Last Monday, At-Large Councilmember Phil Mendelson held one of his Judiciary Committee's oversight hearings on the D.C. Police Department. For the most part, the hearing was routine: right down to the councilmember asking for the investigative materials related to the DeOnte Rawlings shootings. By Mendo's own count, he has asked for the Rawlings report at least three times.

At Monday's hearing, D.C.Police Chief Cathy Lanier and her top brass assured Mendelson that he would have the Rawlings case report on his desk very soon. The expection was for a Friday deadline. In an editorial the day of the deadline, the Post urged the police department to release more information about shootings--including the details on the recent police shooting death of a bus driver. We'd like the records behind the David Kerstetter shooting on November 6. And the Osman Abdullahi shooting in late February. The Post sort of piggybacked on David Simon's own editorial in its newspaper a few weeks ago.

So is it shocking that on Friday, the D.C. Police failed to give Mendelson the DeOnte Rawlings report? Of course not. This is what the department does with such things.

"I think that's still at the factory for redactions," Mendelson joked during a phone interview. It was 5 p.m. on Friday. "This is at least the third time I've asked for the D. Rawlings report."

Read More "D.C. Police Stonewalls Mendo On Police Shootings" »

D.C. police have decided to overhaul how it responds to mentally ill residents in crisis and police brass have requested training assistance from the Department of Mental Health, says DMH director Stephen T. Baron.

The decision follows two police-shooting deaths in recent months involving mentally ill victims. In November, police shot and killed David Kerstetter in his Logan Circle residence. In late January, an officer killed Osman Abdullahi inside an unlicensed group home near H Street NE.

The department plans to adopt what's called the "Crisis Intervention Team," or "CIT," model, which would train a core group of officers who would be assigned to respond to emergency situations involving the mentally ill, Baron says. Mental-health advocates and police watchdog groups have long pressed the department to adopt such a model.

Read More "D.C. Police to Change Handling of Mental Illness Cases" »

On Sunday, David Simon published an op-ed in the Post railing against the Baltimore Police Department's recent refusal to release the names of cops involved in shootings. (He also pissed on the press---MSM and "citizen bloggers"---for not challenging the department on its no-names policy.

Simon writes:

Read More "Simon Says Name The Cops Involved In Shootings. We Agree." »

As I documented in this week's cover story on Osman Abdullahi's death, the problems at 830 7th Street NE were vast. Abdullahi was left without meds in a house without heat and very little food. There was the thinnest of safety nets for Abdullahi and his fellow tenants. After the shooting, the building's manager Mark Spence simply shut the home down. Without the proper notification or going through Landlord-Tenant Court, he kicked everyone out and locked the doors. Last Friday, I reported that city officials still aren't sure where the tenants ended up.

An unlicensed home means simply that the tenants are left in particularly vulnerable positions. But one former Spence tenant did fight his eviction. He took Spence to court.

Read More "Mark Spence Goes To Court" »

Big story this weekend was the weather (and not the Pro Bowl)---it felt like wintertime in D.C. for the first time in weeks. January, according to reports, was colder than usual, and February started out likewise. Yet somehow and for some reason, as the temps tilted toward 60 degrees on Sunday, people didn't get the memo and could be found in large, bulky coats. What's up with that. I am going to suggest that there's a certain demographic out there that doesn't watch the news, pick up a newspaper, or check out the Internet--these folks just assume that since it's winter, it's cold. No other possible explanation for it.

On news fronts, it's basically the economic crisis, and many things that don't matter nearly as much. Let's stick to the latter here.

Comments from the heroic pilot of that Hudson River-landing plane.

Can't believe that in the year 2009, they're still playing the Pro Bowl.

Well, there's a multiagency investigation of the cancellation of the Veterans Presidential Inaugural Ball, so how did Dionne Warwick's bash skate free?

What happened to a 36-year-old with paranoid delusions in a city with a patchwork system of care for the mentally ill?

WashTimes has the skinny on the unpresidentialness of "doom" rhetoric.

WaPo on the rise of homelessness among schools population.

On January 26, Osman Abdullahi was gunned down by D.C. Police after an altercation inside his unlicensed group home. The home, located at 830 7th Street NE, had no heat, very little food, and no supervision. Abdullahi wasn't taking his medication at the time. The home's manager Mark Spence has a long history with troubled group homes. We published a cover story on Spence's activities and Abdullahi this week.

Within a few days of the incident, Spence effectively shutdown his group home. The lights were turned off. The doors were locked. A mysterious notice to "correct" or "vacate" was placed on the door.

The Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs told me they have no record of posting such a notice on the door of 830 7th Street NE. The notice cited overcrowding as an issue. Spence had 30 days to correct the overcrowding problem or face some kind of fine or eviction. I saw the notice. The notice did not have DCRA letterhead or a name and phone number of an inspector who made the determination.

I asked Spence about the note. He told me the building's owner could have posted it. He added that he had cleared everyone out of the building. This is a clear violation of landlord-tenant regs. No one stopped Mr. Spence from ignoring the law.

