IN CASE YOU MISSED IT—"Closing Arguments In Wone Case," "World Cup Roundup," "Photos: Terry Huff"

Morning All. You better enjoy Metro today and Saturday. Those big fare increases are set to start on Sunday. WaPo's Ann Scott Tyson and Anita Kumar report that Metro approved those complicated fare hikes yesterday: "Metro's board of directors authorized an extensive package of fare increases Thursday as the agency approved a $1.4 billion operating budget and a plan to cover a projected $189 million shortfall for the fiscal year that begins July 1. The new fares include nearly $109 million worth of increases for people who ride rail, bus and MetroAccess, the service for the disabled. Because of the complexity of the fare increases, they will be implemented in three stages: on Sunday, on Aug. 1 and in the fall. One potentially confusing component is a new 20-cent 'peak-of-the-peak' rail surcharge that will start in August and affect riders who travel during the busiest times. The board had indicated in a vote last month that it would approve the changes. Rail fares this weekend will increase about 18 percent, with the peak boarding fare going from $1.65 to $1.95. The bus boarding charge will go up 20 percent, from $1.25 to $1.50 for SmarTrip users and from $1.35 to $1.70 for cash customers. Metro's board also agreed to cut the cost of SmarTrip cards in half, from $5 to $2.50, because the cost of the cards has fallen and because Metro wants to encourage riders to use them, said Peter Benjamin, the board chairman. Board member Jim Graham, who serves on the D.C. council, cast the only dissenting vote. He said he was concerned about the effect of the higher fares on the people least able to afford them."

AFTER THE JUMP—Peter Nickles would stay on if Fenty gains second term, Metro gets into the movie rental business, WaPo columnist stands up for social workers fired in wake of Banita Jacks case, and tragedy hits Ward 8 ANC Commissioner.

FOUR MORE YEARS OF NICKLES? District AG Peter Nickles, aka Fenty's Troll Doll, tells Jonetta Rose Barras on her WPFW radio show that he's open to remaining as the city's top lawyer for four more years. WaPo reports: "In a DC Politics interview on WPFW 89.3 FM, Rose-Barras told the city's top lawyer that there are some residents who will not vote to re-elect Fenty because of Nickles, his strained relations with the council and the view that he is a 'cantankerous old man,' who is to blame for 'a lot that has happened in this administration is bad.' 'I don't know if I'm cantankerous,' Nickles said, joking about his age, 71. 'I'm ready to take it on as long as the mayor wants me to take it on.' Nickles acknowledged that he has long had a cantankerous relationship with former mayor Marion Barry (D-Ward 8). But Nickles said he has had 'very good relations' with council members Jack Evans (D-Ward 2), Muriel Bowser (D-Ward 4), David Catania (I-At Large), Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6), Jim Graham (D-Ward 1), and at times, Chairman Vincent Gray. But, he said, 'I have found these other council members – particularly Barry, Michael Brown (I-At Large), Kwame Brown (D-At Large) and Harry Thomas Jr. (D-Ward 5) – completely unwilling to listen. No matter what the issue is, they are instinctively against the mayor.'" What about your biggest critics, Councilmembers Phil Mendelson and Mary Cheh? Anyway, Nickles ruled out running for attorney general; voters can decide in Nov. if the position should be an elected office. [Nickles opposes such a move].

Meanwhile, the D.C. Council rebuffed Nickles' attempt to allow indefinite response times for FOIA requests. WaPo's Ann Marimow reports: "Attorney General Peter Nickles' request for more time to respond to public requests for government information is unlikely to gain traction in the Council, where two members — Muriel Bowser (D-Ward 4) and Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3) — have introduced legislation to increase access and transparency. Nickles said the District is inundated with complex Freedom of Information Act requests and needs a 'safety valve' of additional time to respond, similar to what federal law allows. But Cheh said Nickles 'is looking for an open-ended excuse not to comply, and he's not going to get it. It's a simple invitation to delay, an invitation to mischief.' Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray, who is challenging Mayor Adrian Fenty in the September Democratic primary, also rejected the idea, calling the current response period 'sufficient.'"

CFSA AND BANITA JACKS FALLOUT: WaPo columnist Petula Dvorak takes up the cause of the social workers fired in the wake of the Banita Jacks case. She believes they should get their jobs back: "All of the social workers who had anything to do with the Jacks case were thumped in grand fashion by an angry and decisive Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D). For a city reeling from the discovery that Jacks's four children were dead and that Jacks had been living in squalor for weeks with their decaying bodies until she was found in January 2008, it felt righteous to fire everyone having anything to do with her case. A new director of the Child and Family Services Agency was installed, and Jacks was convicted of killing her girls. But [Carl] Miller and two other social workers are still fighting the case every day. And the city is fighting back. The case touched Miller's life in late 2007, when a school social worker called and told Miller that a student at her school had been truant, the mom wouldn't open the door when she came to investigate, and she was worried. On the phone, Miller was matter-of-fact, reminding the social worker that the woman had no legal obligation to let her inside. It seemed like educational neglect, nothing more; the social worker said the kids looked unkempt and were watching TV. That sounds like my own childhood. As satisfying as it may have been to can Miller because he didn't swoop in to save these girls, it's not realistic to end the career of a 34-year-old man who had been a reliable social worker for eight years." Dvorak doesn't say that the CFSA director resigned not over the Jacks case, but over her inability to handle a huge backlog of cases in its aftermath. She also doesn't mention that the court monitor had flagged CFSA's poor investigative skills a few months prior to the Jacks case making headlines—so social workers and their supervisors had ample warning that they needed to be more vigilant. Still this is a must read for anyone that followed the Jacks case, and Dvorak can be convincing especially regarding the one social worker fired after relying on the police to properly visit the Jacks home. The police officer lied to the social worker saying that he had seen the Jacks children and they were fine. He had never seen the kids.

