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.

As we reported in our cover story, the Department of Mental Health had established crisis response teams but had failed to formalize its protocols with the police. It hadn't sent their memorandum of understanding to the police until the day after the shooting of Kerstetter.

Jordan says it was the D.C. police that spurred on the creation of these response teams: "That response team was created at the suggestion and direction of the Metropolitan Police Department." He adds that he met with DMH for about 18 months, and helped to start a pilot program in the 1st District.

Jordan still insists that much of the responsibility in responding to residents in crisis rests with cops, but he is unclear on what kind of training they get. He may be super-articulate in taking credit (see quote above), but he is wildly inarticulate in explaining the actual knowledge that officers take with them to any scene like the one that unfolded with Kerstetter.

Cops appear to be training with the broadest brush; it is a training session that is not quite specific to mentally-ill residents. I remain very unsure as to what exactly the department does to train its rank and file.

Jordan goes on to mention that DMH may be in the process of implementing more training at the police academy. But who that's for, what that consists of, and when it's going to be put in place, Jordan wasn't sure. Again, he's no longer in charge of such things.

Whether the mobile crisis response teams could have helped Kerstetter, Jordan doesn't know either. But he says DMH should have gotten their memorandum of understanding signed with the police department if they were already running response teams. The teams had started up in October and were fully operational on Nov. 1—days before the police shot and killed Kerstetter.

“If they told you they were up and running prior to the signing of the [MOU], you’d have to discuss it with them," Jordan says. "It wasn’t our expectation that it would be a joint project until we agreed to [the MOU].”

On the one hand, Jordan insists the police department created these teams, are the first-responders, and are trained in an unspecific way to handle cases like Kerstetter's. On the other hand, he blames the Department of Mental Health for not getting that piece of paper signed.

I have calls into DMH. Maybe they can help clarify.

Photo of David Kerstetter provided by Kerstetter family

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.

"When this all started, I was happy the police where there," Lichtenberg says. The police had been called because the door to Kerstetter's condo had been broken and left open. It looked suspicious. Also, her mother had phoned Lichtenberg out of concern that her son was having a breakdown; he had struggled with mental-health issues for years. "I was concerned that David would try to hurt himself....I was worried about him," the neighbor says.

"It had been a rainy day," she remembers. "It was cool enough that I think I had grabbed a sweater from the closet."

After the officers arrived, they walked over to Kerstetter's condo–No. 10–and talked things over with Lichtenberg and the property's super. It was a young cop and an older cop. The veteran, Officer Frederick Friday, had a funny name, she thought.

She recalls Friday telling her that he knew Kerstetter. "I've been her before," he told her. "I had got the impression that he had been there a number of times. That he had been called many times."

Lichtenberg says they had a fairly involved conversation about Kerstetter. "I said he really has to go to the hospital. We have to get him to the hospital. He's clearly mentally sick.

Friday, she says, explained to her how the process would work, how the police could get him evaluated, that he could be held for 48 hours. "We talked about a very similar [incident] with my cousin," she adds.

"It seemed to me that he expressed grave concern," Lichtenberg says of Friday. She thought that the officers were "going to take care and that it was good the police were there."

Lichtenberg adds that Friday took down the name of Kerstetter's psychiatrist. She had called Kerstetter's mother and was able to track down contact information for his doctor. She says she was there at David's doorstep with the police for close to a half hour.

Both Lichtenberg and the building employee volunteered to talk to David. The police rejected the offer. David had called down and refused to let the employee inside, saying he was really just the police.

Lichtenberg says she had a call she had to make in her home so she had to leave before the police went inside. She remembers they asked about Kerstetter's animals. "They asked [the building's employee] if David had any weapons. [He] said, 'No.'"

Lichtenberg says she did not hear the gun shots.

"I thought everything was OK," she says. "I gave [the officer] the information and I went back to my house."

*photo by Darrow Montgomery.

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.

"Think of yourself in their position," he says. "They have a building that's been vacant for three years and has a significant debt service every month....You've got this company coming in saying, 'Here is a check' and you've got other interested parties saying, 'Give me 60 to 90 days and let me see if I can get the money.' Let's say you give them 90 days and in the meantime, Room & Board walks. Heads roll over something like that. People lose their jobs."

Stavropoulos and Co. will have to find another space and Dickson says he's happy to help them do that. He has one spot already in mind, the former home of the Central Union Mission at 14th and R. But Stavropoulos has poured a good deal of energy into getting people on board with the project at 14th and T—"He really worked hard. He walked the streets talking to people," says Dickson, who has lived within three blocks of 14th and T for 25 years.

