Washington City Paper (June 26, 2020)

SPORTS CHANGE THE TEAM NAME NOW, NOT NEVER. 3 FOOD HOW TO BE A BETTER DINE-IN CUSTOMER 10 ARTS RESPONDING TO THE PANDEMIC IN POEMS 12 THE DISTRICT'S FREE WEEKLY SINCE 1981 VOLUME 40, NO. 25 WASHINGTONCITYPAPER.COM JUNE 26–JULY 2, 2020

USE OF FORCE. DISCREDITED TESTIMONY. ILLEGAL SEARCHES. FOIA DENIALS. PROTECTIVE ORDERS. REDACTIONS. How the Metropolitan Police Department, the U.S. Department of Justice, and the Office of the Attorney General in D.C. shield the bad actions of cops from the public. PAGE 6 By Mitch Ryals

TABLE OF CONTENTS COVER STORY 6 Hiding Behind the Badge: Rigid rules and policies hide the bad behavior of D.C. cops from the people they’re paid to serve.

SPORTS 3 Change of Address: Dan Snyder says his team’s name is about honor, pride, and respect. The context of the times tells us otherwise.

NEWS 4 The Pandemic in a Public Housing Complex: Tenants of the Kelly Miller Dwellings cope with COVID-19 without enough support from the city.

FOOD 10 Eat, Pay, Leave: How to be a better patron as restaurants reopen

ARTS 12 Pandemic Poetry: Local writers respond to the coronavirus crisis in verse.

14 Opening Doors: Theater lobbies have become refuges for weary protesters and community members.

15 Books: Ottenberg on Martin Walker’s The Shooting at Chateau Rock 16 Film: Zilberman on Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga

CITY LIGHTS 17 City Lights: Check out a documentary photography event and meet a family of ferrets.

DIVERSIONS 16 Crossword 18 Savage Love 19 Classifieds

Darrow Montgomery | 200 Block of W Street NW, June 22 Editorial

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SPORTS FOOTBALL

Dan Snyder once said he’d “NEVER” change his NFL’s team name. Soon, it may not be his choice.

By Erik Brady Contributing Writer NEVER. That’s what Daniel Snyder told me seven years ago. He even suggested the typography.

“You can use caps,” he said then, as if “never”— lowercase—didn’t sound like long enough.

Never would he change the name of the local NFL team he owns. Snyder meant every capitalized letter of it. But, as he is finding out, never is a long time, and his time is quickly running out.

In the end, whether the name stays or goes probably isn’t going to be his call. The NFL has long maintained that team names are a club matter, not a league one, but this time, pressure for the commissioner and for Snyder’s fellow owners to force a name change will increase significantly. They are going to tell him the time has come. He’ll resist. But then sponsors will tell him that either the name goes or they do. And then the name will go, as it must, and should have long ago.

Perhaps all that is wishful thinking, but the world has changed in these past weeks, and there’s no going back. George Floyd died after a police officer put his knee on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes. And rather than look away, the nation is looking, with fresh eyes, at the issue of systemic racism.

“It is so unfortunate that we have come to this place,” says Amanda Blackhorse, in reference to the killings of Black men and women by law enforcement. “But the nation, and the world, really is rising up against racism and colonialism.”

Blackhorse, who is Navajo, is a leader of the name-change movement. She is skeptical that Snyder will really change his team’s name, but she thinks the best chance will come if NFL players speak up in numbers and in ways they haven’t before.

“That would change everything,” she says.

“Not just NFL players, but Washington team players.”

The United States was born of twin sins, slavery and the atrocities against the continent’s original inhabitants. As many as 10 million Indigenous people lived in the area that would become the United States when Christopher Columbus arrived. By the time White men

Illustration by Julia Terbrock

Change of Address

began naming their sports teams for the victims of this genocide, roughly 250,000 remained.

Major League Baseball’s Boston Braves (now based in Atlanta) adopted their name in 1912. The Cleveland Indians took theirs in 1915.

Dozens of high schools and colleges would, in turn, take on an array of such team names— Warriors, Savages, Redmen—with all of the attendant stereotypical imagery. Washington’s NFL team arrived from Boston in the 1930s, a damnable team name in tow.

Snyder says that his team’s name is about honor, pride, and respect. The context of the times tells us otherwise. Historical context always matters, and these team names proliferated in an era when U.S. government officials in D.C. rarely, if ever, treated Native Americans with honor and respect.

Congress granted the Secretary of the Interior supervision over American Indian affairs in the mid-19th century. From the late 19th century and into the 1930s, government bureaucrats arbitrarily enforced so-called civilization regulations that forbade Native Americans from speaking their languages and practicing their religion. In many cases, Native Americans were even forbidden from leaving their reservations.

Aunt Jemima, a brand born in 1889, will soon disappear from breakfast tables, because Quaker Oats now acknowledges that the name and its associated imagery were based on a racist stereotype. This is no less true of the origin of American Indian team names.

K e v i n Gover, director of the Smithsonian’s National Museu m of the American Indian and a citizen of the Pawnee Tribe of Oklahoma, told me in 2016 t h at “ t h e r e were a lot of very powerful forces at work to deny Native American people of agency over their own identities and their very lives. And that’s when the mascots emerged.”

This was an age when Native American children were taken from their families and sent to boarding schools under an assimilation policy that amounted to a new form of genocide, this time a cultural one. The motto of this initiative: “Kill the Indian and save the man.”

City dwellers in the U.S. rarely saw, let alone interacted with, Native Americans. In the absence of actual American Indians, the wider culture concocted imaginary caricatures. Cigarstore Indians, the old Land O’Lakes butter logo, and American Indian mascots are all a part of that.

“It is an expression of the idea: ‘We, the White people, won—and we can do anything with you and your imagery and your identity that we choose to do,’” Gover said. “And that’s a hell of a thing to say to somebody.”

Suzan Shown Harjo, the president of the Morning Star Institute, an advocacy group for Native Americans, found the Washington team name to be a hell of a thing when she moved to D.C. She is Cheyenne and Hodulgee Muscogee, and was the lead petitioner in a long-running trademark case concerning the Washington team name.

The case, which began in 1992, depended on a particular clause of a 1946 law called the Lanham Act, which said federal trademark registrations should not be granted to marks that may be disparaging. Harjo and her fellow petitioners had to prove that the team name was disparaging to Native Americans when the registrations were granted, between 1967 and 1990.

That seemed as if it might require a time machine, but the petitioners won at the appealsboard level of the patent and trademark office in 1999, the year that Snyder bought the team. In 2003, a U.S. district court ruled the petitioners had waited too long to file—that they were, in effect, too old to press their case. So Harjo tried again, with younger petitioners.

Blackhorse was lead petitioner in that second case. I asked her once what she would say to Snyder if she ever got a chance to talk with him.

She said she would ask if he would dare to call her “a redskin” to her face. So, in 2013, I asked him that question for her.

“I think the best way is to just not comment on that type of stuff,” Snyder responded. “I don’t know her.”

To w h i c h Blackhorse replied: “He’s right. He doesn’t know me, or my people. A nd if he did, he wouldn’t use that name.”