GRAY VS. LEO ALEXANDER: Leo Alexander takes it to Vincent Gray during the latest mayoral forum, WaPo reports: "Alexander, who has been struggling to gain attention in what so far appears to be a two-man race, went on the offensive against Gray, accusing him of being as much to blame as Fenty for the city's problems. 'When you think of everything that has happened in the last three years, you cannot criticize this man, without looking at this man,' Alexander said, pointing at Gray and Fenty. Alexander specifically challenged Gray for not doing more to prevent Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee from laying off 266 teachers last year. 'It wouldn't be fair to talk about the betterment of DCPS, without talking about leadership of our council chairman,' Alexander said. 'When this council had the opportunity to stop those firings, but he did nothing.' A clearly agitated Gray fired back, accusing Alexander of misrepresenting his record, noting he and Council member Harry Thomas (D-Ward 5) worked on legislation to try to force Rhee to rehire the fired teachers. 'Let me begin by saying it's easy to sit up here when you've done nothing and pontificate,' Gray said to Alexander. 'If you did the research, you would understand the council wouldn't have the authority to turn this around despite the fact we tried.' Alexander responded: 'The gentleman said I have done nothing, let's talk about his do-nothing leadership on the city council.'"

OUR CONDOLENCES: WaPo is reporting that Ward 8 ANC Commissioner Anthony Muhammad's two sons were killed in a car crash in Silver Spring: "Muhammad family members did not comment. They were planning a vigil at Kennedy High School in Silver Spring on Thursday evening. Commissioners in Ward 8 said they were pulling together to support the family. 'Mr. Muhammad is an active, dedicated person in our community, and we're grieving with him. It's a tragic loss,' said Ward 8 commissioner Lendia Johnson. 'He's devastated, as far as I can say. He adored his children. He was an excellent father.' Barbara Clark, another Ward 8 commissioner, said she contacted Muhammad through a text message after the accident. Johnson said she admired Muhammad's sons for being upstanding and disciplined. 'They weren't the pants-hanging-down-low type,' she said, 'They were neat, clean, straightforward, obedient young men.'"

DROWNING: Councilmember Harry Thomas Jr. says he will hold a hearing on this week's drowning death of a child at the Turkey Thicket Rec Center pool. WaPo reports: "Yiana-Michelle Ballard, 6, was found unconscious at the rec center's crowded indoor pool about 2:20 p.m., officials said. She had been swimming with her family. Lifeguards tried to resuscitate her, but she was later pronounced dead at Children's National Medical Center. Police said Thursday that their special-victims unit was still investigating the circumstances of the death. Autopsy results were pending. 'This should have never happened,' said D.C. Council member Harry Thomas Jr. (D-Ward 5), who chairs the Committee on Libraries, Parks and Recreation. 'We are doing everything that needs to be done to make sure that this doesn't happen again.' Thomas said he plans to hold hearings next week to examine whether the city's pools are safe. He said he is consulting with officials from the American Red Cross to review pool safety procedures and might introduce emergency legislation to address the issue." More coverage via WUSA9.

FOLKLIFE FEST: WUSA9 offers a preview of this year's fest on the Mall.

RHEE: THE MOVIE STAR? Maybe not. But the school's chancellor gets a star turn in front of the cameras for a new education documentary.

METRO MOVIES: Rental kiosks are coming to Metro, reports WBJ. More coverage via the Examiner.

OF COURSE: People are raising pigs in Takoma Park.

FIRST LADIES: Duke Ellington students woo a pair of First Ladies with a little MJ.

THINK YOU GOT IT BAD: Tenants in one building are fighting landlord over broken AC.

HYDRANTS: D.C. officials are encouraging residents to not turn on hydrants as a way of combating this ridiculous heat.

FREE: HIV/AIDS testing.

MUST READ: WaPo's Paul Duggan's story on the murder of Manual Sanchez: "Fleeing poverty in El Salvador, he walked into the United States illegally across miles of desert in 1998. He worked as a bricklayer or as a laborer, depending on the economy, and drank heavily for a time, often squandering his wages. On May 28, behind a vacant tenement in Southeast Washington, where Sanchez, 29, and two of his cousins had been bagging trash and cutting weeds, the men were accosted by a pair of would-be robbers. Now Sanchez is gone, air-freighted back to his rural home town in a coffin, allegedly shot by a suspect six days past his 16th birthday, a ward of the city's youth rehabilitation agency. The accused killer, Javon Hale, and the other suspect, Rafael Douglas, also 16, are due in D.C. Superior Court on Friday for a preliminary hearing, each charged as an adult with murder after two witnesses identified them to police. Some killings rivet the media and the public: An esteemed lawyer mysteriously stabbed in Northwest Washington townhouse; a University of Virginia lacrosse star savagely pummeled in her apartment; a beloved D.C. school principal shot in his Silver Spring home. And some homicides go largely unnoticed beyond the tumbledown blocks where they occur, beyond the families and friends of the slain and the handcuffed and the authorities seeking justice. The shooting of Manuel DeJesus Sanchez was such a crime....The suspects, locked up without bond, have pleaded not guilty. Hale, who has a record of juvenile crime, had been let out of Boys Town, a group home, on a weekend pass just hours before Sanchez died bleeding on a dingy patch of Hillside Road SE in Benning Heights."

KOJO: Today's guests: Virginia congressional candidate Keith Fimian and Maryland Comptroller Peter Franchot.

MAYOR'S SCHEDULE:

10:45 a.m.
Remarks
Ribbon Cutting for Deanwood Recreation Center and Library
Location: Deanwood Recreation Center and Library
49th and Quarles Streets, NE

D.C. COUNCIL'S SCHEDULE:

10 a.m.
Committee on Human Services (Round Table)
"Status of the District's Low Barrier, Transitional and Permanent Support Housing Programs for Adults, Youth and Families who are Homeless"
Location: John A. Wilson Building, Room 500

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT—"Fenty, Transparency, Scrutiny: The Political Fallout of FOIA Reform," "Council Ices Statehood Committee," "Mount Pleasant NIMBYs Battle Over Haydee's," "Photos: Strasburg's Debut @ Nationals Park," "Triple Shooting Near Howard University"

Howdy. D.C. Auditor Deborah Nichols finds that the District rarely enforces laws providing that city contractors hire local workers and pay living wages. Along with the city's high unemployment rate, and staggering homeless problem, LL wonders where is the mayor on this issue? Michael Neibauer reports: "District laws requiring that developers of taxpayer-funded projects hire D.C. residents and pay their employees a living wage are poorly monitored and rarely enforced, a new audit finds.The failure of multiple District agencies, primarily the Department of Employment Services, to manage or even implement the 'first source' and living wage programs has cost hundreds of D.C. residents potential jobs and the city government millions in potential tax revenue, D.C. Auditor Deborah Nichols concluded in the May 18 report. District residents, Nichols reported, 'may not be receiving an equitable hourly wage rate.'"

