Posts Tagged ‘PCP’
Our Morning Roundup: Leave the John Alone!
After learning that someone had posted the transcript from last weekend's prostitution sting on City Desk and the Sexist, I had to ask myself: What the fuck is our problem? Aren't we the alternative weekly in town? Aren't finger-wagging and gotcha blog items the purview of the nannying prudes at the Post and the Examiner, for chrissakes? Instead of defending this man's right to pay someone for sex--why stop at shoplifters?--we paraded him out on our blog and suggested that he was unqualified to do his duties as a police officer. A few days later, we posted a conversation that he had in a hotel room which he did not know was wired. Is it news? Sure. But where was the critical eye? Big bonuses, prison pralines, the PCP scourge, crooked Yelp, and Mark Jenkins, after the jump.
What A Drug Sentence Looks Like
Just before 3 p.m., Judge Harold Cushenberry Jr. sentences Dante Dickens. The judge had found him guilty of the PCP charge (aka holding a dipper while asleep at the wheel of an idling car on Alabama Avenue). Before the judge could issue his penalty, he had to hear from the prosecutor and defense attorney.
The prosecutor wanted jail time. Not serious jail time, but still. Ninety-days most of which would be suspended plus probation. Dickens was smoking PCP while in an idling car. People could have been hurt, the prosecutor argues. He was behind the wheel. He also has a history of charges including domestic violence, a child neglect/abuse charge, a gun charge from long ago. And old positive drug tests.
The defense attorney notes that Dickens has a job and has tested clean since getting this charge. He asks for probation. Then Dickens takes up his own boilerplate defense.
"I have improved a lot as far as the community and myself," Dickens says. "I do extra. I do things for the youth....I'm a human being."
The Dipper Man Faces The Judge
The Dipper Man has nodded off. Dante Dickens is sitting outside Courtroom 321. His belly is full of Burger King. His eyes are closed. His shiny head tilts off to the left against his jacket color. He is wearing his work boots, dark blue work pants, and a work shirt with his name sewn on his chest. In a few minutes, he gets to see the resolution of his drug case. Prosecutors and police alleged that he was found asleep in his idling car, a dipper in his hand on August 22, 2008.
Dickens had gotten to D.C. Superior Court at 8:30 a.m. He says he works as a maintenance man in a White Oak apartment building.
Dickens had to wait on the prosecution's last witness, the chemist. Judge Harold Cushenberry Jr. decided to call for lunch. The proceedings are set to begin in a few minutes at 2:20 p.m. Dickens wakes himself up and walks into the empty court room. He takes a seat in the back.
Judge Cushenberry appears.
"Where's the chemist?" he asks from the bench.
Prosecutor Matthew Kluge goes and gets her from the witness room just outside the courtroom. It's 2:27 p.m. and that dipper has to be examined.
Sweating Out A Simple Drug Case
It is 12:30 p.m. and Officer Harris is sitting outside the courtroom with a fellow cop. Harris is reading an Examiner. The other cop is tearing through James Patterson's Violets Are Blue. Both just testified in the case of the dipper man who fell asleep at the wheel. But there's been one snag.
A prosecution witness---the chemist---hasn't shown up. The judge wants to give the chemist five more minutes. The prosecutor stands by Harris and dials the chemist on his cellphone. Judge Harold L. Cushenberry Jr. seems patient enough.
Harris and the other cop can't quite believe this case went to trial. The dipper man was caught asleep at the wheel holding a PCP-laced smoke. Case closed. Well, almost.
The dipper man has a name: Dante Dickens. And Dickens has an attorney. They had just called a witness who was in the car shortly before the arrest. The witness is a cousin. Dickens had driven him and a female friend to another residence.
The prosecutor uses up his cross-examination on what kind of relationship the cousin had with Dickens. It's way off topic but necessary.
A Cop, A Dipper, And Courtroom 321
Officer Harris takes the escalator up to the third floor inside D.C. Superior Court. He then does what all officers must do every morning in the courthouse: check in on his case. He walks over to courtroom 321 and scans the printout case list taped to the door. His case is there.
It's almost 9 a.m. This morning, he skipped breakfast and coffee, and took the Green Line from Camp Springs. Officer Harris says he had to be at Superior Court by 8:30. It's his day off. "Unfortunately," Harris says, "if we don't come we get in trouble."
Harris is stuck standing outside courtroom 321 because of some other guy's troubles. This past summer, he arrested a guy for possession of PCP. One of the easiest arrests he's ever made.
