WEDNESDAY, JULY 7, 2010


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B5 Md. prison guard among 15 accused of helping Black Guerilla Family gang by Maria Glod


Fifteen people, including a prison guard, are accused in fed- eral court of belonging to or helping a violent gang that smuggled drugs and cellphones into Maryland’s prisons and ex- torted cash from inmates who paid to escape attack. Federal prosecutors in Mary- land on Tuesday said an indict- ment on racketeering and other charges against alleged members or associates of the Black Gueril- la Family targeted “one of the most powerful gangs” in the state. Factions of the gang have existed recently at nine prisons


or jails in the state, according to the indictment, but the gang also has increasingly extended its reach to Baltimore’s streets. “The investigative efforts of all


our law enforcement partners dealt a blow against this organi- zation,” Ava Cooper-Davis, spe- cial agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Washington division, said in a statement. “It does not matter if you wear the colors of a gang or a badge of gold, if you break the law and try to destroy our com- munities, we will go after you.” Alicia Simmons, 34, of Pikes- ville, a correctional officer at the maximum security Maryland Correctional Adjustment Center


in Baltimore, was among those charged. Prosecutors said she was arrested Tuesday morning at the prison. In recent years, federal offi- cials in Maryland have cracked down on the Black Guerilla Fam- ily, or BGF, which they say first gained a foothold in the state’s prisons and jails in the 1990s. Fourteen defendants in the case previously faced drug charges in connection with their alleged in- volvement in the gang, author- ities said, but the new indict- ment added a racketeering charge. U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosen-


stein said the threat of convic- tion for racketeering, which car-


ries a maximum penalty of life in prison, encourages defendants to cooperate with authorities and acts as a deterrent. His office has pursued similar cases against other gangs, including Mara Sal- vatrucha, or MS-13, and the Latin Kings. “We think we’re having an im-


pact,” Rosenstein said. “There are a couple of things we achieve by bringing a racketeering charge, and one is that we bring that heavy hammer of a federal sentence.”


According to the 30-page in-


dictment unsealed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Baltimore, the gang paid prison guards — ei- ther in cash or with pre-paid deb-


it cards — to smuggle drugs, to- bacco or cellphones behind bars. Members dealt heroin both in prison and on the streets, au- thorities said.


Gang members, with the help of corrections officers, demand- ed cash from inmates in ex- change for “protection,” accord- ing to the indictment. Those who didn’t pay were targeted for vio- lence by the gang. Black Guerilla Family was formed in California in the 1960s, officials said. According to the indictment, the group is quick to violence but also highly organized. The indictment describes a hi- erarchy that includes ministers


Bank robbery suspect is shot at end of chase


Montgomery police say trapped vehicle was driven at officer


by Matt Zapotosky A Montgomery County police


officer shot and critically wound- ed a bank robbery suspect Tues- day morning in a Damascus corn- field as the suspect drove his car at the officer at the end of a chase, authorities said. Officers were sent to the PNC bank branch in the 26200 block of Ridge Road about 10:30 a.m. to investigate a reported robbery, said Capt. Paul Starks, a Mont- gomery police spokesman. Starks said witnesses saw the suspect jump the counter at the bank, grab some cash and flee. Those witnesses, he said, pointed offi- cers in the suspect’s direction, and one even followed the sus- pect briefly in his own vehicle. Officers spotted the car, a red


Toyota Corolla, and chased it. The suspect turned down Bowman Acres Lane, a small street of large, single-family homes that dead-ends at a cornfield, Starks said. The suspect, having no obvi- ous way out, drove up a gravel road and into the cornfield, Starks said. As officers worked amid a cloud of dust to set up a perimeter, the suspect drove at one of them, Starks said, and the officer, who was outside his pa- trol car, opened fire. “Officers were trying to set up a


perimeter using a good amount of caution,” Starks said, remark- ing that the officers’ visibility was obscured by all the dust. “He was trying to run the officer over, al- legedly.” Police declined to name the of-


ficer or the wounded suspect. It is unclear how many times


of justice, defense, finance, intel- ligence and education, and men- tions a conference call members held to discuss “day-to-day op- erations, violations of BGF proto- cols and sanctions that should be ordered against members who had violated those protocols.” Each of the defendants is


charged with conspiracy to dis- tribute heroin. Fourteen of them, including Simmons, are charged with rack- eteering. Some face additional charges, including money laun- dering, robbery and illegal gun possession.


glodm@washpost.com


COURTLAND MILLOY


For a soldier’s family, only the loss is certain


milloy from B1


“insurgents,” but Lewis said she hasn’t quite figured out exactly who they are. “I just assume it means enemy,” she said. Darrell joined the Army in 2002 and was assigned to the 1st Brigade, 1st Infantry Division at Fort Riley, Kan. He shipped off to Afghanistan in January 2007 —one among 100,000 troops sent ostensibly to wage war on al-Qaeda and its Taliban allies in retaliation for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. “He enjoyed serving his


country,” Lewis said. But not all the time. Louise Lewis, Darrell’s sister, recounted some painful long-distance telephone conversations with him in the weeks leading up to his death. “I remember being busy and asking him to call back, and he said: ‘Don’t hang up. This could be my last call,’ ” Louise Lewis said. “Things were getting worse, and he knew he was in danger. He said, ‘I just saw a kid get his brains blown out right in front of me.’ ”