Neibauer goes on to report: "Meanwhile, of the 700,000 jobs in D.C., 72 percent are held by non-District residents, said Councilman Michael Brown, D-At large, who has oversight of DOES as chairman of the Housing and Workforce Development Committee. 'When you’re looking at these high unemployment numbers,' he said, 'I don’t know what is a higher priority.' Only four of 16 development projects that Nichols reviewed met the 51 percent hiring requirement. The 12 that did not, including DC USA, Kenyon Square and the Mandarin Oriental hotel, amounted to 361 jobs and $14.3 million in earnings lost. While that is an estimated figure, Nichols wrote, 'it shows the type of economic fortune that could have occurred for the District and its residents had District agency officials and developers been more committed to FSA laws and processes.'"

More coverage via the Examiner's Alan Suderman: "Nichols found that Mayor Adrian Fenty's office had essentially ignored the city's Living Wage Act of 2006, which requires city contractors to pay workers at least $12.10 an hour. Nichols also noted that Fenty's administration, including Attorney General Peter Nickles, refused to allow her access to all the documents she requested for the audit. The mayor's spokeswoman and Nickles could not be immediately reached for comment Wednesday."

And Nickles wants to toughen the city's FOIA laws making it that much harder for reporters and citizens to access government documents. If he won't turn over materials to the city's auditor, do you think he'll turn over materials to you? This LL bets our AG has spent more man hours stonewalling Pershing Park plaintiffs attorneys or suing lawyers in special education cases than going after contractors who fail to live up to their obligations to city workers. Council Chair Vincent Gray won't need a focus group to realize he needs to make this a campaign issue.

AFTER THE JUMP—Politics and Prose owners say store is for sale, more Tax Office Troubles, Trey Joyner's family speaks out, Fenty addresses Hadar resignation, and much, much more!

POLITICS AND PROSE: WaPo's Michael Rosenwald reports that the beloved bookstore is up for sale: "The store's owners, Carla Cohen and Barbara Meade, both 74 and so in synch they often wear the same colors without planning to, said they are simply too tired to keep steering Washington's most prominent non-chain bookstore — a premier stop on top-shelf author tours and a frequent setting for book talks on C-SPAN — through the uncertainty of an industry threatened by e-books. Cohen is also seriously ill. 'It's time for us to stop and let somebody else take over for the future,' Meade said in the 26-year-old store's cramped office. Cohen, eyes reddening, said, 'I just don't have the energy like I used to.' Meade and Cohen said that their 60 employees are nervous but that the sale should not be perceived as the store's final chapter. Despite doom and gloom in the industry, Meade said, 'there are no financial problems here. We make a good profit.'" More coverage via WBJ, DCist. On their blog, the bookstore's owners promise: "Although we are contemplating retirement, we anticipate maintaining a regular presence during the transition, and hopefully afterward. Our goal is to find new leadership to operate the business in the spirit which has been our hallmark. As always, we'll see you at the store!"

TAX OFFICE TROUBLES (AGAIN): The Examiner's Scott McCabe reports that a D.C. tax office investigator and a Bethesda businessman have been indicted on bribery charges: "Shelly-Ann N. Wicker, an investigator for the Office of Tax and Revenue, and John F. Craul, owner of a corporate tax consulting firm, were indicted on 28 counts of bribery and forgery charges. The alleged scheme lasted between 2005 and 2007, ending mere months before the FBI uncovered a different $50 million scandal in the same office. Reached by phone Wednesday, Craul called the charges ridiculous. 'I have never bribed anybody, and they don't have proof,' Craul said. 'If Shelly did it, she did it on her own.' Craul said he and Wicker were good friends, and he loaned her money and she paid him back. 'I wish I could afford to bribe somebody,' Craul said, 'but I don't have any money.'" The scheme cost the District roughly $106,000.

D.C. STATEHOOD: WaPo's Mike DeBonis assesses the District's failed efforts to win voting rights in Congress and where to go from here. Vincent Gray offers a simple solution: fight for statehood. DeBonis writes: "Gray and others explain their frustration as rooted in political reality: The Democratic Party has majority control of Congress, plus a Democratic president in Obama. But still the voting-rights compromise has failed. 'If we can't get it now, then when?' asked Gray, who is running for mayor. 'Why don't we just go for the whole enchilada?' 'There's a greater understanding that it's not any more difficult to get statehood than it is to get a single House vote,' said Michael D. Brown (D), one of two shadow senators elected by District voters to advocate for statehood. And that new understanding has been accompanied by second-guessing. 'Statehood is the big fish, and I think we should have put more effort in that originally,' said member Yvette M. Alexander (D-Ward 7), who heads up the council's voting-rights advocacy efforts. 'We would have made much more headway if we have just focused on that.' The failure of the one-vote compromise has also emboldened longtime statehood activists who have been overshadowed by the voting-rights establishment. 'It's an I-told-you-so moment,' activist Anise Jenkins said. 'A lot of people put a lot of energy and money into this effort, and it was a total misdirected waste of time.'"

METRO MESS: Unsuck Metro reports that Transit Union boss Jackie Jeter invoked slavery in an e-mail defending a Metro bus driver who punched McGruff the Crime Dog.

TRIPLE SHOOTING: Last night, three people were shot near Howard University, NC8 reports: "It happened shortly before 8 p.m. Wednesday at 8th and V St NW, a block from the 930 Club. DC Councilmember Jim Graham says two vehicles met up at the spot and fire was exchanged. One witness said he heard two gunshots while leaving a building, then saw people disperse and one man squirming on the ground after being shot. Other people say they saw a victim running toward Howard University, then fall to the ground near the McDonald's." More coverage via WaPo, NBC4, WTOP.

Meanwhile most of those troublesome traffic lights have been fixed.

FENTY ON NEWSTALK: The mayor stopped by NewsTalk for an interview. WaPo's Mike DeBonis took notes: "Fenty also addressed why his well-regarded HIV/AIDS czar, Shannon Hader, abruptly left the city health department. He noted that Hader spent more than three years on the job, 'easily the longest-serving HIV/AIDS administrator by at least double,' he said. But would not address why she left—including rumors of a clash with health director Pierre Vigilance— saying only that 'for professional reasons, she's moved on.' DePuyt noted that Council member David A. Catania (I-At Large), chair of the health committee and usually an ardent Fenty supporter, called Hader's departure 'catastrophic' in a Post story today. But Fenty wouldn't directly address the claim: "We have momentum. We're on a upward trajectory," Fenty said, noting that Hader's replacement, Nnemdi Kamanu Elias, has a resume 'every bit as exciting and robust as Dr. Hader's was when we hired her.'"