The Office of the D.C. Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program has had frequent encounters with Spence’s work, dating to 1999, according to Jerry Kasunic, the office’s current director.

Today, Kasunic met with the Department of Mental Health. He had one question for the department: Where did the residents of 830 7th Street NE go?

The department's answer: We don't know.

Read More "Where Did The Residents Of 830 7th Street NE Go?" »

Burying Osman Abdullahi. His life and its unfortunate end are the subject of this week's cover story.

In early November, D.C. police entered David Kerstetter's Logan Circle home and shot and killed him. Police say Mr. Kerstetter had a knife, that there was a struggle. The crime scene shows no evidence of a struggle. On January 26, Osman Abdullahi was shot and killed by D.C. police after they entered his unlicensed group home at 830 7th Street NE. He had a knife. He used a metal pole as a weapon. He allegedly tried to attack the police. Witnesses say he urged the police to kill him. Abdullahi is the subject of this week's cover story.

What did Kerstetter and Abdullahi have in common? They were both residents in crisis. Both suffered from mental illness. Both had stopped taking their meds.

The police knew Kerstetter. The police did not know Abdullahi.

The New York Police Department recently adopted a new policy. Any time a known mentally-ill person is the subject of a 911 dispatch, the officers rushing to the scene are notified. In a limited way, DMH did know about Abdullahi. In early December, he had called its helpline and requested services. The other men he was living with in that group house--most of them had been in the system at some point in their lives. Not to mention that the house was operated by Mark Spence; DMH knew him very, very well.

How to respond to the mentally ill has been an issue that the D.C. Police Department has refused to address. For years, they have fielded complaints from residents, from the Office of Police Compliants, and done very close to nothing. I wonder how many more times is the department going to put the lives of its officers at risk? How many more residents in crisis are going to have to die before the department starts to seriously look at its policies? And when is the D.C. Council going to hold hearings on the issue?

I had called Chief Lanier about these issues repeatedly in the wake of Kerstetter's death. I e-mailed her directly twice. I called her office. I called her people. She never called me back. Not once. She never felt it necessary to address the circumstances of Kerstetter's death--she had immediately declared the cops involved as probably justified--nor how her department handles residents in crisis. I have seen Lanier tend to grieving families with a grace and skill few officials can match. I find it difficult to imagine that Lanier hasn't thought about this issue in a serious way.

Read More "Two Shootings. Two Deaths. Two cops. Two Mentally Ill Residents" »

Look at it. Go ahead and stare. This is what a District group house looks like. This is the scene from the Jan. 26th police shooting death of Osman Abdullahi. He had been suffering from schizophrenia. He had been living at this group home, located at 830 7th St. NE, since Nov. 1.

The Department of Mental Health has repeatedly stressed that this was not technically a group home. It was not one of their own. It had not been licensed as one. It didn't get a handy acronym that I won't even bother explaining. It didn't have the proper paperwork. But it was a group home. Many of its tenants were mentally ill. [All five I talked to or researched had been in the system]. All were unsupervised. This house had a history, a backstory. Abdullahi had a story, too. We first wrote about the incident later that night. I get to expand on my reporting for this week's cover.

While DMH gets to breathe a sigh of relief that this wasn't one of their own homes, its people were still inside. Its people were living without food, without heat, without meds, without supervision. So take a look at where some D.C. residents were living. Who's going to prevent this from happening again? Who's going to make sure there's someone competent watching over our most vulnerable? While DMH is investigating the house, the big question is: Did any of their people ever do a site visit, ever actually come to the house?

More pictures after the jump.

Read More "This Is What a Group House Looks Like" »

This time at 16th and Kalorama. Here's the D.C. Police Department press release:

"At approximately 11:50 a.m., on Tuesday, January 27, 2009, an off-duty Metropolitan Police Department detective reportedly exited his vehicle in the area of the 1600 block of Kalorama Road, NW and was attacked by an apparently deranged man unknown to him. The detective apparently was almost beaten to the point of unconsciousness. At that point, in fear of his life, the detective was forced to draw and discharge his service handgun, striking the suspect once in the abdomen.

The detective has been with the Metropolitan Police Department for 20 years and is currently assigned to the Narcotics and Special Investigations Division. He was treated for non-life-threatening injuries at a local hospital and released. The detective, whose name is being withheld at this time, has been placed on administrative leave with pay pending the outcome of the investigation.

The identity of the suspect, who appears to be emotionally disturbed, has not yet been determined. He was transported to an area hospital in police custody on a charge of Aggravated Assault and admitted in stable condition."

This follows the shooting death of David Kerstetter in early November and yesterday morning's shooting death of Osman Abdullahi.

Update 1:36 p.m. I just talked to a police official who knows the detective involved in yesterday's shooting.

"Nothing bad to say about the guy," the official says. "Never in any trouble and does his work and does good work. All he felt was a knock in the head. He had to defend himself. He was very upset about it. He felt very concerned about the person he shot and concerned about his own safety. He had a hell of knot on his head."

“Luckily it worked out where nobody died. He could have been seriously hurt with that blow to the head," the official says.

For another version from an anonymous partial witness, read below in the comments section.

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" »