T h e p e t it ioners won once again at the level of the trademark office’s appeals board. Then they won in federal court, where U.S. District Court Judge Gerald Bruce Lee found that the team name was disparaging during the relevant time. He cited dictionary definitions and decades of opposition to the name by Native American leaders.

The football club appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, which issued a stay pending the outcome of another case. The Supreme Court, in that other case, ruled that the disparagement clause of the Lanham Act is unconstitutional on First Amendment grounds.

The Blackhorse case rested entirely on that clause. And months later, in 2018, the Fourth Circuit vacated the earlier decisions that had canceled the Washington club’s federal trademark registrations, an inevitable outcome once the disparagement clause died.

“Anytime Native people are winning,” Harjo told me, “they change the rules.”

Still, the legal decisions that found the team

name disparaging remain in the public record.

Blackhorse says that is crucial to remember: “We said the term ... is disparaging, and the courts agreed with us. It’s just that now the Supreme Court says it’s OK to register a disparaging term.”

Washington was also the last team in the NFL to integrate. George Preston Marshall, the racist former owner of the franchise, refused to sign a Black player until 1962, when the federal government, which owned the land on which the football stadium stood, threatened to revoke the team’s lease.

The stadium would later be renamed for Robert F. Kennedy. Last week, outside RFK, a monument dedicated to Marshall was unceremoniously removed.

“That was huge,” Blackhorse says. “I never thought that would happen.”

She is pleased NFL commissioner Roger Goodell spoke out against the oppression of Black people. Now she hopes he’ll do the same for her people.

“It’s great the NFL came out to support Black Lives Matter,” Blackhorse says. “But they’re being hypocritical, in my opinion. They should also speak up about Native stereotypes and antiNative racism. But I don’t think the NFL sees the mascotting of Native people as racism still.”

The paradox at play here is the dual American myth of the noble and ignoble savage. This double notion predates the 1826 novel that cemented it in the American imagination, James Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans.

The noble savage inhabits a mystical bond with nature; the ignoble savage is murderous and amoral. The Washington football team blends both of those stereotypes: The image on the team’s helmets invokes the noble savage, while the team name invokes the ignoble one.

“The Indian-in-profile is always a dead giveaway of the noble savage,” Gover said. “And the word ‘redskin’ is inherently ignoble. So the Washington team manages to mix these myths together.”

Not long before I spoke with Gover, in 2016, Snyder issued a statement in which he said that the Washington NFL team and its fans “have always believed our name represents honor, respect, and pride.”

The man trades in superlatives: always—and never.

The notion that his team name always meant honor and respect is belied by the era in which these team names came to be. History is a stubborn thing that way.

And now, as the nation looks inward in an attempt to see longtime issues of race in entirely new ways, it is time: The name must go.

It is past time, really. But when—OK, if— Snyder actually does it, the critique can’t be that he waited too long. It’s never too late to do the right thing.

No, wait. Make that NEVER. You can put it in caps.

Erik Brady is a contributing columnist for the Buffalo News. He covered issues surrounding the Washington NFL team name for USA Today until last year, when he retired as the last member of the national newspaper’s founding generation.

washingtoncitypaper.com june 26, 2020 3

NEWS CITY DESK

The Pandemic in a Public Housing Complex With 5 deaths related to COVID-19 occurring in a 160-unit public housing complex, tenants clean and care for their own building.

Darrow Montgomery

Tiffany Dailey

By Amanda Michelle Gomez @amanduhgomez The Kelly Miller Dwellings in LeDroit Park was the kind of tight-knit community where, before the COVID-19 pandemic hit it, residents would sit outside, play music, and talk for hours.

And no wonder: Some tenants of the scatteredsite 160-unit public housing complex, located just behind Howard University Hospital, have lived there for 30 years.

So when the devastating news broke in April that tenants in one of the complex’s 12 walk-up buildings were dying of COVID-19, the news spread like the virus itself.

At least seven people living in the 18-unit building at 334 and 336 V St. NW have tested positive for COVID-19, and five of those individuals have died of the disease, three tenants tell City Paper. The DC Housing Authority, the quasi-independent city agency that owns and manages the complex, didn’t notify tenants of those deaths, or even that residents had tested positive for COVID-19. (A spokesperson

for DCHA declined to comment on the record about the number of positive cases or deaths, citing the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.) Instead, tenants learned by word of mouth, including speaking with some families of the deceased, and from seeing the deceased’s apartment doors boarded up. (According to the Office of the Attorney General, landlords do not have to disclose positive cases in their buildings and, in some cases, sharing that type of information could violate the Fair Housing Act or the DC Human Rights Act.) When tenants learned that their own were getting sick, a few decided to clean the building themselves, believing their landlord was not doing enough to protect them.

One of those tenants was Tiffany Dailey, who’s lived in the building for the last four years with her two kids.

Dailey became concerned after learning about the pandemic in her community, as did her neighbors. She has a 10-year-old son who has a compromised immune system, so Dailey was terrified about what could happen if he got

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infected. With her mask and gloves, Dailey would clean the handrails and door knobs in common areas with disinfectant wipes whenever she had the time. One weekend, some of Dailey’s neighbors joined her.

In late April, Dailey learned from another tenant that her neighbor had contracted COVID-19.

Just one week later, she learned that this same neighbor—who had welcomed Dailey when she first moved in, and was a staple in the community over the years—had died. Dailey’s neighbor wasn’t the only one. All five of the Kelly Miller residents to die from the disease were Black, tracking with the racial and socioeconomic trends of the virus. The individuals, who lived across four different units, also skewed older.

Dailey says everyone in her building is Black and a majority are seniors.

Despite the increasing number of positive cases and deaths citywide, more than 5,000 and 200, respectively, at the time, it wasn’t until May 4––54 days after the mayor declared a public health emergency over COVID-19––that DC Housing Authority staff wrote to Kelly Miller’s

tenants about their pandemic cleaning protocol.

“DCHA staff is working daily to clean and disinfect the common areas for all our properties,” a notice posted that day reads.

“We’re over here living it looking like, ‘um, where is this happening because it’s not happening here,’” Dailey says.

“They spend more time cleaning the outside,” says another tenant, who asked not to be named because of privacy concerns. “Gardening.”

On April 29, Dailey had enough. She wrote an email to the DC Housing Authority, copying her Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner and the staff of Ward 1 Councilmember Brianne Nadeau, to say the government agency had provided “zero contact or support” for her community during these trying times.

“All regular cleaning and daily upkeep has completely halted which is a recipe for the virus thriving in our common areas and spreading to residents,” Dailey wrote in the April 29 email, which she shared with City Paper. “We have very old buildings with poor circulation that should consistent [sic] upkeep either way. However our common areas have not been regularly cleaned let alone sanitized during this stressful time.”

In response, a DC Housing Authority employee responded to Dailey’s original email thread, writing, “We are aware of the concern at Kelly Miller.” The representative also said a deep cleaning was scheduled for the morning of April 30. Later that afternoon, Dailey responded with photos of the allegedly “clean” hallways, which were covered in trash. It wasn’t until a month later, in late May, that the Council passed a law requiring landlords to regularly clean common areas of apartment complexes in response to concerns about coronavirus hygiene.

City Paper spoke with three Kelly Miller residents, who say there has only been one deep cleaning of the property over the course of the pandemic. Dailey alleges that the DC Housing Authority only started responding to her complaints to clean in June, but still does not regularly clean. She describes the agency’s response as being more reactive than proactive.