TREY JOYNER: WaPo reports that Trey Joyner's family held a news conference demanding answers into his death, and for the park police officers to be held accountable: "Almost a year to the day of the June 8, 2009, incident, the family and supporters held a news conference Wednesday outside the John A. Wilson Building to say that the investigation is taking too long and they are looking for justice. 'It does take time to take care of business,' said Brenda Joyner, Trey Joyner's mother. 'But it shouldn't take this long.'"

INTRODUCING THE STRASBURGER: Perhaps nothing got more coverage than BGR's tribute to the Nats pitching phenom. Certainly more reporters covered this burger than the Nichols' audit on jobs. Here's just one story on the now-famous burger.

MAYOR'S SCHEDULE:

7:10 a.m. Guest
Fenty on Fox
Location: Fox 5

9:30 a.m. Remarks
Frank Kameny Way Naming
Location: 17th and R Streets NW

3:00 p.m. Remarks
Ribbon Cutting for Tewkesbury Condominiums
Location: 6425 14th St. NW

In a recent public filing, plaintiffs lawyers in the last remaining Pershing Park case provide additional evidence showing that then-Chief Charles Ramsey issued the order to mass arrest the 400 individuals on Sept. 27, 2002. All those arrests were promptly thrown out by city lawyers. More than seven years later, the arrests remain a huge controversy.

In recent depositions, two police officials testified that they heard Ramsey give the arrest order. Ramsey has repeatedly denied that he gave the command to make the mass arrests.

Captain Ralph McLean, who had previously given a similiar account, stated in his deposition: "It is my sincerest belief that Chief Ramsey said, 'lock those motherfuckers up.'"

Last week, Det. Paul Hustler backed up his affidavit with his own deposition testimony. He stated that he heard Ramsey order Assistant Chief Peter Newsham to "teach them a lesson" and "lock the motherfuckers up."

Plaintiffs lawyers go on to write:

"Hustler further testified that he was expressly told by Assistant Chief Jordan that no one was to be allowed out of the park and that even journalists would be arrested."

*file photo by Darrow Montgomery.

In their probe of the discovery abuses, plaintiffs lawyers in one of the  Pershing Park cases may have found new evidence of alleged criminal conduct by District employees. In early February, a District employee admitted in deposition that they destroyed materials at the order of their supervisor, according to court records.

Plaintiffs lawyers in the Chang case write in a footnote in a court filing dated Feb. 19:

"The extent of the District's outrageous conduct was highlighted this week when it was learned in a deposition, that a District employee, at the order of a supervisor, destroyed 15-20 boxes of material, which included approximately 50 VHS tapes–all of which was located in the office of the individual responsible for overseeing the Joint Operations Command Center."

Yikes.

The employee deposed  is George Crawford, a computer specialist who has worked for the D.C. Police Department for 12 years. Crawford's story had been included in the Sporkin Report. But plaintiffs lawyers were able to get more details from Crawford in deposition which included the depth of document and tape destruction.

The Joint Operations Command Center is the hub that would have generated the running resume, the police log of their minute-by-minute activities. The running resume for the mass arrests at Pershing Park on Sept. 27, 2002 went missing and has never been turned over to plaintiffs.

Police video of the events has also come under scrutiny. Plaintiffs lawyers had filed a lengthy brief arguing that the tapes that had been turned over in discovery were faulty: heavily edited, out-of-sequence, and missing the moment of the mass arrests. AG Peter Nickles and Co. had defended the videos. But at a recent hearing before U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan, the OAG lawyers admitted that the tapes had been edited and were merely compilations of footage.

The OAG has still failed to turn over the original videotapes.

*file photo by Darrow Montgomery.

On Feb. 8, plaintiffs in the last remaining Pershing Park case filed a request that would broaden the scope of the U.S. District Court's inquiry into the case's discovery abuse. Plaintiffs attorneys are asking the judge to look into the alleged issues with the D.C. Police Department's video coverage of the mass arrests at Pershing Park on Sept. 27, 2002.

U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan is already set to hire a forensic examiner to determine how the running resume  (the department's own reported log of events) went missing, and how the department's radio dispatches went dead around the time the arrests were made.

The problematic video tapes turned over by the Office of the Attorney General may be the latest example of the discovery abuses. So far, AG Peter Nickles has thrown up some really lame excuses for why the video footage appears so corrupted.

The attorneys in the Chang case write:

"This video footage, produced in both videotape and DVD format, contains numerous anomalies that suggest it has been edited or otherwise tampered with. A forensic analysis of the original video recordings is, therefore, necessary to determine the origin and extent of any such modification or spoliation."

The District had recently testified that the video recordings had not been edited and were recorded by Sgt. Donald Yates. Yet, the District's witness, Inspector Brian Bray admitted that Yates could not have possibly filmed all the sequences since he appears in some footage.

Plaintiffs lawyers go one to dissect the video problems point by point. One of the most startling issues that has come to light is the government's use of "different time-stamps" and a "non-linear time progression." Lawyers also found that there is "an extended gap during the time of the mass arrests in Pershing Park."

The two different time stamps suggest that it's possible the tapes were altered or edited. "At worst, this discrepancy suggests that the IMF video footage has been edited and certain footage added or deleted," the plaintiffs lawyers write.

The lawyers go on to state that some of the video footage appears out of order, jumping back and forth through time (kind of like an episode of "Lost" D.C. Police-style):

"There is no apparent explanation as to how Sergeant Yates recorded events at 8:15 a.m., then traveled back in time and recorded events nearly an hour earlier from 7:21 a.m. to 7:23 a.m. and then returned to 8:15 a.m. and continued filming, unless the video has been altered."

There is also the problem with the gap in the tape. The video produced by the OAG "contains no video footage for a period of nearly 39 minutes (the longest gap in the Video other than that over the lunch hour) during which MPD and other law enforcement officers began mass arresting people in Pershing Park."

