In the wake of the police shooting death of David Kerstetter, I was told by the D.C. police department that its point man on issues related to dealing with residents in crisis is Commander Brian Jordan. Kerstetter had long suffered with his bipolar diagnosis. When the police arrived at his Logan Circle condo on November 6, Kerstetter was in crisis.

While police administrators were pushing Jordan publicly as their go-to guy, I learned that he was actually no longer charged with dealing with this mental-health issue. In fact, at the time of Kersetter's death, Jordan had already been transferred to head up the department's school security division. He had made the move around a month or so ago.

Since Chief Cathy Lanier isn't returning my requests for an interview, I went ahead and interviewed Jordan today. I thought he could offer some insight in how the D.C. police are trained in handling residents who are suicidal or are having a bad reaction to their meds or are just having a freak-out moment.

Read More "D.C. Police vs. Mentally Ill Residents, Part 2" »

This week we published a cover story about the D.C. Police shooting death of David Kerstetter. Kerstetter lived at the Iowa, a complex located at 1325 13th Street NW. During the course of reporting, I interviewed a neighbor, Sherry Lichtenberg who met with the two cops that morning, who talked to them just before they went inside Kerstetter's condo.

Some of Lichtenberg's account of that morning on Nov. 6 are in the full story. Here is the rest of our conversation.

Read More "David Kerstetter Shooting: The Witness" »

Commenters have beeen tearing it up over at 14th and T: The Good News, Bad News Edition, many of them in support of Diner/Tryst/Open City owner Constantine Stavropoulos and comedy club impresario John Xereas, who had hoped---with the help of Dave Chappelle and others---to develop local businesses inside the former Church of the Reformer. That plan now looks even more like a dream deferred to Minneapolis-based furniture outfit Room & Board.

Blame the "big-box mentality" if you like, but here's what really happened, according to Wayne Dickson, who, as principal partner at Blake Dickson Real Estate Services, represents the owners of the building: "Whoever writes the first check gets the space. That's the beginning and the end of the story....They [the local business owners] didn't have the money and had no assurance they could get the money."

Dickson is not unsympathetic to Stavropoulos and John X. He was the one who helped Stavropoulos move into Woodley Park in what is now Open City. They're friends and he says he has high esteem for both men. But that doesn't mean Four Points, his clients and the owners of the building, are making a bad decision.

Read More "14th and T: Reality Edition" »

As you all know by now, a D.C. Police Department veteran shot and killed a suicidal man, who allegedly was brandishing a knife, at 1325 13th Street NW. The incident took place yesterday morning following a 911 call.

David Kerstetter, the man who police shot and killed, was familiar to officers who worked on 13th Street and officers who worked in the Gay and Lesbian Liaison Unit.

"He had some issues in his life," says Brett Parson, who oversees all of the D.C. Police Department's liaison units. "Whether it was mental health or stress in his life, I can't tell you that....It's a sad case."

The incident may eventually be ruled as justified. But it calls into serious question the D.C. Police Department's continued refusal to adequately deal with mentally-distressed residents.

Just a few days ago, the Department of Mental Health (DMH) launched a new outreach program aimed at preventing such incidents. On November 1, the department started up its mobile crises response teams. The teams have a staff of 20 working 16 hours per day, seven days a week.

Stephen T. Baron, DMH’s director, says that mobile crises response team may not have been called over a technicality. His agency is still waiting for the police department to sign a memorandum of understanding.

“I don’t know all the details," Baron says of the Kerstetter incident. "I spoke to Chief (Diane) Groomes briefly about it. It’s a tragedy for everybody all around."

Would his new crises team have responded to such a case? “I’m sure it would have," Baron says. "I’m sure they would have shown up. But who knows where they were in the process? The police are handling it. They can’t stop.”

Read More "David Kerstetter Shooting: DMH Responds" »

This was the worst-case scenario.

Yesterday morning, the D.C. police department received a 911 call for a reported suicide attempt at 1325 13th Street NW. Two officers, a 20-year veteran and a rookie fresh out of the academy, took the call.

When they arrived on the scene, the officers found a man clutching a knife, according to a Washington Post story. It is yet unknown how much training the officers had in dealing with suicidal residents, in tamping down a volatile situation involving a citizen with extreme mental distress.

According to the Blade's more definitive account, the man, David Kerstetter, "had been suffering from bipolar disorder and had become severely depressed when his domestic partner died last year." The Blade goes on to report that police were familiar with Kerstetter. They had gone to his house many times.

No one is saying publicly what the officers told Kerstetter or how they initially reacted to him when they first arrived. But apparently a scuffle ensued between the officers and Kerstetter. Suddenly, an already difficult situation became a deadly one.