MICHAEL S. WILLIAMSON/THE WASHINGTON POST Officer Marcus Dixon reacts to the heat as he stands guard at the spot where the shooting occurred. The getaway car is in the background.


the suspect was hit. The Corolla traveled out of the cornfield and into a yard across the street, where it came to rest. Starks said the officer fired “multiple” shots, but he wouldn’t say how many. The suspect was flown to a nearby hospital in “extremely grave” condition, authorities said. Officers on the scene had to administer CPR, Starks said. The officer who fired, he said, was not struck or injured.


Investigators were searching the car and cornfield Tuesday af- ternoon. The rear bumper of the Corolla was damaged, and Starks said officers made contact with the bumper during the chase. The aftermath of the chase cre-


ated an odd scene in the quiet Da- mascus subdivision. Neighbors said the suspect could not have been from the area or he would have known that there was no es- cape once he turned down Bow-


O’Connell leaves his mark at CUA catholic from B1


Garvey is an academic, not a cleric. He has pledged to make Catholic University more diverse — just 12 percent of students are black or Hispanic — and to ele- vate scholarship. Some Catholic traditionalists are concerned that he allowed an abortion rights ad- vocate to speak at his law school. Other observers think the new president will bring welcome change. “We’ve named a building after O’Connell. He’s received nothing but praise over the last 12 years,” said one professor, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect his job. “But the faculty is divided, and it’s divided in crazy ways you can’t imagine.”


‘So much stronger now’ O’Connell arrived at Catholic


University at 43, a priest of the Vincentian order, fit and tall, with close-cropped hair, angular features and a savvy, occasionally prickly temperament more befit- ting an army general than a cler- gyman.


At the time, the university’s en- rollment was falling and had such a weak national identity that student recruiters had re- sorted to telemarketing. O’Con- nell quickly reclaimed the school’s Catholic cred — he was the first U.S. college president to take an oath of fidelity to the church and its teachings — and regained the support of the bish- ops. Under O’Connell, the Catholic campus has grown by one-third to 193 acres, and enrollment has risen by one-quarter to nearly 7,000 students. O’Connell recon- nected the university with es- tranged alumni and raised $180 million, bringing the en- dowment to a peak of $224mil- lion.


O’Connell’s salary is effectively zero: His annual pay, $367,200 in


2008-09, goes directly to his reli- gious order. The graduation rate has risen, from 66 percent in 2001 to 71 per- cent in 2008. O’Connell replaced the failed national marketing strategy with a successful region- al approach and drew nearly twice as many applicants last year than in 2002, although the admission rate has drifted up to 86 percent. “The school is so much stron-


ger now academically now than when he came in,” said Ernest Suarez, chairman of the English department. O’Connell jokes that when he was a doctoral student at Catho- lic in the 1980s, he found “a lot of theology but no faith.” As presi- dent, he set about to change that. Today, 90 percent of students and 60 percent of tenured faculty members identify themselves as Catholic, more than when he ar- rived. The president said he read the résumés of prospective hires to weed out candidates with “per- spectives that would make them uncomfortable here.” He initiated a daily Mass in the law school, a tradition of blessing dormitory rooms and a stronger habit of prayer. “More students attend Mass here than any other campus ac- tivity. That’s a change,” he said.


Veering right, critics say But in his quest to put Catholic


values “on the table,” the larger- than-life president has drawn un- wanted attention to the school. In 2001-02, Catholic adopted a rule that student sexuality was not to be “genitally expressed” outside marriage. In 2004, the university blocked an NAACP chapter on campus, partly be- cause of the organization’s ad- vocacy of abortion rights, before reversing the decision. Last year, administrators rejected a gay- straight alliance as an official stu-


dent club. Catholic administrators barred


the City Paper from campus after an exposé last year on the school’s no-sex policy. Later in the year, someone seized 2,000 copies of the student newspaper the Tower over an editorial car- toon that declared Catholic’s gays and lesbians “no longer under- ground.” The university and its contrac- tors turned away socially liberal speakers because of their abor- tion views, including actor Stan- ley Tucci and Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.). But the university welcomed socially conservative speakers, including former vice president Dick Cheney and former U.S. sen- ator Rick Santorum, who ad- vocate for the death penalty and the Iraq war, positions the Church opposes. O’Connell’s critics say the uni-


versity has taken a hard right turn. The Catholic president was a frequent visitor to the George W. Bush White House. Portraits on the walls of his campus resi- dence show O’Connell in the company of various politicians, mostly Republicans. “He was a very conservative


Catholic educator at CUA and will be a very conservative bishop in Trenton,” said the Rev. Richard McBrien, a theology professor at the University of Notre Dame. Supporters say O’Connell sim- ply did his job.