As the lawyers point out, um, this is the critical time period. It's astonishing that the government would even hand over such a video. According to the plaintiffs' filing, the District's explanation for the 39-minute gap is simple: Sgt. Yates was a really crummy director who may have been great at recording tons of b-roll of bored looking residents but failed to deliver at the crucial moment—the moment when his own department decided to arrest everyone in the park. The District has claimed that he was "distracted" and "wasn't aware the arrests had taken place."

Wow.

How could any police officer—let alone an official with a video camera—not realize that the arrests of 400 individuals were taking place?

The plaintiffs lawyers write: "the Court should order a forensic examination of the IMF Video to confirm that no video was recorded during this critical period of time."

*overused file photo by Darrow Montgomery.

Talk about sending the lamb to the slaughterhouse. On January 7, Office of Unified Communications employee Denise Alexander sat down for a deposition in the last remaining Pershing Park case. Let's just say she was ill-prepared for any questioning.

But first a little background on Alexander:  Two years ago, she had submitted an affidavit [PDF] swearing that the radio dispatches between D.C. cops at Pershing Park were in perfect order. A police official soon gave a deposition [PDF] stating that the radio dispatches did appear to contain gaps; most notably, the tapes went dead during the actual mass arrests on Sept. 27, 2002. Plaintiffs had then argued repeatedly that Alexander had submitted a false affidavit.

Alexander could be on the hook for a perjury charge.

When Ret. Judge Stanley Sporkin tried to question her during his own investigation into the evidence abuses, his staff was told that she was unavailable. This reporter reached her shortly after the report was released.

With a perjury charge still a possibility, Alexander appeared before the attorneys in the Chang case. A transcript of the proceedings shows that Alexander just wasn't ready. The OAG clearly did not brief Alexander or at least failed to make her understand the personal stakes involved in her deposition.

The deposition got bad enough, quickly enough that at one point Alexander asked the plaintiffs attorney for legal advice.

Alexander believed that she was being represented by OAG lawyer Monique Pressley. Pressley jumped in and said she was not Alexander's attorney. This became the issue of the day as plaintiffs attorney Jonathan Turley tried to sort through the confusion.

Turley: "Are you represented by counsel today?"

Alexander: "Yes."

Turley: "And who would that be?"

Alexander: "Ms. Pressley."

Turley: "Just to confirm, Ms. Pressley, you had told us yesterday that you weren't representing this witness. Has that now changed?"

Pressley: "I'm not her personal counsel..."

Turley: "Do you understand that you do not have personal counsel today?"

Alexander: "Yes."

Moments later, Alexander didn't seem to grasp the importance of her previous affidavit.

Turley: "Are you aware that that declaration has been challenged as containing false statements?"

Alexander: "I learned of that fact."

Turley: "When did you learn of that fact?"

Alexander: "Tuesday...This week."

Turley: "How did you learn of that?"

Alexander: "Talking to Ms. Pressley."

Turley: "Are you aware that you have been specifically referenced in open court as having potential criminal liability in this matter?"

Alexander: "No."

Turley: "Are you aware that Judge Sullivan, who is the presiding judge in this case, has indicated that he may refer this case for criminal investigation?"

Alexander: "No."

Turley: "Do you understand that you have a right to have your own counsel advise you today?"

Alexander: "I'm understanding that as we speak now."

Turley then asks her if she understands the concept behind the Fifth Amendment.

Alexander went on to explain:  "Ms. Pressley did mention that I could have a lawyer, but I felt as though I didn't need—I didn't know that I would need a lawyer for this. But should I go find a lawyer?"

Turley asks Alexander if she wants her own lawyer. Alexander says yes.

In a surprising move, Pressley, the government's own attorney, presses for the deposition to proceed. She even appears to contradict Alexander's testimony.

Turley: "I am not sure how to proceed, Ms. Pressley. The witness was unaware that allegations have been made about her personally?"

Pressley: "No, she wasn't."

Turley: "She was not aware of that?"

Pressley: "She was not unaware of that."

After the break, Alexander had something she wanted to say: "Yesterday I felt comfortable with going forward with the deposition, but since the beginning of this, I want to have a lawyer present."

And that was the end of Alexander's deposition. What a mess!

In a recent hearing in the Pershing Park case, Judge Emmet Sullivan warned D.C. Attorney General Peter Nickles that he "was playing games with the wrong judge."

In a filing last week [PDF], plaintiffs lawyers suggest Nickles is not taking Sullivan's threat seriously.  Lawyers in the Chang case assert that the crafty AG is still playing games with discovery.

Nickles and Co. had handed over 3,000 pages of material to plaintiffs. The only problem: these pages were overly redacted. In some cases, entire pages were blacked out. Nickles is required by law to justify each redaction. In this case, the marked-up pages came without explanation.

This is the third time Nickles has used this redaction tactic.

The plaintiffs lawyers write:

"This Court is all too familiar with the District's discovery abuses in this case. One distressingly familiar contrivance used by the District to avoid its discovery obligations has been to redact or withhold entirely relevant documents on the basis of unsupported claims of law enforcement or deliberative process privileges. This is nothing more than a stalling tactic."

In Nickles' world, almost any document qualifies for redaction. Plaintiffs lawyers have seven years of litigation to support this claim. In a footnote, they cite one hilarious example of the AG's Sharpie abuse.

One document had been redacted for years, the lawyers write, on the basis of law enforcement privilege. The document turned out to be a  "single-page, bullet-point guide for the proper use of a mountain bike."

*photo by Darrow Montgomery.

On April 23, 2008, Larry Rice Jr. had made the mistake of visiting a home on the 5800 block of Fields Place NE. D.C. Police soon raided the home on suspicion of drug activity; the officers did not have a warrant and found no drugs or any weapons. Rice tried to flee, according to court records, by attempting to crawl through a back-room window.

Rice managed to get his head out the window when Officer John Stathers found him.

Rice did not have a history of violent crimes. He had not been committing any crimes that day nor did he make any violent moves toward the officer. He was unarmed.

Stathers drew his weapon and grabbed Rice's leg. According to a civil complaint filed in U.S. District Court, Stathers then fired his weapon striking Rice in the gut.

Rice was then lowered to the floor.  The complaint then states:

"While on the ground, Officer Stathers and Officer Derek Starliper began hitting Plaintiff in the head and screaming at Plaintiff, demanding that Plaintiff provide his name. Plaintiff continuously indicated to the officers that he had been shot and was bleeding. The officers continuously yelled profanities at Plaintiff, demanding that he keep his mouth shut."

