At some point on Friday, Graham had heard from media sources that Black had been mentioned as a suspect. Graham tells City Desk that he tried to verify this with D.C. Police officials.

"I said 'hey is there any truth to this?' I was assured that there wasn't," Graham says. "He may have been somebody who's name was mentioned, but that was just all talk. Just all talk."

But Graham did confront Black. He called him into his office and questioned him about the shooting incident in which two adults were shot in the leg outside the Columbia Heights metro stop Thursday afternoon. In the shootings immediate aftermath, Graham had been on the scene talking to residents and police. That day Black attended the summer jobs program orientation at the convention center. Graham had told reporters about the incident at the convention center that involved police seizing the revolver and brass knuckles.

Graham says he asked Black about the shooting and whether he was involved. "I had previously asked him if he had done it," he says. "He had an alibi....I didn't know whether to believe him or not believe him. I felt that he knew more about it than what he was saying. He might have been on the scene."

Graham says that a staffer in his office had known Black since he was a child. Black, who has a young boy of his own, started intern work this past Monday---a week early. He worked Monday and Tuesday. On Wednesday, he was out. On Thursday, Black attended the orientation. He worked a full shift on Friday.

"I had various conversations with him," Graham says. "I thought he was very intelligent, thoughtful."

After yesterday's press conference on gang violence held in front of the Columbia Heights metro, Graham found out that Black had emerged as the main police suspect. Assistant Chief Alfred Durham called him to break the news.

"Was I upset yesterday that somebody left my office and shot two people? Yeah...That's pretty upsetting," Graham says.

Black had already left Graham's office for the day. Graham says he called the young intern's cellphone. He encouraged him to turn himself in. Black accepted Graham's offer to drive him to the Third District.

Black did not apologize. "He was obviously very upset," Graham says.

"The car ride was largely in silence," Graham says. "[Black] said he knew exactly what to do. The conversation was all about you are definitely doing the right thing. I tried to be sensitive. I don't remember any specific conversation."

Graham walked Black inside the Third District. Detectives were waiting. They padded down Black and then took him away. Graham was then interviewed by officers for a half hour.

"He's entitled to his day in court," Graham says of his former employee. "You can't talk as if he's been convicted. He hasn't been convicted. He's been charged with a crime. I'm not defending him. I'm just saying that when I spoke to him---I wasn't convinced that he was guilty."

Graham isn't sure if he wouldn't rehire Black. "I haven't thought of it yet," he says. "I'm still dealing with the other issues. I have to be ready to give people an opportunity. I've created 70 permanent jobs in DPW for returning ex-offendes and I have done so because people need second and third and sometimes many chances."

Graham continues: "What are we going to do? These people are going to be abandoned? I'm very very sorry that violence came out of my office...I think I did the right thing by going to get him. I think I did all the right things. We don't do background checks on summer interns even if we did the whole point of the program is to give people opportunities. I've hired gang members before....And we've had good experiences to tell you the truth."

At the end of May, Shadow Senator Paul Strauss suddenly decided to plead guilty to charges stemming from his drunk driving arrest. It was an interesting move considering that he had long fought the charges, even delaying his proceedings in D.C. Superior Court so he could hunt down an expert witness. The incident had proven to be quite an embarrassment for the city official---not just for the drinking-and-driving bust itself but for his conduct with the police (he showed off his senate ID; Third District cops were not impressed).

Strauss has not issued much in the way of a public apology for his conduct. There's been no teary press conference, no photo up with MADD. Other officials have at least gotten with the program and admitted their mistakes when caught over the legal limit (like this guy and this guy). He refused to return calls for comment at the time of his guilty plea. Nor had he offered much in the way of an explanation immediately following his arrest.

City Desk finally caught up with Strauss this afternoon. Strauss could not have been less interested in talking about his DUI guilty plea. Don't expect any Public Service Announcements from the Shadow Senator any time soon. This is a guy who wishes he could just blackout the whole incident.

When asked about how he felt about his guilty plea and his case being closed, Strauss replied: "We're putting it behind me and moving on."

City Desk: Was there any lesson learned?

Strauss: "That's really all....[rambling to the effect of a no comment]."

City Desk: What happened with the Expert Witness?

Strauss: “We just decided to put this behind me and move on. Thank you for your interest.”

The Shadow Senator then hung up.

After his guilty plea, we wrote:

Strauss received a 60-day suspended jail sentence, 11 months of supervised probation, a $300 fine, and $100 fine to be paid to the victims of violent crime compensation fund. As part of Strauss’ supervised probation, the shadow senator must “abstain from the use of hallucinatory or other drugs, and submit to drug testing….,” according to court documents.

]]> http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk/2009/06/17/paul-strauss-wants-to-move-past-drunk-driving-arrest/feed/ 7 http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk/2009/05/12/breaking-david-kerstetters-family-to-sue-the-district/ http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk/2009/05/12/breaking-david-kerstetters-family-to-sue-the-district/#comments Tue, 12 May 2009 21:12:25 +0000 Jason Cherkis http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk/?p=21817

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.

