District resident Darryl Willard, 20, pleaded guilty on Thursday in D.C. Superior Court to a charge of aggravated assault while armed in connection with the shooting. His plea came after prosecutors agreed to drop a more serious charge of assault with intent to kill while armed.

[...]

“I told them I was willing to go to a trial and testify” if prosecutors went with the more serious charge, said the victim, who spoke on condition that her name was withheld.

But the prosecutors told her that her "lifestyle" would be brought up if she went to trial. They were referring, presumably, to the fact that she'd allegedly had sex with the man for money in the past. Practically speaking, it's not a surprise that the prosecutors decided to go that route. But there's something troubling about the assumption that a person who has had sex for money can't be a victim who's worth fighting for.

Photo by Flickr user Kevitivity under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

The Metro system, once a reliable point of pride for D.C.'s boosters, has had a rough few years: Safety problems, escalator outages, and rising prices have made the subway a regular subject of local griping. At times, it can be hard to keep up with the torrent of unflattering Metro-related scoops. As a public service,

This week:

-People continue to criticize Metro's idea of cutting late-night service on weekends (sometimes with charming graphs!)

-A former WMATA chairman (and current board member) says he’s stepping down

-House Republicans just killed a bill which would have restored $150 million to WMATA’s coffers for safety measures.

-This video, posted on the blog Unsuck DC Metro, shows two guys fighting on the Orange Line train.

-A report released by Mayor Vince Gray’s office this week accuses D.C.'s transportation department of having skimmed money off the funds the city is supposed to provide to Metro. The money allegedly paid for things like the Circulator bus instead.

-The report also said the city's streetcar plan—not part of Metro, but feeding the system—had fouled up in a variety of ways, including purchasing three streetcars it won't be able to use because they don't meet Americans with Disabilities Act requirements.

Looking for a silver lining, City Desk called WMATA today, seeing if there was any chance Metrorail trains could ever get free wi-fi, like the kind Amtrak’s planning to extend to all its trains later this year. In response, Metro sent along a press release announcing cell phone service was being extended to Metro’s 20 busiest stations.

The press release was dated 2009. Though, to be fair, people were  very  happy about the change when it happened.

Illustration by Brooke Hatfield

"One victim was a 16-year-old District youth and the other was a 36-year-old Clinton man. The shootings occurred within an hour and 10 minutes, one in the 5900 block of Georgia Avenue in the Brightwood section of Northwest and the other miles away in the 800 block of Yuma Street in the Washington Highlands section of Southeast."

One of three victims shot in Brightwood, Jamaal Bell of First Street NW, was killed at around 11:30 p.m. Bell had just left a nearby go-go concert. The concert ended early due to fights.

"A group of young people, many of them described as teenagers, began walking away from the scene of the concert, heading south along Georgia Avenue. Just below Peabody Street, near Missouri Avenue NW, they encountered a larger group of about 50 people who had gathered there, police said. According to a preliminary investigation, shots were fired toward the smaller group. Bell was hit in the head. He was taken to a hospital, where he died, police said."

Cops were likely at the scene pretty quickly, as the concert had been included in MPD's somewhat enigmatic "go-go report". The internal report tracks scheduled go-go concerts, which cops the monitor in hopes of heading-off trouble between beefing gangs that decide to attend. Some District politicians and residents have long maintained that D.C.'s homegrown musical form attracts violence. No one seems to know what methods the cops use to keep abreast of the events. Chief Cathy Lanier tells City Desk via email that the Georgia Avenue corridor concert Bell was attending included three bands and had been discussed Friday morning in an "a.m. crime brief." There were five officers and a sergeant working the event, Lanier reports.

Summertime savageness doesn't stop at the District border, of course. On Friday afternoon, a Monrovia woman broke into a home in Gaithersburg and attacked a nine-month pregnant woman. WJLA-TV reports that both the expectant mother and her baby are OK; the assailant has been charged with attempted first-degree murder, assault, burglary, false imprisonment, possession of a weapon with intent to injure. Meanwhile, a Brunswick man faces sentencing today for throwing a Chihuahua off a bridge. (The pup, sadly, didn't make it.)

Is everyone crazy from the heat? After some intense temperatures and severe storms, expect "almost perfect conditions" for a few days, with temperatures around 80 degrees. At least until mid-week when a new system threatens with more rain.

