C4
S
KLMNO
SUNDAY, AUGUST 1, 2010
Bombs are found in Fairfax mailboxes
by Kevin Sieff FBI The so-called Granddad Bandit has struck in Virginia a few times. Here he is at work, from left, in Richmond in June, Roanoke in May 2009 and Richmond in December 2008. Bandit doesn’t hide from the camera. He just vanishes. bandit from C1
would not say how much. Loot in hand, he walked out of the bank and blended in with the after- noon crowd. One look at the clear surveil- lance photo and Richmond po- lice Detective George Mihalcoe thought the arrest would be quick. Surely someone would recognize the man and phone in a tip. The police sent the image to local newspapers and television stations and showed it around within the department. “We said we’ll have him locked up in 24 hours, he’s so dis- tinctive,” Mihalcoe said. “When we didn’t have him in 24 hours, we said: ‘We’re not going to solve this. This guy is from out of town.’ ”
A month later, the man resur-
faced at a bank in Alabama. The robberies continued in Arkansas, Kansas, Georgia and Florida. He has struck as far north as New York. He has never robbed two banks in the same state in a row. And he has never struck in Mary- land or the District. Lawrence Kobilinsky, a foren- sics professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, said he thinks the Granddad Bandit is well aware that his im- age is on surveillance videos. “I think this is one of those people that like the idea of be- coming a celebrity bank robber, like a Dillinger or a Bonnie and Clyde,” Kobilinsky said. “He’s not afraid of revealing himself. He’s saying: ‘Here I am. You can’t catch me.’ ”
In 2009, more than 5,900 banks nationwide were robbed, and nearly $46 million was tak- en, according to the FBI. This particular robber follows
a pattern, authorities said. He walks up to a teller and shows a note asking for a specific amount of cash. “It started with, ‘Give me $2,000’ or ‘$3,000,’ ” said Bradley Bryant, chief of the FBI’s violent crimes and major offenders unit. “Lately, he’s been saying, ‘Give me $5,000.’ ” The man hasn’t threatened or harmed anyone, the FBI said. On a few occasions, he gestured toward his pocket, giving a teller the impression that he might have a weapon. But no weapon has been seen. Lt. Emmett Williams of the
ROBERT McCARTNEY Ever wonder what’s bugging the Almighty? mccartney from C1
attention, I turned Strasburg’s pitching arm sore and made Haynesworth wheezy after a couple of sprints. Hundred-million-dollar contracts don’t buy winners without MY say-so, especially if they don’t get in shape. Lackey: It’s certainly been a
trying period for the area. Our intelligence reports say it’s feeling cursed. What’s next, frogs? Boils? Almighty: I think there’s time
for at least one more severe heat wave this summer, and maybe a hurricane or two afterward. It’s the season, after all. Lackey: We hear people in
Montgomery County and the District will set fire to Pepco headquarters if they lose air conditioning again at times when heat and humidity are touching levels suited for the Amazon rainforest. Almighty: I admit I’ve been
hard on Pepco. Its outages dwarfed those of other local power companies in both the winter and summer storms. Lackey: We’ve all noticed
that. Here’s an example of a typical news bulletin, from Tuesday evening, more than 48 hours after Sunday’s tempest: Pepco, 84,221 customers without power. Dominion Power, 70. BG&E, 14. What’s the story? Don’t you
like their slogan, “We’re connected to you by more than power lines”? Almighty: That one is indeed annoying. For half a million people last week, it would have been plenty to be connected AT LEAST by power lines. Lackey: Doesn’t Pepco bear some of the blame? Shouldn’t it do a better job of cutting back trees, burying some wires or restoring service? Almighty: Maryland state
regulators and the D.C. Council are supposed to look into that.