The DC Housing Authority denies administrators have ignored residents’ requests for cleaning. “In addition to the deep cleaning that took place at the start of the state of emergency and with each request from a resident, DCHA has been using an enhanced cleaning method twice a day every day throughout the buildings,” writes Christy Goodman, a spokesperson with the agency, in an email to City Paper. “These buildings also are monitored regularly for quality control, as well as large gatherings.” By “enhanced cleaning method,” Goodman means “a focus on common and high traffic areas, paying special attention to high touch areas, such as light switches and railings.”

InearlyMay,D.C.HealthDirectorLaQuandra Nesbitt said household transmission is a leading cause of coronavirus spread, and one of the reasons more residential neighborhoods saw relatively high COVID-19 cases. She also said the District’s response is focused on preventing spread among “doubled-up” households where families live in close quarters. “There is

NEWS no risk of between-unit transmission, and we want to make sure people fully understand that,” said Nesbitt.

Nevertheless, Kelly Miller tenants are concerned about the spread of the virus in their building. While part of the Kelly Miller complex is comprised of townhouses, it also has several multi-story apartment buildings, one of which Dailey lives in. The Centers for Disease Control and Infection warn individuals living in shared housing may have challenges with social distancing, one of the few tools we have to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in lieu of a vaccine. Kelly Miller tenants share narrow hallways and stairwells. (They do not have an elevator or laundry room in the building.)

And tenants tell City Paper DC Housing Authority’s COVID-19 response is not an isolated incident. A third tenant who spoke with City Paper by phone says it took a year to get his bathroom sink fixed. He had to brush his teeth over the bathtub, using it as a sink during this time. If he is capable of fixing something, he’ll just do it himself.

“They don’t clean this building. They don’t do anything,” said the resident, who asked not to be named for privacy concerns. “As long as we’ve been here, cleaning this building was an issue.”

“It’s ridiculous. I pay you to do that, that’s what the rent is for,” he continues.

The resident, who tested positive for COVID19 on April 22, believes he might have contracted the virus from his building. Since March, he says, he had only ever left his apartment to go to CVS or doctor’s appointments for his back problems.

He has had trouble getting around ever since his spinal fusion surgery in December 2018.

He worried how his body might respond to COVID-19 given his age. He is 58 years old. His neighbors—the one he used to talk about football with and the Giants fan’s wife—were hospitalized after contracting COVID-19, and one of them, the wife, passed away. He hasn’t had to go to the hospital for COVID-19. In fact, he’s experienced no symptoms at all.

COVID-19 is actually the least of his worries.

He says his back has given him more grief, as has the constant violence in the neighborhood. The Office of the Attorney General announced this month it is suing the DC Housing Authority for allegedly “refusing to address systematic drugand firearm-related activity at ten of its properties,” including at Kelly Miller.

“It’s bad around here,” he says. His girlfriend and her son stay at her sister’s house because of the violence. But he, who is about to receive full disability benefits due to his mobility problems, can’t afford to leave.

“DCHA has its own police force. They haven’t been able to contain crime,” says Alexis McKenney, a community organizer with Bread For The City. McKenney believes if people could live comfortably and safely in their homes— meaning, they aren’t moving in and out of public housing, housing stock that can be “uninhabitable,” because surrounding market-rate housing is unaffordable—then the few who do resort to violence might see another way. “These are symptoms of gentrification, the original violence,” she tells City Paper.

McKenney had been helping Dailey organize her building because living conditions are dismal. Before the pandemic hit, they held a building-wide meeting where McKenney heard residents voice safety concerns, from the nearconstant neighborhood violence to the mold in their own unit. Another major concern was DC Housing Authority’s “transformation plan” for Kelly Miller Dwellings. Through a private developer, the agency plans to rehabilitate the complex, and tenants do not know where they will live during this time or if they all will be able to return once construction is completed.

The DC Housing Authority is still finalizing its plan for the Kelly Miller Dwellings under the federal Rental Assistance Demonstration program.

“There are no definitive timelines at this point, but we look forward to engaging with and receiving feedback from residents via WebEx, phone and when permissible, in person, to discuss the RAD process and their relocation and return rights,” Goodman tells City Paper by email.

To address the myriad problems, Dailey has been trying to organize a tenant association, drawing inspiration from other public housing tenants who’ve successfully organized. She sees bigger things for her and her neighbors, including collectively owning their building one day.

She and her neighbors have overcome a lot, she says, so she’s optimistic. Dailey, for her part, moved into public housing four years ago, after living in a homeless shelter, a consequence of not being able to work while caring for her child with Crohn’s disease. Now, she owns her own skin care line, and is also a social impact artist with her own nonprofit.

“It’s always thought that people who are low income—we just don’t care, we’re lazy, we’re blah, blah, blah. And I just [know] that that’s not true,” says Dailey. “I don’t believe it to be true because that’s not me. And I know I don’t reflect everybody, but I do feel like all of us deserve to live healthy, happy, whole. And I do believe that some of us just don’t know that we have the choice outside of survival, to be happy, healthy, whole.”

In the meantime, the tenants of 334 and 336 V St. NW have been caring for one another. Dailey has been disinfecting handrails when she can, and organized one day of deep cleaning with a few of her neighbors. She was able to do this after raising nearly a thousand dollars for cleaning supplies from a Facebook post about her building’s troubles. The money enabled Dailey to go door to door and pass out care packages to tenants that included everything from reusable and disposable masks to bottles of Lysol.

“I’m not waiting for government assistance to help! We can do it together!” reads a fundraiser post that Dailey shared with City Paper.

Natacia Knapper, who’s been organizing mutual aid efforts citywide, has been offering Dailey technical support and giving her flyers she can pass out that outline how to access services like child care, groceries, and hygiene products. The two have also set up a table outside the building, where tenants can pick up donated items. In the absence of more help from the DC Housing Authority, they’re planning on doing it again.

DOEE.DC.GOV/TRASHFREEDC

washingtoncitypaper.com june 26, 2020 5

HIDING BEHIND THE BADGE

The Metropolitan Police Department doesn’t want the public to know about the bad behavior of its officers. The Department of Justice and the Office of the Attorney General for D.C. help them keep those secrets.

By Mitch Ryals Photographs by Darrow Montgomery

Inside a brick building on a residential street in Petworth, beyond locked doors that a desk cop controls with a buzzer, is a whitewalled room where police officers plead for their jobs.

A sign on the front of the building identifies the place as a Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Washington clubhouse. Except for the cop cars parked outside, one would hardly recognize it as the Metropolitan Police Department’s Patrol Services North, which also houses its Disciplinary Review Division.

Once inside the building, the public is

directed through another set of locked doors to the room where MPD holds adverse action hearings, the quasi-judicial proceedings where officers have an opportunity to challenge disciplinary decisions. The hearings are open to the public, but observers are not allowed to record or livestream. Cell phones and other electronic devices are prohibited.

A schedule posted on the wall outside the hearing room lists the month’s agenda. In January, it featured MPD officers accused of illegally using pepper spray, making untruthful statements, an unauthorized chase, an

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unauthorized neck restraint, and “driving while intoxicated and leaving after colliding” in another county.