 Photo by AgnosticPreachersKid/Creative Commons

DC Fire & EMS reports via Twitter of at least one injured party. Meanwhile, We Love DC 's Dave Stroup tweets live from the scene. "[R]eports are two gangs fighting on train, shooting erupted," Stroup noted at 1:35 p.m. before later correcting himself: "incident was not a shooting, a large group of people fighting." He goes on: "fight lasted from fort totten to union station, while train was moving. fighting overtop of seated passengers"

WUSA-TV reports the station has now re-opened and cites a Metro spokesperson saying the fight involved up to 15 teenagers.

UPDATE, 2:51 p.m.: WJLA is now reporting that a 16-year-old was "severely beaten and his shoes were stolen, the boy's mother, Angel Surratt, told ABC 7's Brad Bell." His injuries are described as "life-threatening." WUSA also has the mother saying her son was "attacked for his shoes."

The violence erupted when one male club-goer bumped into another. There was some shoving, a head butt and two punches before one of the men, the smaller of the two, pulled out a box cutter.

According to an investigative report by the District's Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Administration (ABRA), the blade wielder twice slashed the left side of his victim's face, leaving behind deep gashes. The man with the box cutter was arrested by police. The victim was taken to the hospital. In a letter to the ABRA, Lanier called Muse's security the night of the slicing "inadequate," and asked for a revocation of the club's license.

Reviewing the incident at a fact-finding hearing on Wednesday, the city's Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) Board wanted to know why the assailant wasn't searched for weapons as he entered the club. They figured Muse regularly frisked its patrons. Steven O'Brien, a lawyer for the nightspot explained that club security didn't pat down the crowd that evening because it was Sunday. He says security staffers only frisk patrons on Thursdays. O'Brien says the reason why is that on Sundays, the club attracts a mature, "well-dressed"crowd for a Latin-themed night while "On Thursday, it's a younger crowd...I'm trying to think of a way to say it, a less sophisticated crowd."

Speaking at the hearing on behalf of concerned community members, Terry Carter, who lives in a condo located next door to the hang-out, had a number of complaints about Muse, one was that, in informing the board that its Thursday night clientele was being inspected for weapons because it's a "younger" crowd, Muse was using "code speak": "Thursday night is hip-hop night," he said. "They are patting down the hip-hoppers."

Carter says that neighbors were particularly not amused about the slashing. "We even had to clean the blood up in front of our building that morning," he says.

O'Brien says the club knows it made a mistake not searching the "mature" crowd for weapons: "We now know that it can happen, because it has happened." He says that when the club reopens, all its customers will be searched.

According to a preliminary report filed by Metro police, the violence erupted on account of a domestic dispute between a man and a woman. "The male struck the woman in the face and the female stabbed the male in the left forearm," according to Metro cops.  The man will be arrested for domestic abuse and the woman for assault.

In the days leading up to last night's horrendous drive-by shooting in Washington Highlands, police had sought an arrest warrant for one of the men thought to have carried out the crime.

Orlando Simms Carter, 26 20, now under arrest for the deadly drive-by, was suspected by police to have played a part in the March 22 killing of Jordan Howe, 20, on Alabama Avenue SE.

Police took evidence to prosecutors last week seeking arrest warrants for Simms Orlando Carter and Sanquan Carter, 19, who are brothers. But prosecutors determined that the evidence would only support a warrant for Sanquan. (The warrant was subsequently issued, and he was arrested.)

Sources indicate that Simms Orlando Carter was then targeted in a retaliatory shooting on Chesapeake Street SE, which failed. He was grazed by a bullet and hospitalized, before leaving the hospital last week.

On Friday, LL is told, police summoned an emergency meeting with prosecutors, but without an eyewitness to finger Simms Orlando Carter as having a part in the Howe killing, prosecutors declined to take the warrant to a judge.

Channing Phillips, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney's Office, confirms that police sought a warrant from his office. "Our officials did not feel at the time that there was sufficient evidence ...but we were willing to keep working with [police], and did, to gather additional evidence."

Howe Carter allegedly orchestrated yesterday's drive-by as payback for the attempt on his own life. Four died in the attack; five are wounded. Besides Simms, Nathaniel Simms Carter, 20, and an unnamed juvenile have been arrested.

What's behind this brazen outburst of violence?

"It's all over a bracelet," says Ron Moten, the longtime gang interventionist formerly of the Peaceoholics. "Costume jewelry."

At a vigil last week for Howe, Moten says that attendees said the whole beef centered around a "fake diamond" bracelet that Howe had.

Now the beef has enveloped the streets of Washington Highlands, centering on South Capitol Street between Atlantic and Chesapeake Streets.

