikes
Complex changes being made to meet June 27 start date
by Ann Scott Tyson Metro is scrambling to implement its
largest and most complex fare increase in record time before the first phase takes effect June 27. The change includes nearly $109 mil- lion worth of rail, bus and paratransit in- creases, which will be implemented in three stages: June 27, Aug. 1 and in the fall. One of the most challenging compo- nents is a new 20-cent “peak-of-the- peak” rail surcharge during the system’s busiest times. About 300 Metro employees are rotat- ing through 10- and 12-hour shifts, seven days a week, to carry out the computer programming, fare machine changes and extensive information campaign to try to prevent confusion among custom- ers, officials said.
“I am worried about everything,” said
Jim Hughes, Metro’s director of intermo- dal planning, who is in charge of pulling together all the pieces. “Our biggest con- cern is that the information we put out to the public is correct on June 27. Cus- tomers aren’t going to be happy with us that we are increasing fares. We don’t want them unhappy because we have messed up the fares. “If that happens,” he said, “we have a real problem.” Metro is printing thousands of infor-
mation sheets summarizing the fare changes — with a phone number to call to complain — so that employees can give them to any irate riders. The agency also began making station announce- ments this week, distributing more than 100,000 brochures in English and Span- ish, putting up posters, and publicizing the fare hikes on Facebook and Twitter. “We want to head off incidents be-
tween a bus operator and a customer . . . to get the confrontation off the bus” or the rail station, Hughes said. “We need to get that complaint in a complaint sys- tem where they are not backing up a fare machine or a bus.” Metro spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein said the implementation is costing “sev- eral hundred thousand dollars.” One factor making the conversion more difficult is that the board of direc- tors did not approve the outlines of the major fare increases until May 27 — and
metro continued on B5
But 2 of the 3 defendants are acquitted of lesser count
by Keith L. Alexander A D.C. Superior Court judge’s decision PHOTOS BY DAYNA SMITH FOR THE WASHINGTON POST T.C. Williams High in Alexandria is in line to receive $6 million in federal aid to help it overcome persistent achievement gaps. Wake-up slap for T.C. Williams by Michael Alison Chandler A
fter T.C. Williams High School landed on a federal list of schools in urgent need of re- form, the Alexandria superin- tendent wrote President Oba-
ma a polite letter in March questioning whether the school was really the right target. Test scores for minorities and students with disabilities have long lagged behind those of other students. But Superin- tendent Morton Sherman wondered whether Obama meant to single out a school that sends more than 80 percent of its graduates to college and that offers two dozen Advanced Placement classes and a free laptop to every student. Many in Alexandria were dismayed and confounded to see their high school lumped in with the nation’s “persistently lowest-achieving schools,” even though the designation means that T.C. Williams will claim a share of $3.5 billion in feder- al aid. But as the school prepares to close for the summer Tuesday, administrators are bent on finding answers to some of the toughest questions in education: How to erase achievement gaps, and how to get all students to graduate? In the “Transformation Situation
Thursday to allow the Robert Wone con- spiracy trial to move forward without any major acquittals sent defense attor- neys racing to revise their strategy and coordinate witnesses for the rest of the proceedings. Judge Lynn Leibovitz ruled that there was enough evidence for the trial to pro- ceed to the defense phase. Leibovitz did acquit two of the defendants, Dylan M. Ward and Victor J. Zaborsky, of tamper- ing with evidence, saying that the gov- ernment never presented any direct evi- dence that the two men touched the knife that was found at the scene or Wone’s body. But Ward, Zaborsky and Joseph R.
Price are also charged with more serious counts of conspiracy and obstruction of justice. Those charges will stand, as will the tampering charge against Price, Lei- bovitz ruled. The judge said the government had presented enough proof at this point in the trial that Price tampered with evi- dence at the crime scene, including with Wone’s body. Price admitted to author- ities that when he and Zaborsky walked into Wone’s bedroom, he saw the knife on Wone’s body and he removed it and placed it on a nightstand. If Leibovitz finds the three men guilty, Ward and Za- borsky could face up to 35 years in pris- on, while Price could face a maximum of 38 years, according to Superior Court sentencing guidelines.
