There is a man down on the landing of our parking garage. He has wedged himself between a foot-high concrete wall, the cigarette urn, and the second floor door. It's a small space, barely room enough for his small frame. I do not notice this man.

Our beloved photographer, Darrow Montgomery, who just biked past him, points him out.

I ask him what's wrong. He says he has asthma, that he needs help. His voice is hoarse. Another man shows up. I will learn later that this man works at Payless. The man on the ground apparently has stolen a black purse.

The Payless man tells the other man to wait---the police have been called.

The man then walks as fast as he can up to our parking deck. He then makes like he wants to jump off the deck. He mumbles about wanting to kill himself, that life isn't worth living.

He is grabbed. We get him to sit down. His name is Thomas.

I leave Darrow and the Payless employee to keep the man occupied. I run inside WCP and call the Department of Mental Health's mobile crisis unit. This is where things get annoying.

Read More "Emergency @ Washington City Paper Headquarters" »

During last week's oversight hearing on the Department of Mental Health, there was an opportunity for Councilmember David Catania to fire up his inner prosecutor and start asking some tough questions about what happened on the morning of Nov. 6.

On that morning, two police officers responded to David Kerstetter's Logan Circle home. The two cops knew that Kerstetter was mentally-ill and that he was in crisis. The officers did not quite know what to do. They waited outside his home for roughly a half hour. They called their supervisor. They tried calling Kerstetter's therapist.

The officers should have called DMH's mobile crisis response team. Instead, they went inside Kerstetter's home. Kerstetter ended up being shot multiple times and died. He allegedly came at the officers with a knife and a struggle ensued. [The evidence casts serious doubt on that narrative]. While a standard MOU had yet to be signed between DMH and D.C. Police, the existence of the mobile crisis team was known all the way up to the highest levels of the police department.

So I waited for Kerstetter's name to be invoked. And I waited for Catania to ask some tough questions. Instead, Catania played it safe and gentle.

Read More "Remembering David Kerstetter" »

Earlier today, we wrote about the police shooting that took place this morning at 830 7th Street NE. According to news accounts and police statements, D.C. cops were called to the address for a domestic dispute or assault. When they arrived they found a stabbing victim and the alleged perp. The suspect allegedly charged at the police with a pole. The police opened fire on the man and killed him. “He was dead on arrival. It was a fatal shooting," says Traci Hughes, the D.C. police spokesperson.

The incident happened shortly before 11 a.m. While there was some back and forth over whether the home was a group home, it is a rooming house that does include people who are mentally ill. One former resident I interviewed said that he had been referred to the house by a psych facility. "This is supposed to be a community residential facility," said the former resident of his one-time 7th Street home.

Tonight, the home was empty except for two residents. The former resident was on the scene as well. He talked about the man who had been shot and killed by police. He knew him as "Osmond." Police released his name a few hours ago. His name is Osman A. Abdullahi. He was 36. The former resident said that Osman could be delusional, that he talked often about people out to get him. Some of Osman's enemies were from Alaska. "I would say he was schizophrenic," said the resident. "He talked about people coming to get him."

A month ago, he says, he saw Osman laying on his bed. "He had a butcher knife under [the] covers," he recalled. "He was worried about his roommates. He said the roommates were talking in their sleep about him."

This morning, Osman, attacked one of his roommates, a senior citizen, someone the two current residents referred to only as "Lewis." Grant Osborne, 57, a resident at the 7th Street home, says he woke up this morning to Osman standing in the doorway with a knife. He was fuming about his same old problem: People were out to get him. They were coming for him. Osborne didn't understand. The shades were drawn.

Osborne remembers the police breaking down the door. He heard the police ask Osman multiple times to drop his weapon. He says he heard one shot.

Read More "More Details On The Police Shooting @ 7th Street NE" »