According to the complaint, Rice was then dragged to the front of the house where he remained for at least 30 minutes. No officers administered first aid or treated his gunshot wound. Eventually, 911 was called. Rice sustained a gunshot wound to his abdomen, a lacerated right liver, a lacerated diaphragm, a gastric injury, and respiratory failure. During his hospital stay, he had emergency surgery. Later during his stay, he got pneumonia.

For several weeks, Rice remained in the intensive care unit at Prince George's Hospital. He was hospitalized for more than a month. Since then, he's had a subsequent surgery on his lungs.

Rice was charged with "intimidating, impeding, interfering with and retaliating against a government official." The case was quickly tossed out. The lawsuit was filed in February.

The D. C. Police Department appears to have cleared the officers. As is typical, a lawsuit seems required to get the facts out and objectively analyzed.

But AG Peter Nickles has moved to bar the public from seeing a significant chunk of this case. Nickles and Co. at the Office of the Attorney General filed for a protective order that would cover the officers' personnel files and the department's training manuals.

In other words, Nickles doesn't want you to know if these officers had previously fired their weapons or had been accused of excessive force in the past. He also doesn't want you to know how the police department actually trains its officers on when they can draw their guns. The order was granted.

Nickles has requested a very broad protective order in the Pershing Park case. That request is still pending.

*photo by Darrow Montgomery.

For D.C. Attorney General Peter Nickles, Pershing Park isn't over. Though the city's top lawyer had just settled a big lawsuit with 400 plaintiffs over the mass arrests that took place on Sept. 27, 2002, there is another, more stubborn suit sitting out there.

Attorneys in the Chang case represent just four plaintiffs. But these folks are serious: They were the first to file suit over Pershing Park in federal court, and they have already signaled that they won't be content with $18,000 bucks per plaintiff and a few stipulations that city lawyers will safeguard evidence in future cases.

Yesterday afternoon, Nickles met with the Chang principals in the hope of reaching a settlement. It was the first meeting between the parties, and Nickles had a lot riding on the outcome. If he could make a deal, he could save the District millions of dollars in attorney fees and court sanctions, and save his people from defending a tough set of facts at a trial scheduled to start in October 2010.

Could Nickles make Pershing Park go away for good?

No. The meeting was a brief one. Plaintiffs lawyer Jonathan Turley would not comment on the substance of the meeting but says a trial appears inevitable.

“It is unlikely that we will see a resolution of these issues without a trial and a verdict," Turley says. "We have assumed that a trial would occur in this case for years. All I can say is we continue to look forward to Oct. 2010, when we can put these witnesses and this evidence before a jury.”

Late last night, Turley and Co. filed a motion [PDF] in U.S. District Court that made their intentions all too clear.

The papers ask to amend the Chang complaint to include the allegations over the discovery abuses.

What does this mean? They want to put the destruction and alternation of evidence before a D.C. jury. It's possible that lawyers under Nickles and in the D.C. Police Department's general counsel office would be compelled to testify about how critical evidence went missing or was destroyed. Already, at least one official appears to have given a false affidavit.

The evidence problems range from the withholding of documents for years, to D.C. Police film and radio recordings containing mysterious gaps to the infamous missing running resume, the play-by-play documentation by the police concerning the mass arrests at Pershing Park.

At this point in the seven-year-old litigation, the discovery abuses have become way more than a sideshow. The plaintiffs' filing reads:

"These proposed amendments are obvious and represent a well-founded response to the flagrant efforts by the District defendants to obstruct both Plaintiffs' rights to recovery and the civil processes of this Court. While these discovery violations have arisen at every stage of this litigation, starting with the District Defendants' failure to preserve documents immediately after the arrests or even after the commencement of this litigation a month later, some of the most serious transgressions came to light only recently."

Plaintiffs reference the Sporkin Report and the allegation that the police department's general counsel withheld relevant documents for the past five years. They claim that the withholding of documents and discovery materials had been a tactic from the very beginning.

The plaintiffs lawyers quote from an e-mail in which Assistant Chief Peter Newsham wrote in the aftermath of the Sept. 27, 2002, Pershing Park arrests: "I am very reluctant to share our tactics and strategies with defense attorneys."

The plaintiffs attorneys go on to list some of the subsequent discovery problems aside from the missing running resume and faulty radio tapes:

*A witness testified in deposition that Chief Ramsey's computer was never searched for relevant documents and was destroyed or wiped clean when he left the department.

*In 2004, the District performed a very limited search of police e-mails.

*It was only after the discovery process ended that the District then produced more than 22,000 pages of relevant documents; they were only produced after Judge Emmet Sullivan slammed Nickles in open court. Even these documents contained gaps and unjustified redactions.

*Plaintiffs are still waiting for the District to turn over all relevant video footage. They write: "The District has produced only two unique videotapes that contain footage of the events on Sept. 27, 2002—both of which contain crucial gaps in the footage that correspond to the timing of the arrests at Pershing Park." Six cameras were designated to shoot footage of Pershing Park that day.

*Nickles has failed to live up to his promises to the court. The plaintiffs lawyers write: "Despite his stated commitment to do so, Attorney General Nickles has failed to undertake a comprehensive investigation of these discovery abuses."

When asked about the filing, Turley wrote in an e-mail to City Desk:

"The amended complaint describes growing evidence of the intentional effort of high-ranking District officials to destroy or alter evidence related to the unlawful arrests during September 2002.  The amended complaint would allow a jury to consider evidence of obstruction, spoliation, and perjury.  Regardless of whether the Court now refers this matter for criminal investigation in light of the Sporkin report and recent witness statements, we believe this matter should be put before a jury to render its judgment on the conduct of these officials."

*Photo by Darrow Montgomery.

*follow me on Twitter.

Earlier today, we linked to the Examiner's great investigative piece on District employee bonuses. Among the District employees that received a hefty bonus was none other than the Office of the Attorney General's scapegoat in the Pershing Park mess: Tom Koger.

Koger's boss, who must have approved his more than $2,000 bonus in October, is none other than Ellen Efros whom AG Peter Nickles assigned to take cover the two Pershing Park cases after Koger was reassigned.  Good to know performance did not get in the way of a sweet bonus.

Indeed, the Pershing Park case has a history of treating their scapegoats well.