Hallie Lenneman and Katie Ward check a map of where T.C. Williams students will attend college. More than 80 percent of the school’s graduates go to college
Room” next to the T.C. Williams front of- fice, groups of teachers and administra- tors have worked overtime this spring, contemplating opaquely worded man- dates — posted on the wall — that direct them to “provide operational flexibility” and “create community-oriented
schools.” They are beginning to devise a strategy for taking advantage of $6 mil- lion in federal aid over three years. U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan applauded their hard work.
t.c. williams continued on B8 PTA meetings, play dates, shorter workdays: Meet the New Dads
“What you’re doing simply isn’t right,” they warned.
H But all his life, Christopher Braman
knew he wanted to be a dad. And as a 45-year-old single guy, adoption was the only righteous path to fatherhood he could see. “The biological clock was ticking. I wanted kids,” said Braman, a hulking 6-foot-3 bald white guy from Wisconsin who always gets double takes when he arrives at the park with his African
PETULA DVORAK
American sons in their Northeast Washington neighborhood. “When people see these two boys with me, calling me Papa, it really throws them off,” he said. “Some people say: ‘Boy, their mother really must’ve been
is friends were stunned. “You’re out of your mind,” they told him. Strangers have cornered him.
dark’ or ‘When are you going to take them back?’ ”
But he said being a father wasn’t about biology or raising children who look like him. He didn’t go abroad for an adoption. He didn’t search for a surrogate or a donor. He simply wanted a child who needed a dad. Because for Braman, Dad was a fantastic man who had stepped out of a Norman Rockwell painting and into his life. “My dad was an engineer. We canned vegetables. We went camping. We had a summer home,” he said, “I grew up in a place where cows —
literally — were over the fence from my primary school. You could ride your bike in the street, wind in the hair.” Alex, 7, and Isaiah, 3, were both
victims of abuse and neglect. Braman started out as Alex’s foster dad when the boy was 20 months old. Having grown up with two siblings — both of whom were adopted — Braman knew Alex needed a brother. So when they got Isaiah, they knew they wanted to keep him, and they got help from the Children’s Law Center, which oversees
dvorak continued on B8
“I conclude, considering all the evi- dence, a reasonable juror would, though not be required to, find without a reason- able doubt that the government had proved its theories of conspiracy and ob- struction of justice,” Leibovitz said. But the judge cautioned that her decision was neither a “verdict” nor a “signal” of what the final outcome of the trial might be.
Bernie Grimm, Price’s attorney, called Leibovitz’s decision “the correct decision
wone continued on B4
tion. “This is my father’s tombstone,” he called out to his wife. Then he became, as he said, “unglued.”
How could his father — who dropped out of college to serve in World War I, re- joined the Navy the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor at the age of 44 and then served again during the Korean War — be so dishonored? Upset, he called the cemetery, which had been trying to figure out whom the headstone belonged to after The Wash- ington Post alerted officials there Wednesday morning that several mud- caked markers were lining a stream at
one of the country’s most venerated buri- al grounds. A few hours later, a top Arlington offi- cial called McLaughlin back to apologize for his father’s tombstone being dis- carded in such a way and assure him that it will be disposed of properly. In an interview from his home in the Shenandoah Valley, McLaughlin, a 74- year-old Arlington County native, said he was “appalled.” “You can’t harm Dad, and you can’t harm Mom,” he said, his voice cracking. “But the way this was handled is going to
MARK ABRAMSON/THE WASHINGTON POST cemetery continued on B5 J. Warren McLaughlin served in World War I and World War II.
Alexandria’s high school has a lot going for it, but it still wound up on the federal government’s in-need-of urgent-reform list
Wone trial moves on to defense phase
NO MAJOR CHARGES ARE DISMISSED
VIRGINIA
Taking cue from Arizona Corey A. Stewart, chairman of the Prince William County supervisors, is asking legislators to pass a law cracking down on illegal immigration similar to a measure in Arizona. B4
B DC MD VA S
COURTESY OF CHRISTOPHER BRAMAN
Christopher Braman, with Alex, 7, and Isaiah, 3, is part of a new generation deeply involved with their kids.
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