Humans need to sort out some things on their own. Free will, you know. Lackey: The angels are
curious about why you’re picking on the Washington area. One line of thinking is that the people in Dallas have been right all these years and you’re secretly a Cowboys fan. Almighty: Typical Texas tall talk. I mostly stay out of the NFL, although I do strongly prefer owners who avoid micromanaging and let their new coaches and general managers put their valuable experience to good use and run the team in a professional way without interference, second-guessing and . . . Lackey: Whoa! Message received. Is it a political agenda, then? The liberal caucus up here thinks you’re annoyed because the region is underfunding the Metro transit system and letting the Chesapeake Bay turn into a sewer.
Almighty: Not to mention Congress killing the climate change bill. How much severe weather does it take before people connect the dots on carbon emissions? That’s not it, though. I can’t fault the region for being too conservative when it’s got one of the bluest electoral maps around. Lackey: The Tea Party types see it the opposite way. They think we’re down on Washington because it keeps expanding the federal government. The Bush administration added tens of thousands of national security jobs. Now the Obamaites are pumping steroids into the health-care and financial regulatory agencies. Almighty: Look, I’m just
trying to be fair. California gets wildfires, mudslides and earthquakes that actually topple roofs instead of just rattling dishes. And what about Louisiana and the Gulf Coast? A
dozen years like 2010 still wouldn’t cause as much hurt as Katrina and the BP spill. Lackey: Are you saying
Washingtonians should quit whining? Almighty: Something like
that. Let’s not forget the economy, either. The foreclosures have been tough and it’s brutal in the inner city, but all that federal spending has eased the pain. Unemployment in the D.C. area is the lowest of any major metropolitan area. The region has less than 2 percent of the nation’s population but accounted for 10 percent of all new jobs created since February. Lackey: So the Washington region should appreciate its blessings? Almighty: Now you’ve got it.
I’m just looking for a little humility. For starters, that guy Haynesworth should give back his bonus.
mccartneyr@washpost.com
Richmond police said he thinks the man is committing his crimes far from where he lives and works.
Williams plotted the robberies
on a U.S. map. Did the robber seem to travel along a major highway? Were all the robberies near airports? Would any pattern emerge? Nothing. “He’s just kind of all over the
place,” Williams said. “You see how many areas of the country he’s hit. I can’t help but think he’s somewhere in the part that’s left over.”
FBI agents agree. The robber, who is white, is de- scribed as between 45 and 60. He is about 6 feet tall, and au- thorities describe his build as “heavy” or “stocky.” He is bald-
ing, with short, grayish hair on the sides. Authorities said he does not appear dangerous or act in a threatening way. He does not attract much attention at all. “Every baby boomer in the world is him,” Williams said. The Granddad Bandit re- turned to Virginia in May 2009, robbing a Valley Bank in Roa- noke. Then he was off again, hit- ting a Wells Fargo bank in Dallas and a Bank of America branch in Wichita, among others. In late June, he popped up again in Virginia. It was a Tues- day afternoon when the man in the beige polo shirt and jeans en- tered the Union First Market Bank branch in Glen Allen. He handed over a note and left with the cash.
glodm@washpost.com Authorities are warning Fairfax
County residents to beware of homemade chemical bombs placed in mailboxes and on front yards of residential areas. At least eight of the bombs have been found in residential areas of Reston and West Springfield since May, according to the Fairfax County Fire Department. No one has been injured by the bombs, which are made of over- the-counter chemicals, such as Drano and baking soda. Residents have discovered flam-
ing water bottles upon opening their mailboxes. In June, Lee-Ali- son Sibley began removing what appeared to be trash from her mailbox in Great Falls. Smoke started barreling out of a plastic water bottle as soon as she touched it. “The bottle had already explod- ed, but some of the chemicals burned my finger,” Sibley said. “My middle finger turned black and swelled to twice its size.” Officials from the fire depart- ment arrived soon after, asking Sibley who might have done it. “There’s no one who has a vendet- ta against us,” said Sibley, a middle school teacher. “It’s probably kids who have money and wheels and thought this would be a funny joke.”