But Room & Board is coming. The chief financial officers is in town today lining things up. He and Dickson met with Councilmember Jack Evans today, partially based on the anti-chain reaction from the neighborhood. Evans' position, according to Dickson, is that government has no part in the sale of the building.

Dickson is quick to defend Room & Board. It's "not some giant big-box store," he says. It has seven stores nationwide, the closest being in SoHo in NYC. "It's going to have a tremendous regional draw to this neighborhood and I think that is a win-win."

The store, he says, will likely open about two years from now. An architect has already been hired.

(City Paper photograph by Pilar Vergara)

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.”

Baron goes on to say: "We don’t have our mou with the police in place. I think everything happened so quickly. We’re doing training of cadets. We’re doing training. We deliberately rolled out the mobile crisis slowly. They need some training. I don’t know all the details about this case to even comment on it.”

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.”

Since September 2006, Eure has been fighting for the D.C. Police Department to adopt a new approach to dealing with the problem. He wanted the white shirts to co-opt the Memphis Police Department's "CIT" model. This involves training a core group of officers that would specialize in mental-health related cases. When a call for a suicide attempt would come in, these officers would handle it. This model has been adopted by police departments across the country.

Lanier, so far, has balked at adopting the CIT model.

Last spring, Commander Brian Jordan, the department's point person on this subject, says he found no use-of-force problems. And yet, he came up short on the subject of training:

"Jordan could not exactly state how much time the rank and file spend on mental-health-related training. Nor could he say what officers are actually taught. 'I don’t have the curriculum in front of me,' he said. 'Not all [of it] is mental health training. Some of it is about force investigation, some of it’s verbal judo.'"

Late this morning, I reached Eure to see if he'd comment on yesterday's tragedy.

"It seems to be a tragic situation," Eure says. "I really can't say more. We are waiting to learn about it as well. I can say just generally speaking our agency continues to be concerned with MPD's ability regardless of this incident to respond effectively to people with mental illnesses. We did a long set of recommendations. They have not adopted them. Those concerns continue."

Whatever action the D.C. Police Department decides to take, it will be too late for David Kerstetter.

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."

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.

From the Reeves Center at 14th and U, Rogers says exit polls are looking good for him. "I'm very hopeful. I've seen a lot of my supporters here."

Rogers, who's lived in the Dupont area 10 years, got into the ANC market primarily because of the 14th Street Divide: On the east side (represented by Greater U Street ANC) stores and restaurants dominate. On the west side, which is under the jurisdiction of his ANC, boarded-up buildings are the norm, he says.

"What has my opponent done for us...except for block local businesses?," Rogers asks.

Rogers says that Estrada's opposition to the Diner project is one of omission, and points to his opponent's blog post on the matter.

The two also went at it in our comments section last week:

1. Doug A. Rogers Says:
   October 24th, 2008 at 11:18 pm editThis is indeed sad news to hear for the neighborhood. From what I’ve heard from my neighbors, everyone I spoke with fully supported the coffee house/restaurant/entertainment space in this location. I’m concerned about this big box retailer who will be taking the place of independent local business owners who care about the neighborhood. Perhaps my oppenent, who is the current chairman of the Dupont ANC, will enjoy the furniture delivery trucks pulling up next to his house every morning.

   We want more independent retailers in our neighborhood, not more big-box retailers. Go to my blog (www.rogersforanc.com) to find out how you can contact Room and Board’s President to tell him that ‘thanks, but no thanks’. Let’s keep our neighborhood big-box free!

2. Ramon Estrada Says:
   October 27th, 2008 at 12:34 pm editIt is unfortunate that the local business group was unable to lease or purchase the property. The ANC was not involved in any of these matters. In fact, because there was no lease nor ABC applications, the matter never came before the ANC for any approvals. The group presented their concept over the summer, but never returned for approvals. I followed up, but was told that lease negotiations were still underway. Everyone wants to see this property improved and occupied and the DC based property owner tells me he has accepted a contract from Room and Board. It is not the role of the ANC Commissioner to undo contracts, but I will continue to serve to bridge constituent concerns and business objectives in our area. I think it is unfortunate that my opponent chooses to mischaracterize the situation and my record in his attempt to promote himself. There is additional information about this site and other projects coming to our neighborhood at http://www.ramonestrada.org

According to The Blade:

Stavropoulos said Estrada told him he would seek to block a 24-hour diner and would place restrictions on Stavropoulos’s plans for outdoor seating for the diner.

“He basically said, ‘No, no, no,’” Stavropoulos recalled Estrada as saying.

Two Dupont Circle residents who know Estrada said they believe his aim is to make sure both projects don’t create neighborhood problems and that he would likely agree to the projects if certain changes are made. But the two said the changes sought by Estrada could result in delays in the completion of the projects.

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)

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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."