ABCDE METRO friday, september 10, 2010
POSTLOCAL.com 64, 9 a.m. 72, noon 76, 5 p.m. 68, 9 p.m.
Obituaries As the lead member of the pop trio LFO, Rich Cronin, 36, wrote the catchy tune “Summer Girls,” a huge hit in 1999 that was recorded at a friend’s house. B8
Crime is key issue in election
Chief of Pr. George’s council among 5 vying for state’s attorney
by Fredrick Kunkle
Ask Prince George’s County res- idents and politicians what the top issues are this election season, and they are likely to agree on three: economic development, education and crime.
Although down from record
levels, crime still bedevils the Washington region’s third-largest jurisdiction and one of the na- tion’s wealthiest majority-minor- ity counties, blighting some neighborhoods and creating the perception that doing business in Prince George’s is still risky. Maryland’s violent crime total fell last year to levels not recorded since 1979, and overall crime dropped in Prince George’s 14.3 percent from December 2008 to December 2009, according to the most recent police statistics. But Maryland State Police crime data also show that in sev- eral areas, the county’s 2009 crime rate was worse than that of any other jurisdiction except Bal- timore’s. The county’s homicide rate was 11.4 per 100,000, and there were 95 homicides and 3,324 robberies. Last year, the county had more rapes, burglaries and stolen vehicles than Balti- more, the state’s largest city. Against this backdrop, five can-
didates are vying for state’s attor- ney, the county’s top law enforce- ment post. No Republicans are running, and because the county is overwhelmingly Democratic, victory in the primary is often a de facto victory in the general elec- tion. The five Democrats seeking to succeed Glenn F. Ivey are Angela D. Alsobrooks, executive director of the county Revenue Authority; County Council Chairman Thom- as E. Dernoga (Laurel); Peggy Ma- gee, Circuit Court clerk; Mark K. Spencer, inspector general for the county police; and Joseph L. Wright, an assistant state’s attor- ney. Political observers and candi-
pr. george’s continued on B6
Blogs and more blogs Find a directory of local blogs, as well as posts from the best area bloggers, on issues that matter to you from our Local Blog Network. Go to
PostLocal.com.
THE DISTRICT
Illicit liaison alleged A lawsuit filed in District Court says that staff at a high school suspected a teacher was having sex with an emotionally disturbed student but did nothing to stop it. B7
MARYLAND
U-Md. patrols increased Police are redoubling efforts and urging students to be extra vigilant in the wake of five robberies near campus in three weeks. Two people have been arrested and charged in one of the incidents, in which three students were mugged. B7
“I don’t think we would have made the case at all without the
physical evidence from that storm drain.” — Assistant State’s Attorney Ann Wagner-Stewart
Metro contract driver charged 4TH ALLEGED
SEX ASSAULT
Abuse complaints beset service for disabled
by Katherine Shaver A Gaithersburg man charged
Sunday with sexually assaulting a woman in a MetroAccess vehicle is the fourth contract driver this year accused of attacking a pas- senger using Metro’s service for the disabled. Metro Transit Police said Sam- uel E. Kingston, 59, grabbed a woman’s breast Aug. 27 while helping her out of the vehicle at a facility where she volunteers in Silver Spring. The woman, who is in her mid-30s, has cerebral palsy and uses a scooter, police said. Metro Board of Directors
MICHAEL S. WILLIAMSON/THE WASHINGTON POST Detective Benjamin Brown returns to the storm drain where he found key evidence in the slaying of Antoinette Chase.
An instinct for evidence Persistent detective tied husband to Prince George’s slaying
by Ruben Castaneda
Four dozen Prince George’s County police cadets had searched a wooded area in Glenn Dale for the BlackBerry of a woman who had been killed in her Upper Marlboro home. They found nothing. Five days later, a county homicide de-
tective, Benjamin Brown, the lead in- vestigator into the strangulation of An- toinette Renee Chase, started a week- end night shift by driving back to the area. Brown suspected Chase’s husband but needed evidence before he could put him in handcuffs.