D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier told the Post that at some point during the struggle, one of the officers, the veteran cop, fired his weapon. Kerstetter was shot. He was then taken to an area hospital where he was pronounced dead a short time later.

This is the scenario that police watchers have long dreaded. The Office of Police Complaints (OPC), in particular, has lobbied---for years---then-Chief Charles Ramsey, Lanier and the D.C. Council about upgrading the police department's abilities to handle mentally-ill residents. We wrote about the problem this past April.

Philip Eure, OPC Executive Director, told City Paper that he saw enough citizen complaints related to mishandling a mentally-distressed resident that he made it a priority. “What I know is based on reviewing the complaints and the narratives,” Eure said at the time. “You have a variety of reactions to people who are mentally ill. There are some officers who have the natural empathy.…And you have other officers [who] because of a lack of good training don’t know how to respond. Some officers make fun of these people, laugh at them, mock them. Much of that is based on ignorance.”

Read More "David Kerstetter Shooting: D.C. Police vs. Mentally-Distressed Residents" »

For Doug A. Rogers, like Barack Obama and Arthur Delaney, it's all over but the counting. ANC 2B09 challenger Rogers---who was randomly photographed earlier today by our roaming election staffer, Amanda Hess (that's him on the left)-- just called in from home. He's been up since 4 a.m. and was out all day at 14th and U in front of the Reese Center. His opponent, incumbent Ramon Estrada, the ANC chair, was out in the rain as well.

"Yes, we spoke," says Rogers. "We're neighbors. We have our differences, but it's a friendly race."

Rogers, a CPA for a consulting firm Downtown, is optimistic and is planning to head down to the Board of Elections later tonight for some results. Of course "with all the issues down there and the write-in for Carol Schwartz....if it's close, we'll have to wait for the absentee ballots to come in. It could take two weeks."

Rogers is running on a pro-development, pro-local-biz platform, especially in regard to the west side of 14th Street and it's lack of fabulousness compared to the east side of the street, which is under the purview of a different ANC.

Estrada "has been in the neighborhood for 30 years," says Rogers, hedging his optimism. "We'll see what happens....he does have a lot of people who are anti-development."

In case you missed it, the Washington Blade has a nice piece on gays running against gays in the hot, hot, hot ANC races. (Note: Our candidate, Arthur Delaney, is not gay. If he was, he probably would have clean pants ready to go.)

Among the gay races, we're keeping a close eye on ANC 2B09 in Dupont Circle. Chairman Ramon Estrada, who's served for six years, is facing a challenge from Doug A. Rogers. News we broke about the planned development at 14th and T is shaping up as the issue that divides. Rogers is a big backer of the Diner/Tryst/Comedy option at the former Church of the Reformer, where Minneapolis-based furniture chain Room & Board is looking to open. Estrada, although not openly against the local-biz project led by restaurateur Constantine Stavropoulos, is also not carrying the project's water, mainly because of the disturbance a 24-hour Diner hybrid could create. We could not confirm that. Estrada has never returned our calls.

Rogers did and will be checking in with us as his race unfolds.

Read More "ANC Races: The Year of the Gays, Especially at 14th and T" »

We learned today that Dave Chappelle, yes the Dave Chappelle, has signed on as a potential investor with the Diner/Tryst/comedy club planned for the old Church of the Reformer at 14th and T Streets NW, the development plan we wrote about in July.

The bad news? That plan is close to imploding. Sources close to the deal say that the earlier agreement to lease the space from the current owner fell through. Rather than let their dream die, Diner/Tryst/Open City owner Constantine Stavropoulos and DC-Improv and Riot Act comedy impresario John Xereas, along with a few others---including Chappelle, a Xereas acquaintance who has D.C. roots---worked to get a deal together to buy the building. The bid is in the neighborhood of $9 million. The problem? They're not the only ones interested.

Big-box furniture outfit Room & Board, based in Minneapolis, has also put in a bid for the building, according to a real estate source. Although the bid is said to be close to what the locals have offered to pay, the current owners put their trust in furniture. The Room & Board bid has been accepted, the source said, albeit with a 60-day window where it can be retracted.

Stavropoulos, when contacted to confirm the news, said he could not openly discuss the negotiations, but added that he hoped "Room & Board realizes it's bad business karma to come into a spot where local D.C. businesses have defined a wonderful vision that is shared by local D.C. residents."

"We spent months working on this project, months cultivating neighborhood support and generating excitement for this," he continued. "We have a viable alternative and the financial backing to make it happen. If Room & Board wants to come to D.C., that's great. Just don't step on local businesses' and resident's dreams to do it."

The latest incarnation of his group's plan had the restaurant on the first floor, the comedy club on the second, and an indie movie "microcinema" house on the third, in addition to developing the property next door to 1840 14th St. as a yoga studio and dance space.