O’Connell arrived at the end of


a relatively liberal era in Catholic higher education. Catholic Uni- versity had an official gay rights group when he arrived; officials said it died for lack of interest. He was a staunch advocate of “Ex Corde Ecclesiae,” a 1990 en- cyclical from Pope John Paul II that asked bishops worldwide to rein in Catholic colleges that strayed from doctrine. In 1999, Catholic bishops codified the rules for American colleges,


man Acres Lane. One neighbor said it was lucky Tuesday was so hot because children who nor- mally play outside were indoors. “I think he went down the wrong street, that’s for sure,” said Dorothy Seder, a resident. “It just dead-ends into the corn.” Starks said police have con-


nected the man to a robbery at another PNC bank, in the 13000 block of Middlebrook Road in Germantown, about an hour be-


fore the robbery on Ridge Road. He said the man appears on sur- veillance video captured during both incidents. Police said the officer who fired his gun has worked with the de- partment for about 11 years and is assigned to the Germantown- based 5th District. As is standard procedure, he has been placed on paid administrative leave while police investigate. zapotoskym@washpost.com


She continued: “I asked Darrell what exactly he was doing over there, and he said, ‘It’s a secret.’ ” So far, more than 1,000 U.S. troops have been killed in Afghanistan. A few months before going to


war, Darrell got married. His widow, Elizabeth, is raising their 3-year-old son in San Antonio. Like Darrell’s mother, she has unanswered questions about his death.


“Darrell was frustrated because there were no clear guidelines about how soldiers were supposed to defend themselves — whether or not to shoot back when they were being fired upon,” she said. “One of his best friends told me that Darrell was killed because he didn’t have the proper protection. Why send them over there ill-equipped and confused about their mission?” Hannah Lewis serves as a peer mentor with TAPS (Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors), and she runs a grief support group at her church, Pilgrim AME, in Northeast. “Maybe I can help ease the pain of others,” she said. She said she no longer asks


JUANA ARIAS FOR THE WASHINGTON POST


David O’Connell toasts at a gathering at Catholic University. He is leaving his post as president to become bishop-elect of Trenton, N.J.


strongly encouraging them to hire presidents, faculty, trustees and staff who are “Catholics com- mitted to the Church.” Five years later, the bishops is- sued further instructions that barred Catholic colleges from giv- ing “awards, honors or plat- forms” to those who oppose Church tenets. Some Catholic colleges largely ignored the directives. Not Catholic University. O’Connell may have had little choice. “Most presidents have one bishop that they answer to. David O’Connell has a whole board full of bishops to answer to,” said Richard Yanikoski, president of the Association of Catholic Col- leges and Universities. “He has lived in a fishbowl.”


Colleagues disagree on O’Con-


nell’s role as the Vatican’s enforc- er at Catholic. Frederick Ahearn, a professor in the school of social service, said O’Connell asked faculty members to resolve conflicts “at the lowest possible level. I don’t know of any cases where he ulti- mately made the decision,” he said. There have been times, though, when O’Connell has weighed in on conflicts of faith. In an interview with the Wash-


ington Times newspaper two months ago, O’Connell ques- tioned why the Church had not sanctioned Notre Dame for ex- tending a speaking invitation to President Obama, who supports abortion rights.


O’Connell was one of two peo- ple who asked to be removed from the mailing list of CUAllies, the gay-straight alliance that his administration refused to recog- nize, said Robby Diesu, one of the group’s leaders.


Diesu recalls O’Connell hap- pening upon a gay rights protest on campus several months ago: “I don’t think I’ve ever gotten such a dirty look from someone in my life.” As his tenure drew to a close, O’Connell irked some students this spring by choosing himself as Catholic’s commencement speaker. It was unseemly, they said. Besides, the president al- ready had a speaking berth. In the end, though, O’Connell


collected far more friends than enemies in his years at Catholic, said Justine Garbarino, 21, a ris- ing senior and former editor of the school paper. “They love him,” she said.


“They really like what he’s done for the school.”


devised@washpost.com


God why her son was killed or gets angry at those who would use military jargon and political cliche to obscure the harsh realities of war. “Faith sustains me,” she said. milloyc@washpost.com


‘Move over’ law expanded in Va.


From time to time, travelers ask whether there is a law requir- ing drivers to change lanes when approaching an emergency vehi- cle by the side of a highway. An- swer: Yes, in most places, and in Virginia, the law was just expan- ded. The “move over” laws are in- tended to protect police officers and emergency workers engaged in enforcement or rescue work. Generally, the laws are written so that a driver must change lanes to move away from the action or, if that’s not possible, slow down. Virginia, the only jurisdiction in the D.C. region with such a law, broadened it as of Thursday. Un- til now, the law covered vehicles with flashing red or blue lights. In this year’s session, the Virginia General Assembly passed House Bill 1159, which adds vehicles dis- playing amber flashing lights. The measure was broadened to protect tow truck operators and highway workers.


— Robert Thomson


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