The schedule does not identify the officers and is not posted online. Until relatively recently, the only way a member of the public would know about these allegations would be to visit Patrol Services North each month and read the schedule off the wall.

Winkle “Hobie” Hong, director of MPD’s Disciplinary Review Division, is willing to email the monthly schedule to individual requesters, but that hasn’t always been the

case with his predecessors, says Amy Phillips, a D.C. public defender who has taken a personal interest in police misconduct and is speaking with City Paper on her own behalf.

“Members’ names aren’t something we like to advertise,” Hong told City Paper in January, when asked for the name of the officer accused of an unauthorized vehicle chase. The hearing for that officer, it turned out, was postponed.

The rules around adverse action hearings are minor barriers to the public’s access to information about police misconduct in D.C. More significant efforts appear in three active

lawsuits in which MPD, the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, and the Office of the Attorney General for the District of Columbia defend a system that allows the identities and bad actions of police officers to stay secret. Government attorneys argue identifying officers with records of misconduct or untruthfulness could put their lives in jeopardy, embarrass and humiliate them, or hurt their chances of finding work outside the department.

The previously unreported cases highlight the demands for transparency in policing as outrage over officers’ harassment of Black communities and killing of Black people reaches a fever pitch.

For the past year, Phillips has challenged those systems in a lawsuit over access to records of an adverse action hearing in March 2019 that resulted in former officer Sean Lojacono’s termination. Lojacono was fired for an invasive buttock and genital search of a man he saw drinking alcohol in the passenger seat of a car.

“We give police officers more power than other government employees, including the power to use deadly force. That should come with increased accountability,” Phillips says.

“I think that lack of transparency damages any relationship the police are hoping to build with the community.”

Phillips took three days off work in early March 2019 to watch Lojacono challenge the department’s decision to fire him.

Throughout the adverse action hearing, MPD, represented by OAG lawyers, made the case that Lojacono’s invasive search violated the department’s general orders and ran afoul of his training. In his defense, Lojcaono argued the opposite—that he was taught to search suspects for drugs and weapons by sticking his hands into a person’s buttocks and groin.

“I’ve seen numerous officers complete the exact same search,” Lojacono testified during the hearing, adding that “there was no simulation given to us of how a proper field search is supposed to be done. So I never actually got a chance—an opportunity to either see or conduct a simulated field search at that training academy.”

Phillips took notes as best as she could, but because she was barred from recording the proceedings, she filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the official audio recording, transcripts, emails, and exhibits to ensure her notes were accurate.

“This is such a fascinating inside look at what appears to be a dispute in the police department between what’s written in the rulebook about what’s legal versus what officers who are getting on-the-job training in the streets are actually being trained to do,” Phillips says. “And what they’re actually being trained to do appears to be really objectionable.”

Phillips submitted her FOIA request on March 15, 2019, shortly after the hearings concluded. Fewer than 90 minutes after filing her request, she received an outright denial.

Publicly releasing such records would “constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy,” MPD wrote in its denial letter.

Phillips appealed the decision to the Mayor’s Office of Legal Counsel, and again MPD

pushed back. A lawyer for MPD argued that Lojacono’s right to privacy outweighed the public’s right to records related to his public adverse action hearing.

“The requested records will not shed light on the operations of the department, which is the core purpose of FOIA,” MPD deputy general counsel Ronald B. Harris wrote in his opposition to Phillip’s appeal.

Still, the mayor’s office directed MPD to release a portion of the records, ruling that Lojacono’s privacy did not outweigh the public’s interest in seeing the records. However, the privacy of others who participated in the hearing, such as witnesses, lawyers, and spectators, did overshadow the public’s interest, the mayor’s office decided.

After 39 days without receiving a single document from MPD, Phillips sued the District.

Only then did she start receiving the records she requested.

“I don’t know how you would do it if you weren’t a lawyer,” Phillips says of her efforts to get access to the records. “I would imagine a lot of people just give up, because it’s discouraging.”

So far, Phillips has received some body camera footage and thousands of pages of documents, including 1,200 pages of transcripts.

But the names of MPD officers who testified about how the department trains its members to conduct searches are redacted. Officers’ duties and responsibilities within the department are also redacted in some places throughout the transcript.

(City Paper obtained redacted copies of the transcripts from Lojacono’s hearing, and through news reports and comparisons to Phillips’ notes has determined some of the withheld information.)

In September 2017, a video of Lojacono conducting a search of a man named M.B. Cottingham went viral. The video shows Lojacono sticking his hand in Cottingham’s buttocks and groin as Cottingham flinches and says “he stuck his finger in my crack.”

The footage caught the attention of the ACLU of the District of Columbia, and the organization filed a lawsuit against Lojacono, which the District settled for an undisclosed, six-figure amount, despite the fact that the D.C. government was not a defendant. The case settled just before the District’s deadline to give the ACLU-DC court-ordered evidence that included complaints, internal investigations, and discipline against Lojacono.

“Suddenly, D.C. had every reason to want to make this go away,” says Scott Michelman, the ACLU-DC’s legal director.

MPD’s internal investigators disciplined Lojacono and removed him from the narcotics enforcement unit.

It wasn’t until April 2018, when Lojacono’s father, Christopher, a former MPD commander, ran into MPD Assistant Chief Wilfredo Manlapaz, that the department found evidence that would lead to Lojacono’s termination. Christopher Lojacono asked about the status of his son’s case and when he could return to the specialized drug unit, according to a transcript of the adverse action hearing.

Manlapaz found a body camera video of Lojacono performing a similar search of another man about 30 minutes after he

searched Cottingham. That video served as a primary piece of evidence for Lojacono’s termination.

During the hearing, Lojacono’s partner, Officer Kevin Van Hook, who is identified in previous media coverage, testified that the search in question was completely appropriate and in line with the way veteran officers taught them to pat down suspects.

Former Sergeant J.J. Brennan, who recently worked as a civilian supervisor in the department, supported Van Hook’s statements, saying the “police academy and the streets are two different places. Now once you’re on the street, you’re in the real world … And the streets train different ways.”

Brennan, who is also named in previous coverage of Lojacono’s hearing, was fired shortly after his testimony. Van Hook is still an officer with MPD. The department declined to make him available for an interview.

Lojacono also identified four senior officers who taught him how to search suspects.

All four of their names are redacted in the transcript.

“To redact out the names of sworn police officers who come in uniform and testify in their capacity as police officers, that doesn’t seem right to me,” Phillips says. “Particularly when what they’re testifying about is use of force by the police against civilians, and that use of force was also deemed to be improper.”

She says she offered to settle the case if MPD would release an unredacted copy of the transcript. The department rejected her offer.

MPD first notified Lojacono of his termination in August 2018. Following the adverse action hearing in early March 2019, a threemember panel made up of MPD brass upheld his firing on March 29, 2019. Only one of those three high-ranking officials—Commander Stuart Emerman—is identified in the transcripts. The other two official’s names— Captain Kimberlee Williams and Captain Andrew White—are redacted in the transcripts but are left unredacted in a document summarizing the panel’s final decision. White disagreed that the invasive search should cost Lojacono his job, and instead recommended he be suspended and receive training on proper searches.