Says Moten, "That area's called Ground Zero."

UPDATE, 11:40 P.M.: Due to a transcription error, LL misnamed the suspect who was allegedly involved in both the Howe murder and the Tuesday drive-by. The suspect is Orlando Carter, not 'Orlando Simms.' Another suspect arrested Tuesday night was Nathaniel Simms, 26. Also, Orlando Carter is 20, not 26, and he is the brother of Sanquan Carter, arrested in connection with the Howe killing.

Police Chief Cathy Lanier, after a press conference tonight, addressed the chronology that led up to the Tuesday shooting. Last Monday, March 22, Howe was murdered in the early morning hours. Police identified two suspects—now identified as the Carter brothers. Prosecutors immediately presented a search warrant for Sanquan to a judge, and he was arrested on Tuesday. The evidence behind Orlando, however, was thinner, and prosecutors would not sign off. Meanwhile, Orlando was shot and wounded on Tuesday, seven hours after his brother is arrested. He was taken to a hospital—by helicopter, according to Lanier—where he was "uncooperative with hospital staff and walked away." And police, meanwhile, were working with the U.S. attorney's office to get a warrant to a judge, to no avail.

"I don't have a problem picking up the phone and calling any of the federal agencies," said Lanier. "When I need them to help me, I go to the phone and I call them, and they come. And, yes, I did pick up the phone, I called them, and they came." There was a meeting on Friday to discuss the warrant, but no movement. Prosecutors would not agree to take the evidence to a judge.

Lanier said this about that decision: "I'm a police officer and I can only think like one. And, you know what, we don't always agree with the U.S. attorney's office. Sometimes we have a difference of opinion, and my goal is to stop more people from being injured. When we submit an arrest warrant, the U.S. attorney's office has to make a decision. Do we always agree? No. But the bottom line is we don't go forward until we do."

UPDATED 6:15 P.M.

Last night, the District experienced the deadliest act of neighborhood violence in at least 16 years. Thus far, there has been no word on a mayoral press conference.

That's out of character for Mayor Adrian M. Fenty. For instance, when a shooting last fall killed two and wounded three in the Clay Terrace neighborhood in Northeast, Fenty was on the scene soon afterward.

Over the weekend, Fenty and his wife Michelle traveled to Jamaica, where she addressed the Barbican Pines Optimists Club. It is unclear whether he's returned or not. This week is spring break for the D.C. Public Schools, which the mayor's sons attend, but Hizzoner is expected to unveil his FY2011 budget tomorrow.

A mayoral spokesperson declined to discuss the mayor's whereabouts this afternoon.

It's understandable that Fenty might not want to compete for media attention or answer questions about the candidacy of D.C. Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray, who announced a mayoral run yesterday. But this might be a moment where D.C. voters are looking for some answers from the top.

UPDATE, 6:15 P.M.: A press conference is scheduled for 9:15 this evening.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

Police charged Troy Renard Thomas, 18, of the 3000 block of Third Street N.W. , with first-degree premeditated murder while armed of Ryan Randy Trotman.

Arrested in the Columbia Heights case was Robert Larry Brock, 28, of Beltsville in the shooting of Marcus Robertson on May 15. Brock was also charged with first-degree premeditated murder while armed.

The story, reported by Theola Labbé-DeBose, makes no mention that the two homicides, while apparently unrelated, are both allegedly tied to gang beefs going on in different neighborhoods.

Ward 1 Councilmember Jim Graham told his constituents last month that Brock was targeted for the shooting in "gang beefs that have been ongoing since the murders in Dec/Jan.  Another young adult, Paul Jones, was shot and killed by LaFonte Carlton this past January on the 1300 block of Columbia.  Carlton is now facing two murder charges," Graham reported in a May 16 post to the MPD-3D Listserv.

Ward 4 Councilmember Muriel Bowser, meanwhile, has said police are investigating Trotman's killing and another gun-related incident later that night as gang-related.

Trotman, 28, of the 7400 block of 7th Street, N.W., later died of his injuries. The name of the other victim, a woman who was shot in the leg, is being withheld because she witnessed the crime.

But a quick call the police didn't net anything new about whether the shooting and another incident a few blocks away the same night were part of a beef between rival gangs in the Petworth-Park View area.

“There are no updates” Officer Quintin Peterson in the police department’s Office of Public Affairs said this afternoon.

