Sitting behind the defense table are a pair of brothers, Gerald and Richard Arnold. Richard is in braids. Gerald is in a light blue shirt that's too big for his frame. They look bored. Almost sleepy. They came into courtroom 320 clutching legal file folders. But the proceedings are slow and tedious. A juror is [...]
Last night, two firefighters—Greg Bowyer and Gerald Pennington—announced their plans to file a lawsuit against the fire department. We detailed their case roughly an hour ago on City Desk.
Since announcing his imminent lawsuit against the fire department, Bowyer says his day has gone pretty normal.
Last night, WJLA reported that a pair of D.C. Firefighters are readying a civil lawsuit aimed squarely at D.C. Fire Department Chief Dennis L. Rubin. This fight has been brewing for years. The firefighters are claiming that their own department has botched numerous fire investigations and that the upper brass retaliated against them when they [...]
As I documented in this week's cover story on Osman Abdullahi's death, the problems at 830 7th Street NE were vast. Abdullahi was left without meds in a house without heat and very little food. There was the thinnest of safety nets for Abdullahi and his fellow tenants. After the shooting, the building's manager Mark [...]
On January 26, Osman Abdullahi was gunned down by D.C. Police after an altercation inside his unlicensed group home. The home, located at 830 7th Street NE, had no heat, very little food, and no supervision. Abdullahi wasn't taking his medication at the time. The home's manager Mark Spence has a long history with troubled [...]
Look at it. Go ahead and stare. This is what a District group house looks like. This is the scene from the Jan. 26th police shooting death of Osman Abdullahi. He had been suffering from schizophrenia. He had been living at this group home, located at 830 7th St. NE, since Nov. 1.
The Department of [...]
If at first you don't succeed, try, try try and try again. Today in D.C. Superior Court, Banita Jacks was deemed mentally fit to stand trial. D.C. Superior Court Judge Frederick H. Weisberg had previously ordered Jacks to be mentally evaluated three times. In each of those three times, Jacks refused to cooperate. This past [...]
Apollo Gonzales, a Capitol Hill listserv poster is upset his neighborhood wasn't warned that a portion of 18th Street SE would be lined with "No Parking" signs come inauguration-time.
Upon first spotting the signs on Jan. 16, Gonzales was completely perplexed:
"Can someone explain to me why Emergency No Parking signs went up today on both sides [...]
Yesterday, the Washington City Paper's own Darrow Montgomery asked an important question in the comments section of a post focusing on the flood of RSVPs (as of now, over 1,300) the Washington Area Bicycle Association has received for its Inaug-Day bicycle-parking service: "What happens to bikes locked up outside these areas?"
Seeking an answer, City Desk [...]
On November 25, attorney Benjamin J. Razi filed civil suit on behalf of Robert Wone's widow. The suit was filed against the three roommates—Joseph Price, Victor Zaborsky, and Dylan Ward—who have been charged with obstruction of justice. The civil complaint lays out a wrongful-death case; the family is seeking $20 million. But I wonder [...]
Yesterday, I spent some solid time in the jury lounge of D.C. Superior Court fulfilling my civic duty. Ever since, D.C. Superior Court started going after truant jurors, it's been a good idea to not buck the system and accept that you're gonna have to do some time in the third-floor jury room.
So here's a [...]
District folks renting out houses and apartments for inauguration-week are by now aware that the DC government has decided not to assess sales tax on those transactions. But sales tax isn't the only way to end up owing a percentage of inaug-rental profits to the local tax office. There's also income tax.
Online real estate publication [...]
Today's WaPo brings news that two senators are bitching about the impending move to allow bars and nightclubs to stay open till 5:00 am throughout the inauguration madness. This is our city, of course, and I don't particularly care what a pair of senators from California (Feinstein) and Utah (Bennett) have to say about how [...]
The murder of Robert Wone is a tragic case. The circumstances of his murder are presented in the affidavit's now famous, grim narrative of drugging, stabbing, and sexual assault. Yesterday, a prominent lawyer called me to point out two holes in the law man's narrative involving the three—Victor Zaborsky, Dylan Ward, and Joe Price—now charged [...]
Update: It's on. Find out how to use the inaugural bike valet here
The Washington Area Bicycle Association's Henry Mesias says a 2:30 meeting between the organization and the District Department of Transportation yesterday, in which plans to allow WABA to set up a bike valet station for Inauguration Day were discussed, "went well." But [...]