Although MPD released the transcripts and other documents, Phillips’ lawsuit is still ongoing. She tells City Paper that when she initially filed the case, she thought the OAG would agree that her request for transcripts of a public hearing was a “no brainer” and would release them in full.

“I continue to be surprised at just how vociferously MPD is fighting against turning these [unredacted transcripts] over,” she says, noting her respect for D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine, whose office is defending the District in the case.

Racine, the District’s first elected attorney general, is a proponent of progressive criminal justice policies, such as alternative approaches to reducing violence, restorative justice, and diversion in juvenile prosecution.

But, Phillips adds, “it is ludicrous to me that he’s publishing op-eds in the media talking about his commitment to reforming the police department and making sure that people have access to better government, and then attorneys who work for him … are coming into court

opposing a request like this one.”

“That office is saying things publicly that I don’t think is being born out in what they’re doing in court,” she continues. “And it really makes me wonder if Mr. Racine knows the positions that his staff attorneys are taking and whether he would agree with them.”

An OAG spokesperson says in an email that the office has obligations to protect the “safety and security of District workers,” including “sensitive personal information from being publicly shared.

“The District provided Ms. Phillips with the information she requested including complete hearing transcripts,” the OAG spokesperson writes. “The only information that has been redacted is information that would identify a witness, such as a witness name or an employee ID number, which is subject to a FOIA exemption.”

Before the U.S. Attorney’s Office would hand over body camera footage of Dalonta Crudup’s arrest in January 2020, prosecutors asked his lawyer to sign a protective order.

The order bars Crudup’s attorney, Michael Bruckheim, from sharing the footage with anyone outside of individuals who prosecutors deemed as part of the “defense team.” The order specifically excludes Crudup himself.

The only way Crudup could view a major piece of evidence against him, according to the USAO-DC’s requirement, was under his attorney’s supervision. The order requires Bruckheim to somehow ensure that Crudup does not see or hear personal and identifying details of officers and bystanders.

The order also requ ires Br uck heim to destroy the footage or return it to the USAO-DC after the case ends, which he believes is unconstitutional.

Protective orders for body camera footage, as well as for police disciplinary records, have become common practice for federal prosecutors in D.C., defense attorneys tell City Paper.

The USAO-DC, which prosecutes felonies in the District, claims the orders allow them to release the footage in the early stages of a case, before the office has a chance to review it for possible redactions. The footage could contain images of bystanders or other sensitive information, the USAO-DC claims, and the order is necessary to protect their privacy.

But Bruckheim and his law partner, Sweta Patel, believe there is another reason: to hide evidence of what they believe is a pattern and practice within MPD of illegally stopping and searching Black men.

“There is no other purpose than the government trying to protect officers and videos from leaking to the media and the public knowing what’s going on,” Patel says.

The USAO-DC did not respond to City Paper’s request for comment.

In Crudup’s case, four officers on the gun recovery unit watched from an unmarked silver Chevy Malibu as he walked down 14th Street NE carrying a backpack, according to a sworn statement from Officer Eddie Choi.

Crudup looked over his shoulder at the officers, put the backpack on his shoulders, and kept walking, Choi’s affidavit says. That was, apparently, enough for the officers to stop him.

Four officers wearing street clothes under

washingtoncitypaper.com june 26, 2020 7

“POLICE” vests jumped out of the car and started questioning Crudup. Choi’s sworn affidavit describes Crudup shifting his body “as if to blade the backpack away from officers,” but he denied carrying any weapons.

Officers eventually wrestled the backpack from Crudup and found marijuana, cash, and an M&P pistol, the sworn statement says.

Crudup was charged with carrying a pistol without a license.

Prosecutors handed over the body camera footage in Crudup’s case under a protective order, and then offered him a plea deal.

Bruckheim rejected the offer after watching the footage, which he says conflicts with Choi’s sworn statement and shows that officers illegally stopped and searched Crudup.

While Choi’s statement says Crudup “pressed the back of his body against a chainlink fence,” Brukheim says the video shows officers forcing Crudup up against a fence, and “then tell[ing] him it’s suspicious the way he’s standing against the fence,” Bruckheim writes in court documents.

Fifteen minutes after Bruckheim rejected the plea deal, the prosecutor emailed saying the government would dismiss the charge.

Some variation of that sequence of events played out for two other Black men, Dontray Bell and David Burns, who officers on MPD’s gun recovery unit also arrested in the past two years. Now, Bell, Burns, and Crudup are plaintiffs in a class action lawsuit that Patel and Bruckheim filed in April.

The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, accuses MPD of operating under a “policy of stopping, frisking, and searching African American people (especially young African American men) looking for guns without reasonable suspicion or probable cause, fabricating facts to justify stops, frisks and searches, and intentionally discriminating on the basis of race through its Gun Recovery Unit.”

In each of the three cases, police stopped, searched, and charged the men with felony possession of firearms. In all three cases, officers’ statements in sworn affidavits did not match the body camera footage and were fabricated to support the illegal stops and searches, Patel and Bruckheim’s lawsuit claims. Like in Crudup’s case, prosecutors dismissed the charges against Bell and Burns after releasing body camera footage to their attorneys.

“This is exactly why the government asks for protective orders,” Patel says. “They don’t want these bad stops to come to light. It’s clear that these stops are bad. That’s why these cases are dropped.” The deeper issue, Patel says, is that after charges are dismissed, MPD doesn’t retrain its officers.

“There is no follow-up from prosecutors, and that leads to no training for officers,” she says. “It’s a circle.”

The department’s strategy, it seems to Bruchheim and Patel, is that the ends justify the means.

“Their attitude is if we can get illegal items off the street, [then] we don’t care about violating rights,” Bruckheim says. “But that’s the wrong way to go about community policing.”

MPD Chief Peter Newsham did not agree to an interview for this story, and an MPD spokesperson writes in an email that the

Michael Bruckheim

department does not make police personnel records available to the public.

Protective orders in Crudup’s and Bell’s cases prevent them from using any body camera footage their attorneys received in their criminal cases as evidence in their civil lawsuit against the District. In effect, that means the government is using the footage as evidence of a potential crime, but Crudup and Bell aren’t allowed to use it as evidence of potentially illegal searches.

Bruckheim and Patel asked a judge to lift the orders in both cases, and the USAO-DC opposed their requests. The government argues that in Crudup’s case, for example, the footage shows Crudup speaking with someone on his phone, shows officers interacting with people inside of a police station and, briefly, shows officers’ cell phone screens—an invasion of their personal privacy.

Bruckheim, who watched the video but cannot release it to City Paper because of the protective order, says the footage shows only “fleeting images” of bystanders and does not linger on officers’ cell phones long enough to read their text messages.

“The government’s assertion that police officers are entitled to privacy with body camera footage during the course of their duties where constitutional rights violations are an issue is without merit and against moral public politics,” Bruckheim writes in court documents.

D.C. Superior Court Judge Rainey Brandt sided with federal prosecutors and declined to lift the protective orders. In her decision, Brandt notes that the rules around disclosure of evidence are different for criminal cases than for civil cases.