Koger wasn't the first official to be rewarded after falling on his sword.That honor goes to Assistant Chief Peter Newsham. When the D.C. Council first began probing into the false arrests from Sept. 27, 2002, Newsham was the police official who took the blame for the arrests.

The false arrests have cost the District millions in settlement agreements and lawyer fees. Recently, Newsham's attorney filed a request for more than $40,000 in legal fees. And that $40,000 only covered two months worth of legal work. The case has been going on since the fall2002.

According to court records, Pershing Park only cost Newsham a written reprimand "for failing to follow the guidelines in the mass demonstration handbook."

Chief Charles Ramsey testified in deposition that the reprimand was eventually removed from Newsham's file after a few years.

Ramsey also noted that Newsham "didn't lose any responsibilities as a consequence of this mass arrest" and that the official is "one of the best members that the department has ever had."

Either Newsham masterminded the false arrests of hundreds of individuals on Sept. 27, 2002 or he was simply an outstanding official who took one for the team. The department's actions suggest what the D.C. Council suspected: that Newsham was just the fall guy.

Newsham currently an assistant chief in charge of investigations.

*photo by Darrow Montgomery.

In Nickles' sworn affidavit submitted in August, the AG wrote: "The discovery lapses at issues (sic) here are inexcusable and should not have occurred. Even my preliminary investigation discloses that OAG personnel responsible for discovery made serious errors in managing and producing documents in these cases."

Nickles then called out Koger:

"As such, the responsibility for the errors here falls on him. He, and those he supervised, misplaced documents and, because they were not indexed upon receipt, lost track of them. Ths, the documents were not timely produced....I state unequivocally that significant, remedial actions will be taken to address these issues and to prevent their reoccurrence, including proper disciplinary action. I also can state that promptly upon discovery and review of the belated discovered documents, they have been and will continue to be produced to plaintiffs."

Yet, Koger still received his bonus.

According to the Examiner's records, Koger was paid out an additional $3,000 between 2007 and his October payout. Those bonuses came during the time of the discovery abuses.

The Sporkin Report continues to reverberate among plaintiffs seeking damages in the infamous Pershing Park case. Late yesterday, attorneys in one of the cases filed their own response [PDF] to the Sporkin findings [PDF]—repeating their position that a federal criminal investigation into the missing or destroyed evidence should be on the table.

The lawyers join a growing contingent seeking such a twist in the seven-year-old case.

Councilmember Mary Cheh has called for the feds to investigate the discovery abuses. Police Union Chief Kristopher Baumann has argued for a federal criminal investigation as well.

The scope of the Sporkin Report was limited to the missing running resume, a minute-by-minute accounting of police activity on the day of the mass arrests, and the gaps in the radio tapes during the incident. The limitations included not assigning blame for the evidence problems. Yet plaintiffs argue that the retired judge made a case that further inquiries are required.

Plaintiffs attorneys write:

"Unfortunately, Judge Sporkin was unable to identify who, within the District government, was responsible for destroying the produced hard copies and two computer-saved versions of the JOCC Running Resume. Sporkin sates that he was presented with conflicting accounts from various responsible parties but fails to go into much detail or to share his suspicions as to the parties responsible. As a result the Report states that '[b]ecause the contradictory statements in the record are incapable of being reconciled, we cannot rule out the possibility of untruthfulness or something worse.'

Plaintiffs will seek to resolve this matter by deposing the relevant actors under oath, but believe that this matter can be referred to the U.S. Attorney for criminal investigation."

The missing running resume has long been head scratcher. It's difficult to fathom a police activity more documented than the events surrounding the anti-World Bank/IMF demonstrations. And no chief was better to suited to this task of documentation, memo production, mock exercises, and pre-planning than Charles Ramsey. He had been brought in as chief to modernize and make efficient a department floundering in a rundown headquarters with beat cops stuck buying office supplies out of pocket.

The demonstrations were not just an opportunity for the police to show their might or for a chief to parade around in his lanyard. They were also big-time cash cows. Everything from overtime to new digital cameras were suddenly available to the rank and file.

There is a considerable paper trail documenting departmental activity before the demonstrations, during the demonstrations, and after the demonstrations. Every detail was fleshed out in memos and e-mails.

There's tons of e-mails dedicated to figuring out how to staff the holding area for the arrestees, what equipment they would need, who would qualify for overtime, and how many civilians could get in on the extra dough.

Even the rations that officers would be eating merited its own little docket. Before one protest event in spring 2001, Assistant Chief Alfred J. Broadbent, Sr. sent out a memo [PDF] to all top officials concerning meal selection.

Under the subject "Taste Test of Heater Meals Plus," Broadbent wrote:

"In an effort to provide quality meals to the members who are assigned on posts during demonstrations, which may be long in duration, the department is seeking out vendor providers. Heater Meal Plus is one such vendor. A selection of their meals will be made available to the department for field testing on Wednesday, April 11, 2001. To ensure a fair representation of test-tasters, please designate one official of your command to respond to ROC North...on Wednesday, April 11, 2001, at 1000 hours, to obtain the test meals for disbursement to the members. It is suggested that sworn members of the CDU and patrol units be the primary targets for the test. Ms. Minor will demonstrate the proper preparation of eating the meals...."

Every protest generated tons of after-action reports. Even the smallest events demanded a memo. In one report, an official wrote:

"We also observed that under noisy conditions it was difficult to give directions to the officers on the line. I would suggest that we look into giving the platoon lieutenant some sort of small lightweight bullhorn or other amplification device. I believe that right now, each District only has one. The one in the Second District is large and extremely heavy and not practical to carry around to be available when needed. If possible we need some smaller and lighter weight ones that could be easily carried and used."

The point here: If the department could document a taste test and fuss over bullhorns, it surely could have kept a tight watch on the running resume. The fact that it has vanished from the record continues to baffle. Sporkin is just the latest official to question how such an important document could disappear.

Now it's up to a U.S. District Court judge to decide if federal law enforcement should take one last look.

*photo by Darrow Montgomery.

D.C. Police Union Chief Kristopher Baumann has reviewed Ret. Judge Stanley Sporkin's report on the missing and/or destroyed evidence in the Pershing Park case. Baumann says he has concluded that there can be only one next step: The case should be referred to the Department of Justice.