Xereas says he's been working on the 14th and T plan for more than six months and, at this point, "we've still got our fingers crossed, we've got everything crossed" that the local plan will prevail.

Room & Board spokesperson John Loer says he is aware that his company was looking to sign a lease in D.C. but referred more detailed questions to Chief Financial Officer Mark Miller, who was unavailable.

(City Paper photograph by Pilar Vergara)

The Washington Post burns through its share of paper. Its Sunday edition alone, bulked up by a sheath of advertising inserts and classified ads, can tip the scales at around 2½ pounds. That, of course, is just for the people who want it.

The Post Co. also distributes its brand to people who don’t request it. Logan Circle resident Michael Sirvet says he’s been getting something called the Washington Post Shopping Guide "forever." When he finds the weekly promotional piece in his mailbox, he follows a simple routine that involves throwing it away.

The guide, however, became something more than an annoyance when Sirvet came back from a vacation. "I had 10 days of mail with these two papers smashed up," says the 41-year-old Sirvet. "It was getting in the way of my other mail."

The Post, for Sirvet at least, has turned into the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs. He claims that since the beginning of this year, he’s called the paper more than 10 times in a futile effort to get himself removed from the mailing list. "The first couple of times, they were nice. After the third or fourth time, I asked to talk to a supervisor," he says.

“"It just boggles my mind. It’s now kind of humorous in a Kafka–esque way.…It’s a waste of paper," says Sirvet, a self-described "tree hugger." After repeated pleas to the Post, Sirvet even called the U.S. Postal Service to ask whether it could stop a particular piece of mail from ending up in his box. The answer was no.

Rima Calderon, vice president for communications and external relations at the Post Co., declined to answer most questions about Sirvet and the shopping guide, including basic ones about who gets the guide and how many editions are mailed out each week. Calderon did say, however, that Sirvet is the only opt-out problem the guide’s staff is aware of.

Last week, Sirvet received the Sept. 18 shopping guide, which contained pullouts from Shoppers and Rite Aid.

"I’m just not a big shopper,” says Sirvet. "I’m not a heavy-duty consumer. There are people who use coupons---I just don’t use them that often."

(City Paper photograph by Darrow Montgomery)

Borderstan, an in-between hood described here, is inching toward legitimacy here, with its own website.

Dinaw Mengestu reads tonight from his new-in-paperback debut novel, The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears, which recently won the Guardian's First Book Award. The novel is set against the shifting backdrop of D.C.'s Logan Circle in full-swing gentrification and follows the life of a young Ethiopian immigrant as he struggles to reconcile his new existence with the one he left behind. Like his narrator, Mengestu immigrated to the states from Ethiopia. He was just two when he arrived in Peoria, Ill., and went on to earn degrees from Georgetown and a graduate writing program at Columbia. A critic in the Times described the novel as "a great African novel, a great Washington novel and a great American novel." It makes sense that a non-native would have a good take on a city where short-timers rule. Tonight's reading is free. His next reading, on Feb. 29 with Edward P. Jones at the Folger, is $15.

Politics and Prose, 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW. Fri., 2/8, at 7 p.m. Free. (202) 364-1919.

ACKC may sound like a kennel club, but it's really a cocoa bar, chocolate shop, and art gallery run by business partners Rob Kingsbury and Eric Nelson, who opened the operation last year on 14th Street NW, just up the way from the now-defunct Viridian. ACKC is an acronym for Artfully Chocolate (Nelson's business in Del Ray) and Kingsbury Chocolates (Kingsbury's in Old Town), which combined their talents for this first foray into the D.C. market.

Now just months into its existence, ACKC plans to open a second store in the former Sundae Times space in Alexandria, says Kingsbury. The new store, located at 2003A Mount Vernon Ave., is scheduled to open in early March. Unfortunately in this law of confectionary equilibrium, one door opening means another one closing. Nelson plans to close Artfully Chocolate around the time the new ACKC opens.

At 900 square feet, the second ACKC will be less than half the size of the original off Logan Circle. As a result, it won't have a cocoa bar where you can sit on a stool and yak with the person making your hot chocolate, but it will offer the same chocolate-based drinks named after Hollywood starlets such as Lucy, Joan, Judy, and the rest of those one-name wonders. It will also feature Nelson's artwork as well as Kingsbury's chocolates and a small kitchen so patrons can see how chocolatiers go about their work.

Kingsbury says he and Nelson have been approached about opening more ACKCs, but have resisted the calls so far. First starters, neither one has the "time and money right now," and secondly, neither wants to take on investors just for the sake of expanding. "We're not looking at [the business] in that corporate sense," Kingsbury says. "It's just our business that we're putting our heart and soul into."