She agrees with prosecutors’ concern that “lifting the protective order would increase

8 june 26, 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

the likelihood of the [body worn camera] evidence being circulated in the public domain,” and in a footnote the judge adds: “This point is of great concern to the Court. Should the [body worn camera] be uploaded to social media there is nothing to prevent the alteration of the video, among other things.”

Inside locked file cabinets and on secure computer drives, federal prosecutors keep extensive records of D.C. cops’ transgressions. The records could contain details of minor mistakes, such as mouthing off during roll call or missing a court date, as well as evidence that officers lied in sworn testimony, and, in some cases, have criminal convictions.

A corresponding list, known as the “Lewis list,” tracks each MPD officer whose bad acts could call their credibility into question.

The “Lewis committee,” a group of seven USAO-DC division chiefs, deliberates and votes on what information should be included in the USAO-DC’s database. Only federal prosecutors have access to the list itself, and only USAO-DC supervisors can access the underlying records.

Both are named after the D.C. Court of Appeals case Lewis v. United States, which requires prosecutors to hand over any information that could cast doubt on their witnesses’ testimony.

For the past six years, Ryan Shapiro has tried to get access to these records through FOIA. The USAO-DC has largely denied his requests, and in 2016, he filed a lawsuit to pry the records loose. Shapiro is the executive director of Property of the People, a nonprofit dedicated to fighting for access to government records.

“The residents of a city have a right to know

when their armed public servants behave so egregiously that even the U.S. Attorney’s Office believes those supposed defenders of order are too compromised to credibly appear before a court,” Shapiro says.

The U.S. Department of Justice argues in court records that publicly releasing the Lewis list would violate officers’ personal privacy and could jeopardize the safety of those officers and their confidential sources. The DOJ also cites other exemptions to FOIA, such as those for interagency records and records compiled for law enforcement purposes.

The D.C. OAG asked to intervene in the lawsuit in May of 2018, and in court records Racine’s office argues that the Lewis list and related records contain information on “potentially hundreds of individual MPD officers—information that, if disclosed, could subject them to embarrassment, harassment, and undue public attention, to say nothing of possibly endangering their physical safety.”

In a sworn statement supporting the OAG’s case, MPD Assistant Chief of Investigative Services Robert Contee says police supervisors make sure officers on the Lewis list aren’t assigned to significant investigations where they’d have to testify in court. An officer’s placement on the Lewis list hurts their chance at promotions and advancement within the department, Contee says.

Contee also notes the public humiliation and embarrassment from publicizing the list could hurt officers’ chances of getting second jobs or starting second careers after retirement.

“These officers would likely receive fewer opportunities, or even the absence of any opportunity, to start a new career if prospective employers became aware that an applicant’s credibility or reputation had been previously

Sweta Patel

called into question,” Contee claims in his attempt to keep the details of the list secret.

Jeffrey Light, a D.C. attorney and cofounder of Shapiro’s nonprofit, says the federal government is using an “unusually broad” interpretation of exemptions to FOIA. “I do think that that speaks volumes about how they view the material and how closely they want to guard it,” Light says.

The level of secrecy that surrounds similar databases of police misconduct varies across the country. In Florida, for example, police personnel files are open to the public.

But for decades, a New York state law explicitly hid police disciplinary records from the public. In 2018, BuzzFeed got ahold of five years’ worth of the records that revealed at least 319 cops committed serious offenses, from lying in court to vicious beatings, and still kept their jobs. The outlet published the records in a searchable database, including officers’ names.

This month, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed legislation repealing the law that protects police disciplinary records, and Mayor Bill de Blasio promised to publish the records online rather than requiring the public to submit FOIA requests.

Shapiro’s case highlights federal and local governments’ efforts to withhold details about police misconduct on two fronts. The first is in their fight against his FOIA request itself, and the second is in the instances where federal prosecutors allegedly fail to reveal the information to criminal defendants as the Constitution requires.

Officer John Wright provides a perfect example of both.

In August 2013, D.C. Superior Court Judge Yvonne Williams wasn’t buying Wright’s testimony. Wright, a member of MPD’s gun

recovery unit, described how he pulled his unmarked police car alongside Phillip Mitchell, who was walking down Oates Street NE. Wright claimed Mitchell consented to a search, and though the officer didn’t find any weapons, he did find vials of heroin.

“I just don’t believe this officer,” Judge Williams said of Wright’s description of his interaction with Mitchell.

She summed up his testimony as, “‘I see a random dude on the street, I’m going to stop him.’ For nothing.”

“We can’t fathom those kinds of situations in this courthouse,” Williams said, according to a transcript of the hearing. “We cannot continue to allow this kind of stuff to happen.”

Williams threw out the drugs as evidence, forcing prosecutors to dismiss the charge.

“The reason why I’m not buying that’s what happened is because there was no reason for them to talk to the defendant in the first place,” Williams said. “So maybe they were just bothering this defendant because they felt like bothering with him. I don’t know, but I’m not finding this credible, and I am just— I’m not finding the whole theory credible.”

Less than a year later, D.C. Superior Court Judge Anita Josey-Herring made a similar finding against Wright. In a March 2014 hearing, Wright claimed that he stopped Louis Stanley for changing lanes without signaling.

During the stop, Stanley admitted to owning a shotgun, and Wright later got a warrant to search his home and charged him with possession of an unregistered firearm.

In court, Stanley contradicted Wright’s testimony, telling the judge that Wright initially said he pulled him over for an “illegal turn,” and that Wright “continued saying he smelled marijuana in my car.”

“I said ‘No, there is no marijuana in my

car nor do you smell any,’” Stanley told the judge, according to a transcript of the hearing. “And he said, well … yeah, then he continued the conversation of, you know, license and registration.”

“I don’t, honestly, credit the officer’s testimony,” Josey-Herring said, granting Stanley’s request to throw out the government’s evidence, again effectively dismissing the case.

It’s rare for a judge to declare a police officer’s sworn testimony was not credible, local defense attorneys tell City Paper. The judges’ findings are black marks that will follow Wright for the rest of his career and, in theory, should land him on the Lewis list.

MPD declined to make Wright available for an interview.

Transcripts of these hearings are the kind of materials that the USAO-DC is required to turn over in cases where Wright could testify.

But in at least one case, that did not happen.

In 2016, local defense attorney Joseph McCoy represented a man who Wright arrested and charged with illegal possession of a firearm. As the trial date approached, USAO-DC gave McCoy one of the transcripts in which a judge discredited Wright’s testimony, but only through a chance discussion with another attorney did he find out about the second.

McCoy asked for transcripts of every time Wright testified in court, arguing that he “couldn’t trust the government to turn everything over.”

The judge ultimately barred Wright from testifying in the case, and prosecutors later dismissed the charge when a surveillance video that McCoy played in court contradicted Wright and another officer’s testimony. Wright is still employed with MPD, making a $99,000 salary.

An untitled and undated document that Shapiro received as part of his FOIA request provides a possible explanation for the USAODC’s disclosure of one transcript but not the other.

The three-page document lays out USAODC’s guidance for what information it should give to people accused of crimes, what information it should not, and what information falls into a “gray area.”

The document explicitly states that the subject of the case as well as the officer’s involvement determine whether or not the USAO-DC should reveal the potentially damning information.

“Note that whether these findings are disclosable depends very specifically on what the officer is being called to testify about,” the document says. “That means that certain findings may be disclosable in one case, but not in another (posing a potential for inconsistencies in disclosure between cases…).”