Some bombs have contained shredded aluminum. “People think that it’s trash, but
if they pick it up, the bomb could blow their hand off way too easily,” said Sharon Rainey, the head of a community organization called myNeighborsNetwork. Rainey, along with many other residents, suspects local teenagers are responsible. Hundreds of vid- eos on YouTube explain how to produce similar bombs, she said. Fairfax police and fire depart- ments are investigating. “This kind of thing tends to be the work of a younger person,” said Renee Stilwell, a fire department spokes- woman. “There’s no massive ex- plosion, but it makes people feel threatened . . . and it could be dan- gerous.” The fire and police departments released a bulletin last month warning residents that “the explo- sions are powerful enough to dam- age mailboxes and cause poten- tially serious harm to persons.”
sieffk@washpost.com
If Gray is elected, his coalition will complicate the mayoral agenda gray from C1
Gray’s standing as an establish- ment candidate. For the most part, supporters
say Gray hasn’t made specific promises, although they are drawn to his reputation for col- laboration and want to be closer to the levers of power. But with the city government likely to face continuing budget shortfalls, if he is elected, Gray can expect to be tested quickly on how well he can say no. “Anytime you win, everybody is responsible for you winning, whether you win by one vote or a landslide,” said Julius W. Hobson Jr., a consultant who headed the city’s intergovernmental affairs office in the late 1980s. “You didn’t get there without them, and that is what [Gray] is going to face.”
Council member Marion Barry
(Ward 8), a former four-term mayor who has a long-standing relationship with Gray, said he had better “be prepared” for an influx of demands because “the American way is to the victor goes the spoils.” “The unions are going to come. All the advocacy groups are going to come. I’m going to come,” Bar- ry said. “I have a self-interest in this race. We want major devel- opment east of the Anacostia Riv- er. People want jobs, training pro- grams. And he’s just going to have to be prepared for that.”
Some friends and advisers said
privately that it might prove diffi- cult for Gray to say no to support- ers, given his big-tent manage- ment style and compassionate leanings. It was also noted that in another era, he and some of his supporters held office in a city government that wasn’t known for spending money efficiently. Gray said in an interview that he has generally shied away from making far-reaching promises and that he is up to making diffi- cult decisions. He pointed to his experience as executive director
of the D.C. Association of Retard- ed Citizens in the 1980s and of Covenant House of Washington in the late 1990s and early 2000s. “You want to be compassion-
ate, but people have put me in these positions to make deci- sions,” Gray said. “I follow two principles, and that is if I make a promise, I will do everything I can to fulfill it, and, second, if it is something I can’t do, I won’t make the promise in the first place.”
Go-slow approach
Gray has hired several outsid- ers to help run his campaign, but friends and supporters say long- time Washingtonians with ties to former mayors Barry and Sharon Pratt continue to influence deci- sions. Some supporters are con- cerned that Gray has not pre- sented detailed policy goals and worry that the campaign will be paralyzed by his go-slow, consult- first style.
“If Adrian Fenty is the hare, Vince is definitely the tortoise,” said someone who has worked closely with Gray and who asked to remain anonymous to main- tain their relationship. “There is no question he surrounds himself with lot of people and that can slow decision making.” For instance, the education pol-
icy his campaign rolled out last month had been vetted by more than 100 teachers, union leaders, parents and other stakeholders. And as council chairman, some colleagues said, Gray has been too slow at times to fire poorly per- forming employees. But some council members say Gray gives latitude to committee chairs to set policy and cut deals, choosing to act more as a referee and medi- ator.
“I look at him and think,
‘Would he treat his Cabinet simi- larly?’ ” asked one council mem- ber, who asked not to be identi- fied in order to speak freely. “If he hired good people and provided good support, that would be a
was elected with little support from unions and other interest groups. But some business lead- ers and advocates say Fenty’s style, which is often characterized as abrasive, comes at a cost, be- cause he has been unable to build the effective coalitions needed to ensure lasting reforms. “We’ve got some very serious decisions to make as a city, and that is going to require a consen- sus builder,” said Gray supporter Barbara Lang, executive director of the D.C. Chamber of Com- merce.