“There needs to be an independent prosecutor set up," Baumann says. There’s a host of potential criminal charges ranging from perjury to obstruction of justice. That’s just what we know….We don’t know that much. What we do know is terrible. What goes on past that is a question obviously someone needs to come in and tear this all apart.”

At issue is how did the Pershing Park running resume, a real-time accounting of police activity generated by the police department's command center, disappear? And how did the radio transcripts concerning Pershing Park end up containing gaps?

Although the Sporkin Report failed to reach definitive conclusions, it suggested that the running resume may have been destroyed on purpose. And it called for an outside expert to examine the radio tapes. The report also documents conflicting statements from police officials about the evidence destruction.

"I gave it my best shot," Sporkin tells City Desk. He explains that he did not feel comfortable making determinations of fact. That's best left to a courtroom, he argued. "It has to be done in a court of law," he says. "You cannot make determinations without the people having a right to counsel, and the right to cross-examine those witnesses that are giving information that are contrary to your interests."

One way to address Sporkin's concerns is to open up a criminal case with the feds, Baumann says. And he believes the Department of Justice, not the U.S. Attorney's Office, should handle the matter.

“I think Department of Justice," Baumann says. Because of the U.S. Attorney's Office's close working relationship with the D.C. Police and the OAG, he says, it should not take the case. "This needs to be handled out of Main Justice.”

Requesting federal intervention isn't in the police union chief's standard arsenal of policy prescriptions. Historically, in fact, the police union has chafed at federal oversight into departmental affairs. In the late '90s, former Chief Charles Ramsey sought out the Justice Department's assistance in reviewing all police-involved shootings. Rank-and-file cops were furious with Ramsey over that decision.

In the case of Pershing Park, Baumann's tough talk runs no risk of a backlash from the rank and file, in large part because the culprits of unwarranted arrests and the missing evidence are all top department brass. Indeed, it's Baumann's job to hound those folks.

The course of the Pershing Park case, says Baumann, goes beyond whether top police officials erred in a critical decision. He feels the whole drama has the potential to impact criminal cases. If the OAG and D.C. Police general counsel could so thoroughly screw up this case, how well are they handling evidence on the criminal docket?

"I think this is going to become a major crisis for a lot of agencies and a lot of people," Baumann says.

The FOP chief joins Councilmember Mary Cheh in calling for federal authorities to look into Pershing Park.

*photo by Darrow Montgomery.

*follow me on Twitter.

Are you hazy on the events of Sept. 27, 2002 when D.C. police arrested 400 people in Pershing Park? Do you want to read about what it was like to be hogtied for hours?

Are you unsure what exactly a running resume is? Would you like to know just how the District lost or destroyed crucial evidence? Would you like to read the latest twist in the class-action lawsuits stemming from the mass arrests?

Do you care about AG Peter Nickles and his stonewalling tactics?

Well, we've devoted a page to the Pershing Park mess. The page has new photos, and all the documents, court records, and reported accounts you will need to get caught up. Happy reading.

*photo courtesy of the G.W. Hatchet.

It's one of the tried-and-true plays in the crisis-management playbook. Think about the history: the Warren Commission, the 9/11 Commission, the Iraq Intelligence Commission.

This past summer, D.C. Attorney General Peter Nickles had reached pretty much the same stage. As the city's top lawyer, he was entrusted with defending the indefensible Pershing Park case. Nickles was hoping to persuade his critics that he was determined to get to the bottom of the missing and/or botched evidence in the case. After getting thoroughly grilled by U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan in July on the matter, Nickles came up with a solution: Hire a retired federal judge, Stanley Sporkin, to investigate on a pro bono basis.

But is his investigation going to be worth a damn?

Sporkin is certainly qualified to handle the task. Before becoming a federal judge, he headed up the enforcement division at the Securities and Exchange Commission, and later was general counsel for the CIA.

A WaPo editorial praised Nickles' decision to hire Sporkin.

In a September status report submitted to the court, Nickles assured that Sporkin would be leading an investigation into the missing "running resume" and the Sept. 27, 2002 radio tapes that went blank at the time of the mass arrests at Pershing Park—the two biggest mysteries yet unsolved.

At last week's hearing, Nickles told Sullivan that Sporkin's final report was just days from completion. Sporkin tells City Desk that his investigation was "much harder and longer than I thought it was going to take."

"I do things thoroughly," Sporkin says. "I talked to a lot of people."

Perhaps. Just not all the right ones.

Sporkin did not interview Robert J. Spagnoletti, who headed up the District's law unit from May 2003 to November 2006. It was under his watch that many of the discovery abuses started coming to light.

When asked about Spagnoletti, Sporkin confessed he did not know who he was.

“Robert Spagnoletti? Who is he?" Sporkin asks before confusing him with a D.C. Superior Court judge.

Sporkin also did not interview former Ward 3 Councilmember Kathy Patterson. She had headed up the first investigation into Pershing Park, and the city's stonewalling tactics started during Patterson's probe.

"Kathy Patterson? That was the internal affairs person for the police department?" Sporkin wonders.

In an October filing, plaintiffs attorneys in the Chang case questioned the independence of Sporkin's investigation after meeting with the retired judge. They wrote:

Judge Sporkin has not been tasked with and does not intend to try to find out how or why the discovery abuses occurred. In fact, he informed Chang counsel that he "would prefer not to" examine whether the OAG had committed ethical violations in relation to the discovery abuses.... When pressed by Chang counsel as to whether he was just a counselor to Nickles, Judge Sporkin replied, "yeah, that's what I do—I counsel. I am here to help this guy get out of a problem."

In a footnote to the filing, plaintiffs attorneys report Sporkin's real mission may be to help Nickles settle the cases. The judge stated as much to the attorneys during their meeting: "Judge Sporkin described the charge to him as follows: 'Out of the blue I got a call from Nickles and he asked if I could be of help. I asked how and Nickles said anyway I could...I also want to help settle the case.'"

In their own filing, plaintiffs' lawyers in the other Pershing Park case suggest Sporkin's report will be a whitewash. They wrote of their own session with the retired judge: "Judge Sporkin has directly expressed to plaintiffs' counsel that his efforts are not comensurate [sic] with a thorough investigation...and that such an endeavor is not his intention."

Sporkin would not say whether he figured out how police radio tapes were erased or how the running resume vanished. Just wait for the report, he says, adding: "We followed the evidence."

Both Spagnoletti and Patterson tell City Desk that they would have gladly talked to the retired judge.