Brown, a Boy Scout leader and for- mer Eagle Scout, knows maps and Glob- al Positioning System devices. The day of the slaying, the victim’s BlackBerry had made or received a phone call that placed the device within 200 meters of a particular location in Glenn Dale. Brown plugged longitude and latitude coordinates into his GPS device and identified an area about 300 meters
Thomas Dernoga
Angela Alsobrooks College course
raises the undead U. of Baltimore explores zombies in pop culture
by Daniel de Vise
Is “Night of the Living Dead” a simple zombie film or a subtle antiwar statement? Precisely when did viral pandemic sup- plant nuclear radiation as the leading cause of zombification? And which sort of animated dead has the greater potential to fright- en: shambler or sprinter? Those questions and others will be laid to rest — and then gro- tesquely revivified — in a new course at the University of Balti- more called “Media Genres: Zom- bies.”
Arnold Blumberg, a lifelong en- thusiast of popular culture in gen- eral and zombie films in partic- ular, is among the first university professors to devote a semester to study of the reawakened dead.
His course, and recent offerings at Columbia College, Rice University and Georgia Tech, share a com- mon interest in the zombie movie as an expression of the zeitgeist. Zombies have clawed their way to the center of pop culture over the past decade in several big- budget mainstream films. There was “28 Days Later,” a 2002 British production that re- vived the genre with hip London zombies that were supremely ath- letic if not, strictly speaking, dead. And “Dawn of the Dead,” a 2004 remake of a George A. Rom- ero classic. And “Shaun of the Dead,” the definitive satire. And “Zombieland,” the slightly less- definitive satire. And “Pride and Prejudice and
Zombies,” the 2009 literary mash- zombies continued on B7
They are not forgotten
from where the ca- dets had searched. Behind a strip shopping mall, the detective inspected another wooded area. Nothing. He retreated to the shopping mall’s as- phalt and, using a screwdriver, pried open a heavy metal storm drain cover. Then a second. Then a third. Jackpot.
Spencer Chase
On a ledge, Brown saw a plastic bag. Inside the bag, he found a purse that belonged to An- toinette Chase. At the bottom of the storm drain, Brown spotted another plastic bag, which had water shoes and work gloves. The shoes were the same size as those
Antoinette Chase
worn by Antoinette’s husband, Spencer Ellsworth Chase, according to court tes- timony. The work gloves contained the DNA of both Chases, according to testi- mony. The trove of evidence led to the first- degree murder conviction of Spencer Chase. Late last month, Chase, 50, was sentenced to life in prison. “I don’t think we would have made the case at all without the physical evi- dence from that storm drain. The [oth- er] evidence was circumstantial,” said Assistant State’s Attorney Ann Wagner- Stewart, who prosecuted Chase. That evidence included a bloody ex- tension cord that Brown believes was used by Chase to kill his wife, who was 46. Wagner-Stewart told the jury that Chase dumped the items in the storm drain to hide incriminating evidence. Wagner-Stewart told jurors that Chase wore the work gloves while he was strangling Antoinette, which is why the gloves contained DNA from both of
detective continued on B6 PETULA DVORAK
U.S. needs a diversity lesson from Va. school
day. And the television channels that were changed quickly so they didn’t see the planes hitting the towers, over and over again. So they sat in their social stud- ies classroom at Centreville High School in Fairfax County this week, ready for a history lesson about the day America was devas- tated, back when they were just third-graders. That day is hazy for many of
T
them. It is a news item, a refer- ence point. A weird, frightening, divided world so far from their own.
So far, they are not hating. Un- RICKY CARIOTI/THE WASHINGTON POST
Students with the Young Republicans Club plant American flags into the ground outside Langley High School in McLean on Thursday. The students planted 2,977 American flags, one for each person killed in the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
like so much of America today. This week, these kids in North- ern Virginia gathered for class at their diverse school, their faces reflecting the global hot spots that their parents fled — North
dvorak continued on B6
hey remember their par- ents coming early to scoop them up from school that
Chairman Peter Benjamin said he wants to know whether MV Transportation, the California company that provides the Met- roAccess service, is “being careful about its operators.”
“Obviously this is something we cannot tolerate,” Benjamin said. “We have to find out what’s going on with this.” Nikki Frenney, a spokeswoman for MV Transportation, said all MetroAccess drivers must under- go a background check before they can drive for MV or any Met- roAccess subcontractors. “With more than 1,100 drivers in the MetroAccess service, we strongly believe the incidents of alleged abuse are isolated,” Fren- ney wrote in an e-mail. “It is our hope that the perpetrators are punished to the full extent of the law if found guilty.” Kingston, of the 17000 block of Downing Street, worked for Gai- thersburg-based Challenger
metro continued on B7 B DC MD VA S
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