Light, who in addition to FOIA litigation handles criminal appeals, says the guidance conf licts with prosecutors’ constitutional duty.

“The defendants don’t know what they don’t know,” Light says. “I think everybody just presumed that if this type of information existed, and the officer was on the Lewis list, that would mean disclosure.”

Information that is “presumptively not disclosable,” without a specific request from the defendant, according to the USAO-DC’s guidance, includes findings of harassment or domestic violence against officers.

Information that falls in the “gray area” includes an officer’s “unjustified use of force,” “losing a prisoner/notebook,” and firing a pistol at a moving vehicle.

“The government’s job is to do justice, not to win cases,” Light says. “This [guidance] seems to focus more on getting away with the absolute bare minimum they can get away with.”

The OAG, which prosecutes juvenile and misdemeanor crimes in D.C., has the same duty to people accused of crimes. When there’s a close call, the OAG errs on the side of disclosure, a spokesperson for the agency writes in an email.

Two weeks ago, U.S. District Court Judge Dabney L . Friedrich, a Trump appointee, rejected the DOJ’s motion to dismiss Shapiro’s case and ordered the department to explain in greater detail what records it’s withholding and why.

The DOJ described one set of withheld records as “three emails and their attachments contained on the U: drive in a folder named Lewis,” Friedrich notes in her order.

The DOJ also withheld 3,199 emails from Assistant US Attorney Roy McLeese because they fell “mainly into two categories.”

“Not only did the Department fail to describe the emails that fell beyond those two categories, but also the descriptions of the two categories themselves are too vague and non-specific to evidence that [the agency] carefully analyzed all information withheld,” Dabney writes in her order.

For now, Shapiro and Light see the judge’s ruling as an incremental victory.

“There’s a good chance we’ll be getting some documents in this case,” Light says.

washingtoncitypaper.com june 26, 2020 9

FOOD YOUNG & HUNGRY

Eat, Pay, Leave How to be a better customer during restaurants’ phased reopenings, according to owners and employees

making employees and fellow diners feel more at ease, according to DC Harvest co-owner Jared Ringel. “Customers and establishments have to work together way more than before,” he says. “We need to work together to create the safest environment by finding a balance between safe and enjoyable.”

Chefs, servers, and restaurateurs spell out the specifics of how to be a better customer before, during, and after your meal:

Darrow Montgomery

Do Some Homework

Outdoor dining at Don Juan in Mount Pleasant

By Laura Hayes @LauraHayesDC The belief that the customer is always right is crumbling during the COVID-19 pandemic. As restaurant owners and employees move through Phases One and Two of reopening, they find themselves taking on the added stress of acting like lifeguards. They’re constantly reminding diners about rules and recommendations the city has put in place to keep District residents as safe as possible while dining out.

“We live and breathe these guidelines,” says Ian Hilton, the restaurateur behind Chez Billy Sud, Players Club, The Brixton, and other bars and restaurants. “We take for granted that everybody sort of knows what they’re supposed to do, like where they’re supposed to wear a mask.”

Enforcement becomes trickier later in the evening. “As they have more and more beers, they don’t want to be told what to do,” Hilton says. “We’re not trying to be their parents. We

are just doing what we’re mandated to do by the government, and we’re doing it for their safety and the safety of our staff. It should go without saying that we’re not doing this to enforce more and more rules to take the fun out of the hospitality business.”

A global pandemic doesn’t come with much of a playbook. Restaurant owners feel pressure to reopen so they can earn enough revenue to pay rent, their employees, and other bills. When the first phase of reopening began on May 29, restaurants could seat patrons outside. Now, during the second phase, they’re permitted to seat dining rooms at 50 percent capacity.

Some servers, bartenders, and cooks are eager to return to their jobs, especially if they were ineligible for unemployment benefits.

Others are concerned about virus transmission and afraid to pick up shifts. States like Florida, Arizona, California, and Texas are seeing significant spikes in COVID-19 cases.

Wash i ng ton ia ns w i l l i ng to d i ne at area restaurants have a role to play in

10 june 26, 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

“Read the guidelines before you go out,” Hilton says. “Then you’ll know we’re just following instructions.” Remembering to put down a beer and pick up a mask before using a bar’s bathroom will be difficult at first, but awareness is half the battle. “Our staff are frontline workers. They’re people too. They have fears and worries. Be extra nice to them.

Take good care of them. Be more patient than you probably were in the past. It’s so basic.

Give us a break. Know the rules.”

While Mayor Muriel Bowser posts executive orders and guidelines tied to each phase of reopening at coronavirus.dc.gov, customers should also understand that rules will vary from venue to venue. Tyber Creek Wine Bar & Kitchen owner Jordan Mixter says her Bloomingdale business is acting more conservatively than the city. She printed her own guidelines and placed them on every table. Mixter requires customers to clean up after themselves by bringing their trash and recyclables to bins by the exit, and she prohibits them from moving any furniture.

“Not only is no one reading them, but they’re also not following directions when they do read them,” she says. “We’ve had someone tell us, ‘The rules are more relaxed.’

Not only is that untrue, but these are our rules. I don’t care what the mayor says is allowed.”

Be Patient and Flexible To serve patrons in the first phase of reopening, restaurants either activated their existing outdoor seating areas or applied to quickly add new spaces. That means the walking distance between the kitchen and the table may have increased, a fact Cork Wine Bar & Market server Karim Soumah wants customers to keep in mind.

“Don’t complain about ticket times,” Soumah says of the time it takes for food and drink to arrive. “You’re working with short staffs and longer distances. I know it can be annoying for a lot of justifiable reasons, but in this case, have more sympathy.”

Pizzeria Paradiso’s director of operations, Matt McQuilkin, points out that new procedures may also extend mealtimes. “Due to additional cleaning, sanitizing, and safety protocols, things can take longer than it would under normal circumstances,” he says.

Many restaurants can’t afford to bring back their full teams immediately, nor can they responsibly fill cramped kitchens with cooks and expect them to maintain a safe distance from one another. The result is smaller menus.

“Some of your favorite restaurants might not have dessert on the menu right now,” says Duck Duck Goose chef and owner Ashish Alfred. “Pasta places might not have as many pastas. We don’t have the manpower. We don’t want people stacked up on top of each other cooking. Some people still don’t understand. They ask, ‘How come you’re not open Monday and Tuesdays?’ There’s not enough staff or business to support seven days.”

“People have this attitude when they don’t see their favorite thing on the menu right now,” Mixter adds. “I’m flattered that people want to see their favorite dishes back.

People are like, ‘Where’s the normal menu?’

What about this is normal? Nothing about this is normal.”

Wear a Mask Phase Two guidelines for restaurants say patrons must wear face coverings whenever they’re not actively eating and drinking in restaurants. Because COVID-19 spreads through respiratory droplets, mask-wearing is one of the most effective ways to limit transmission. Not everyone is willing to wear one, though.

“The mask is one of the issues that we understand and agree needs to be worn,” says Convivial chef and owner Cedric Maupillier. “It’s been proven by the scientific community that it prevents the spread of the virus. We’re asking guests to wear a mask when they walk into the restaurant to go to the restroom, for example. They don’t wear the mask to protect us and maybe themselves. It’s very frustrating. We’ve had a few conflicts already.”