On the morning of Nov. 6, Officers Friday and Christian Glynn responded to the Kerstetter home after receiving a radio report for a suspicious door. The two met with the condo complex's maintenance man and a concerned neighbor. Sparks writes:

The maintenance man nudged the door open further and yelled upstairs to David, asking if he was home and whether the maintenance man could go upstairs. David replied that he was home, but that he did not want the man to enter or come upstairs because he had seen the police officers standing behind him. David said they should just go away and just leave him alone. The police officers then stood just outside David's front door for twenty to forty minutes while they spoke further with the maintenance man and neighbor, communicated via radio with police supervisors, and discussed David's known mental illness...and his history of depression following the death of his partner one year earlier.

Sparks states that the officers were unsure about what to do next. Kerstetter had made it clear that he did not want them in his home. Soon, though, they became "impatient" and announced, "We're going in." Sparks says the officers had no "reasonable belief" that a crime was in progress. The two cops drew their guns, went inside, and walked up the stairs to the second-floor living room and kitchen area.

It is unclear what Officers Friday and Glynn found on the second floor. They must have noticed that the furnishings were immaculate, that everything was perfectly in place.

Officers Friday and Glynn eventually made their way up to the third floor.

Sparks notes in his letter:

The officers apparently knew of no standard protocol to follow when responding to calls involving persons in crisis or persons known to suffer from mental illness---whether from a lack of standards, or a lack of training to carry out existing standards. Nor did they seek assistance from specialists at the District's Department of Mental Health who were available to assist with these types of matters.

Officers Friday and Glynn found Kerstetter in his bedroom.

Even law enforcement officials are unsure as to what exactly happened inside that bedroom.

Immediately following the shooting, D.C. police issued a press release which stated: "The officers were suddenly confronted by an adult male...reportedly wielding a knife. Reportedly, a struggle ensued as the officers repeatedly ordered the man to drop the weapon. It was at that time that the police in the face of apparent imminent danger fired upon the subject."

The U.S. attorney's office tells a different account of the exchange between Kerstetter and Officers Friday and Glynn. Spokesperson Channing Phillips omits the struggle narrative in an e-mail to Washington City Paper:

Mr. Kerstetter threatened to take his own life and held a knife to his own throat. Despite reasonable efforts to avoid taking Mr. Kerstetter’s life by repeatedly telling him to drop the knife, Mr. Kerstetter instead lunged toward the officers with the knife and ultimately left the officer who had his weapon drawn with no choice but to use deadly force to protect himself and others from death or serious bodily injury.

Sparks says the shooting appears to be plain overkill. He points to the autopsy report [PDF] and his scene work. The bloody scene suggests that Kerstetter had been effectively caged in, that he had been trapped in the far left corner of the room between his bed and the bathroom door. So far there has been no evidence cited which supports a struggle between the cops and Kerstetter. The pictures on the bedroom walls remained untouched. A blood-stained vase next to the bathroom door hadn't been knocked over.

Kerstetter bled out in his bathroom.

According to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner's autopsy report, Kerstetter was shot five times. There were two gunshot wounds to the torso. The track of each bullet was front to back and downward. There were three shots to the lower extremities hitting knee, femur, bladder, and so on. The track of each bullet was back to front and upward. "It's consistent with a man in a sitting position and falling backwards," Sparks says in an interview.

Sparks writes that the cops fired at least eight rounds at Kerstetter. The three allegedly missed bullets were found in the bathroom floor, the floorboard in front of the bathroom, and in a bathroom wall.

"The trajectory of the rounds that hit David, as well as those that missed him, establishes that the officers fired downward," Sparks writes. "Blood spatter patterns along baseboards, trim work and elsewhere demonstrate that most, and perhaps all, rounds were fired while David was down and incapacitated."

In an e-mail sent this afternoon, Phillips says that the U.S. attorney's office did not conduct blood-spatter analysis in this case, "but it's my understanding that it wouldn't have been necessary in this instance given the other corroborating evidence that was available."

Phillips says the evidence included the knife, shell casings, audiotaped witness statements, and toxicology report.

"Shell casings---we all know they shot him. No surprise they found shell casings. They found a knife. What does that establish? The issue in question is where were the officers and where was [Kerstetter] when they fired off eight rounds," Sparks says. "Had they done a blood-spatter analysis, they would have discovered that it contradicts the police assertions and is far more reliable and scientific."

"We did a thorough forensic examination through a combination of highly respected experts in a variety of disciplines," Sparks adds. He says that he would want to see law enforcement's forensic examinations. "What was the available forensic evidence they relied upon? We'd sure like to see it. Not just we. When homicides are committed in our name with our money, the public has a right to know the facts on a basic moral level."

Sparks notes that police missed at least one bullet during the course of their examination of the Kerstetter home. The family found the bullet when they went through their son's bedroom. The bullet was found in a floor board:

"If there's something that's justified let's find out. If there's something that's not, let's fix it," Sparks explains.

In the aftermath of the Kerstetter shooting---and the shooting death of Osman Abdullahi---the police department has decided to completely overhaul how it deals with mentally-ill residents.

Photographs courtesy of Douglas Sparks

A search on DCist came up with an error. A google search shows that he's popped up 475 times. But that is way too high and should be completely discounted. I just bet he's quoted at least once a week or every other week. Why is he so ubiquitous? He's on the listservs, so few cops talk on the record, and he works in the Third District where probably the majority of bloggers and blog readers live.

Hey Sommer, why not let Delgado post directly?