Last week, I treated myself to a gin & tonic at the Que Pasa Cantina. I took a seat at a nearly empty bar – the only other patrons were off-duty bouncers, large men in hooded sweatshirts. They sat in a row across from me, heads like bowling balls, talking to Chris, the bartender. Eavesdropping like only a bored local can, I gathered that the tall one on the right had just started bouncing at The Starboard. I asked how it was going for him.

He shrugged. The Starboard was a pretty sedate place, he explained, and so far, he’s only worked the VIP entrance, telling drunk girls that yes, their breasts were nice, but not as nice as a VIP card and would they please put them away, thank you. Anyway, The Starboard draws a different crowd than the Rusty Rudder. Eighty-sixing is normally just a matter of asking someone to leave. And if they don’t, there’s Reggie Branch, the former Redskins runningback who can pick up even the meatiest of fratboys and transport them to the door. Steven “Monty” Montgomery, a shrewd businessman, hires a private security firm to train his bouncers in self-defense and brief them on liability issues – Starboard bouncing is based more on the promise of violence than its application.

The Rudder is a different story, another bouncer said. Friday and Saturday nights can degenerate quickly, especially during the breezeless torpor of August. Packed dance floors, foul restrooms and mobbed bars add a dangerous element to an already combustible mix of testosterone, humidity and overpriced, cheap booze: rage. When punches fly, the Rudder bouncer’s MO is direct: swarm and toss.

I can’t take credit for the phrase – it belongs to Chris, a local who’s seen it happen dozens of times. Rudder redshirts spot the sudden open space created by fistfights and converge in threes and fours. The fighters are separated, sped to the entrance and tossed to the sidewalk like a bag of empty Miller cans. The cops show up soon thereafter, and unless the disoriented drunk makes themselves scare, they get cuffed and processed a few streets over at the station.

I saw someone get tossed a few months ago, covering the Delaware Music Festival on the Rudder’s opening weekend. I was snapping shots of a so-so cover band, and while the frontman was thrusting his hips at my lens, I saw a blur of red in my peripheral vision and felt the boards shake. I turned to see a redshirt grappling with a guy in a powder-blue polo. The pair seesawed back and forth, but the redshirt wasn’t gaining any ground, and taking a few tight hooks in his kidneys. When the swarm peeled off baby blue, I was surprised to see he wasn’t a hair over 5’ 6”, his close-set eyes panning wildly as the heels of his sneakers skipped across the boards. He was tossed down the last two stairs and landed, surprisingly, on his feet.

The Rusty Rudder management amicably refuses comment on its bouncers. But recently, a chatty doorman reframed swarm-and-toss as watch-each-other’s-back. Swarming promotes intimidation, he said with a surprising note of disdain. He said Rudder bouncers back up their coworkers, but prefer to avoid turning scraps into redshirt dogpiles.

I asked Chris if Que Pasa saw much action. He shook his head. It was kind of a dumb question – Que Pasa draw old people who want a quiet (but not too quiet) drink before turning in. Really, he said, it’s less action-packed than you think.

“You’re babysitting drunk people,” he said, sounding bored. “That’s it.”

A husky doorman said sometimes girls rubbed up against him to skip long lines.

“You know, they rub up against you,” he said, making a face and wiping his hands on his shirt. Chris watched him for what seemed like a long before he turned to me and said, “Last call.”

This employee of City Desk Operations Inc. has waited and waited for a snarky blog post from LL on the Harold Brazil arrest (holy #$%%@!). DCist expressed shock hours ago!

WTOP's Mark Segraves had it first. The Post got the story too.

Damn. What a story. Former bubbling councilmember gets into a fight at a tattoo shop! Post has the details:

"Brazil, 59, entered the Jinx Proof Tattoo shop in the 3200 block of M Street NW with two women, one of whom went to the back of the store to receive a tattoo, police said. When Brazil tried to follow the woman, an employee told him only customers were allowed in the work area, which prompted an argument and then a fight.

It took three employees to subdue Brazil before officers were called at about 7:30 p.m., authorities said. He was arrested and charged with simple assault and taken to the 2nd District police station, said Assistant Police Chief Diane Groomes. Authorities released Brazil with a citation and a summons to appear in court at a later date, officials said. Brazil could not be reached for comment."

Of course, City Desk demands some answers from Brazil about his conduct. But what we really want are some good jokes. Whoever submits the best joke wins a City Paper t-shirt?

(If you are unfamiliar with Brazil's tenure on the council, go here).

*photo courtesy of the Washington Post.