Some tough issues
Fenty often points to his scrap- ping of the zoned taxi system in 2007 as an example of him taking on a difficult issue to make the city more business- and tourist- friendly.
LINDA DAVIDSON/THE WASHINGTON POST
Vincent C. Gray, shown at a debate in June, has built a broad base of support in his challenge of Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, seated at left.
very good way to govern. The problem is, what if he hires bad people and lets them simply get away with being bad? Then we are in trouble.” Gray’s nice-guy image aside, he
has at times experienced difficul- ty managing competing interests. In April, Gray spoke to a Jewish social advocacy group and left the impression that he would spare social service programs from ma- jor budget cuts, even if it meant higher taxes. A month later, Gray and the council ruled out higher taxes, prompting some additional cuts.
At the end of May, Gray decided
to cut funding for a new streetcar system, but within hours, he had
reversed himself in the face of a public outcry. Max J. Brown, a former legal counsel to Mayor Anthony A. Wil- liams and a Fenty supporter, said steady leadership is required to improve schools, lower crime and spur economic development. “It’s like a football game,” Brown said of city politics. “If you are the de- fensive tackle trying to get the quarterback, you are not going to say, ‘Excuse me, offensive line, can I get around you?’ ” It’s a con- tact sport, and sometimes you just get the job done and you ruf- fle a few feathers.”
Brown said one reason that
Fenty has been able to thin out a bloated bureaucracy was that he
But the change capped fares within the District at $19, which cabdrivers say threatens to run them out of business. Novell Sulli- van, former head of the taxi com- mission, and other Gray support- ers have distributed a letter Gray wrote to the city’s 6,000 licensed cabdrivers two weeks ago in an attempt to address their con- cerns. “I have already tasked my staff with thoroughly reviewing your ideas and possible avenues for collaboration between govern- ment and industry on this critical matter,” Gray wrote. The letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Post, didn’t promise higher fares but indicat- ed that Gray hoped cabdrivers would support his campaign. Campaign advisers said the let- ter shows that Gray is willing to reach out so that people feel they have a stake in city government. “A collaborative approach doesn’t mean a debilitating approach,” said Mo Elleithee, a senior Gray strategist. “A collaborative ap- proach means everyone has a seat at the table, but at the end of the day, he will make the ultimate de- cisions.”
Gray supporters said his per- formance as council chairman proves that he has the ability to make tough decisions and contin- ue the changes started by Wil- liams and Fenty. Gray, they noted, led the council effort last year to censure Barry and strip him of his committee chairmanship after al- legations that Barry had misused city resources. Despite intense pressure from nonprofit groups, Gray also eliminated council ear- marks last year. And budget hawks said Gray has generally shown more restraint then Fenty when balancing the budget. “When the time comes, he will
say no,” said council member Mary M. Cheh (D-Ward 3). Still, issues such as taxi fares could present a dilemma for Gray. Gray wants to help cabdrivers, but a Washington Post poll in Jan- uary found nearly six in 10 resi- dents — including 80 percent of white residents — support the taxi meter system. Gray’s positions on the police
department could require an- other balancing act. The Post poll found that Chief Cathy L. Lanier had a 68 percent approval rating. But the head of the chairman of the D.C. Fraternal Order of Police labor committee, a Gray support- ers, said she should be fired. “I think what we need to see is a real cleaning from all the ranks,” Kris- topher Baumann said. And whether the city can afford
what the candidate promises is a question that never goes away. On the campaign trail, Gray has de- clared that he will provide fund- ing “equity” for charter schools. The pledge has rallied supporters of charter schools, who note that millions of dollars flow to tradi- tional public schools outside the uniform per-student formula. “We are excited Gray has be- come a champion, and we plan to absolutely hold him to his prom- ise,” said Barnaby Towns, a spokesman for Friends of Choice in Urban Schools.
craigt@washpost.com
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152