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Good Morning, City Desk Readers!  It's the first day of July and the forecast doesn't call for 90 degree temperatures so it's already looking like a good one.  On the news front, the nation's capital is expecting some new residents that are already getting attention before moving in.

• Minnesota has finally come to its senses and decided that Al Franken will be its second senator.  It only took the ballot counters and lawyers eight months to figure that out.  The former Saturday Night Live writer will take his seat following the July 4th recess.  Franken will be the 60th Democrat in the Senate, making it possible for the party to break a Republican filibuster but he wants everyone to know that he's not looking to block legislation on a regular basis.

Read More "Our Morning Roundup: New Neighbors Edition" »

Adams Morgan. Columbia Heights. Now Logan Circle gets hit with major crime. In the very early morning on Tuesday, Carl Ashton O'Neil Gray Fitzgerald was found suffering from multiple gunshot wounds in the 1300 block of T Street NW. The D.C. Police Department writes in a press release:

At approximately 12:30 am on Tuesday, May 26, 2009, officers from the Third District on patrol in the area of 13^th and T Streets, NW, reported hearing the sounds of gunshots.  During a subsequent canvass officers located an adult male in the 1300 block of T Street, NW, suffering from apparent multiple gunshot wounds. Personnel from the DC Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department responded to the scene, but could find no signs consistent with life.  The victim was subsequently pronounced dead on the scene by a representative from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner for the District of Columbia.

The victim in this case is identified as 25-year-old Carl Ashton O’Neil Gray Fitzgerald.

On Nov. 6, 2008, David Kerstetter was shot and killed inside his home by D.C. police officers. Despite the decision of the U.S. attorney's office not to prosecute the officers involved, Kerstetter's family has filed a notice with the District that it plans to sue the city over their son's death. The family's attorney, Douglas Sparks, notified Mayor Adrian Fenty in a letter dated May 1 [PDF].

We have written about the Kerstetter shooting here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here---not to mention the cover story linked above. The Sparks letter is based on the lawyer's interviews with witnesses, the autopsy report, and an exhaustive scene analysis. It provides the first counter-narrative to law enforcement's public account that Kerstetter had lunged at the officers with a knife---that Officer Frederick Friday shot and killed the Logan Circle resident in self defense. The new evidence appears to point to excessive force.

Read More "Breaking: David Kerstetter’s Family To Sue The District" »

Protesters broke windows and spray painted the walls of PNC and Wachovia branches on P Street between 14th and 15th Streets. They were promptly arrested this morning. A Street Sense hawker says when he arrived to his post in front of the CVS on P at 9 a.m., the police were already out in force. He tells City Desk that a homeless regular was at the nearby bus shelter and saw the band of a-holes working their magic this morning. Anyway, the protesters did not cause much damage beyond the busted windows.

Wachovia's ATM was still operational!

Read More "Wachovia: We Will Not Let The Protesters Win" »

We wrote about the Logan Circle murder earlier today. As many of you know, at around 3 a.m. this morning, a 35-year-old man was shot in the head and killed walking home from Fox & Hounds. The man's name is Durval Martins.

Acting Lt. Brett Parson was on the scene of the shooting, which took place at 11th and Q Streets NW. We just got off the phone with Parson. Here is what he had to say:

“I was on the scene. It was horrible. We got a 35 year old who is dead as a result of an apparent gunshot wound and we got no suspects at this point. We have no motive whatsoever at this point.

The theory right now and it’s only a theory is we're looking at it as a botched robbery and we don’t have any conclusive evidence of a motive....

He has a very large family. I did not know him. His family has been notified at this point. He has family as far away as Portugal and also California, locally he has a brother that lives in Virginia. He has many brothers and sisters. He has a surviving mother....

He was a waiter."

Parson says he notified the family at six or seven a.m.: “It’s never easy to notify a loved one. It’s a task that no one wants to do. I can only hope that we do it in a sensitive professional way that somehow cushions it in some way. But there’s no way to do it and not be anguished. It’s the worst phone call you ever have to make.”

The Washington Blade has done some solid reporting on this morning's horrible news. At around 3 a.m., a 35-year-old man was shot in the head and killed walking home from Fox & Hounds. The shooting took place at 11th and Q Streets NW.

The Blade reports:

"The victim was identified as Durval V. Martins of the 200 block of Bates Street, N.W. A police statement said Martins also suffered multiple gunshot wounds to the body.

Acting Lt. Brett Parson, who oversees the police’s Gay & Lesbian Liaison Unit, said the motive for the killing was unknown but could have been robbery. He noted that officers found the victim’s wallet in his hand.

Martins’ credit cards, cash, cell phone, and jewelry were still in his possession, Parson said."

We will be updating this story soon.

Via DCist.

The partners of EatWell DC, which own the Commissary on P Street NW, requested and got what they wanted following Washington Post restaurant critic Tom Sietsema's harsh early look at their new Logan Circle eatery: They got the Post to retract the First Bite article, which was originally published on Wednesday in the Food Section and is still available on Mediabistro.com. And they got this nice mea culpa in the Sunday paper:

Critic Tom Sietsema should have recused himself from reviewing the Commissary, a restaurant featured in the Oct. 29 Food section. He and one of the restaurant's owners had earlier had a personal relationship. The Washington Post regrets that he reviewed this restaurant, and will remove the review from its online archive.

When contacted on Monday, EatWell DC managing partner David Winer said he didn't want to comment any further on the matter. "I can't be party in the destruction of another human being," Winer said during our brief phone conversation. He said he had hoped to keep this ugly situation out of the media, which is why he didn't send me (or other members of the local food media) the letter that he e-mailed to the 5,000 members of the EatWell DC mailing list. I told him that I had received a copy of the letter and would run it. Winer agreed that, at this point, the letter was essentially a public document. It runs below the jump.

Read More "The Commissary Responds to Sietsema’s First Bites Review" »