One day a customer went inside to use the bathroom. When Convivial employees asked the person to put on a mask, they promised not to breathe. “It’s what it sounds like — sarcastic and callous,” Maupillier recounts. “What is the point where we engage? How far do we want to get into a conflict?”

“We’ve had a lot of customers remove their face masks when they are seated at a table and we’ve had to remind them that D.C. requires them to only remove their masks when actively drinking and eating,” McQuilkin echoes.

A critical time to wear a mask is when the server is at the table, according to Soumah.

“Masks for guests is very difficult,” he says.

“I get it. I’ve been a guest at a restaurant as well. But at least be mindful that when you’re about to order and the server is approaching, put your mask on. Once they clear the space, take off your mask again.”

Masks make a server’s job a little tricky, but that doesn’t take away from their vitalness.

FOOD “It’s difficult for servers not to be able to smile at guests,” Alfred says. “What is the appropriate volume for us while we’re talking through these masks? There’s lots of, ‘Can you repeat yourself?’ The fear is you lose a lot of the romance that is going out to eat.”

Don’t Bring a Crowd Restaurants must space tables 6 feet apart, and they still can’t seat parties of more than six patrons. “Don’t show up with the wrong amount of people,” Hilton says. “That really throws things off. Sometimes there’s literally nothing we can do about it. They’ll probably hold it against us forever.”

Roofers Union General Manager Dave Delaplaine has felt similar pressure. During Phase One, he manned the Adams Morgan bar’s downstairs window and radioed up to his colleagues on the roof deck whenever a new party arrived to ensure groups wouldn’t pass each other in the narrow stairwell.

“People get up there and then they’re like, ‘Why can’t my seven friends come up?’” he says.

He goes over the rules with patrons before they make the climb to get seated. “Go into it understanding that we’re not back to normal,” Delaplaine says. “I have friends that are nonchalant about this. I don’t want a friend of mine like that in my restaurant right now.”

Alfred and Mixter have encountered customers moving tables or adding to their parties without permission. “We’ve gotten groups of people who say there’s 10 of us,” Alfred explains. To accommodate them he’ll sit four at one table and six at another.

“Then we see them scooting tables closer together. I feel for them and know they want to hang out with friends, but we can’t allow it. It’s bad optics and makes other guests feel uncomfortable.”

“We have chairs stacked up,” Mixter says.

“People are helping themselves and making bigger groups. It changes the 6-foot spacing and party size. When we said something about it, customers pushed back.”

Know When to Leave When D.C. gets a summer day with zero humidity, it’s natural for diners to want to linger on a restaurant’s patio. But with restaurants operating at limited capacities, their need to turn tables intensifies.

“In Adams Morgan, people want to come in for a round of drinks and don’t want to eat,” Delaplaine says. “Restaurants are fighting for their survival at this point. They’re depending on a small fraction of the number of seats they normally offer. Go to restaurants ready to eat dinner.”

Check size also matters. If you’re occupying a table, restaurants ask that diners continue spending money whether that’s another round of drinks or a few dishes to take home to eat the following day. “If you send back a

food item you ordered, add another item so you find a way to support the place,” Ringel says. “If you’re in a seat, purchasing something is way more important than before.”

Alfredo Solis, the chef and owner of Mezcalero, Anafre, and El Sol, reminds customers that if they see others waiting for tables, they should finish up and move on.

“We don’t want to rush anybody, but people want to dine with us, so they shouldn’t take too long,” Solis says. “With the new rules, one benefit is you can take your drink with you.”

Some restaurateurs formalized how long groups can sit for a meal. Maupillier only had five outdoor tables to work with during Phase One. When diners went to make reservations on RESY, they were informed tables for one or two people were for an hour and a half; tables of three or four got two hours; and groups of five or six were allotted two and a half hours.

Maupillier says he trained his staff to remind guests of the policy when they called to confirm reservations.

“Still, people don’t listen,” Maupillier says, adding that he’s tried everything short of public shaming. “It doesn’t work like that. We’re in the hospitality business. We have no anger.

We treat everyone equally. That’s what people expect from us.” That said, Maupillier is also frustrated by the number of no-shows for reservations. “People didn’t respect the contracts they made with restaurants.”

When customers stay too long, it creates a backlog of people with nowhere to wait.

Convivial manager Toni Zuzolo points out that restaurants can’t currently ask patrons to have a drink at the bar while they wait for their table. “Sitting at the bar having a drink is much different from standing outside in the sun,” she says. “Be cognizant of those dining after you.”

Leave the Right Kind of Feedback Every dollar counts when you’re facing nearly four months of limited revenue, making the D.C. restaurant scene more competitive than usual. Ringel and other restaurant owners encourage customers to share their experiences and photos on social media. The free advertising helps at a time when many restaurants have paused their contracts with public relations professionals.

“Go above and beyond to write positive reviews and share experiences via social media,” Ringel continues. “If you have a good experience, make a rule that you’re going to post something that tells your followers as a way to help restaurants out.”

Conversely, now’s not the time for onestar slams. “Stay the fuck off Yelp right now,” Alfred says. “If you have half a soul, there’s no reason to be damaging someone’s business that way. Everybody just launched a brand new restaurant, whether it’s been there five years, 10 years, or five months. We’re figuring out a brand new way to do everything. I think people should be sympathetic to that.”

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FOLLOW washingtoncitypaper.com june 26, 2020 11

ARTS

Pandemic Poetry A poetry collection that speaks to life during the coronavirus crisis Living through a pandemic is something many of us have never imagined. The flow of life feels forever changed, and the crisis seems unending. In April, I began the process of putting together a poetry collection that reflected on life during the spread of the new coronavirus, believing in the healing power of words. I asked local poets to submit poems about how they’ve been feeling during the pandemic—how we’ve all been feeling during the pandemic. These are the poems they sent to represent those feelings. I hope they move you.

—Kayla Randall “Spreading Death”

by Kim B Miller I am locked in this house Barricaded behind drywall and black art I resisted these pretty prison walls but now I’m incarcerated I don’t know why the blue bird sang but this brown one is singing because she wants to be free Let me fly with my friends I want to open the boundaries to physical touch When did I begin serving this prison sentence Why do I keep seeing other inmates escape their confinement Walking on beaches, going to church, having parties Each one is like a bee pollinating flowers Except they are spreading death Even though us is included in virus There is no need to include me My obedience to this cell may not save me Not when so many escapees return They are ignorantly proud of their escape Boastful about immunity They tested sickness but some did not make it to graduation because they failed science Death does not play chess So their willingness to be pawns does not ensure that they will be taken They opened up everyone to defeat Death does not look for loyalty But if stupidly should skip in front of it Well, even death likes the flavor of low hanging fruit As for me, I’ll just sit in this prison Watching death play hula hoop with ignorance While more volunteers line up to meet him Death doesn’t get tired so maybe we will get sick of dying “The days blur”

by Teri Ellen Cross Davis The days blur as we self-quarantine, to make less work for others.

The days blur, the spot on the floor next to my bed, my feet land with a thud and I am IT director, chef, housekeeper, nurse, and tele-worker all before 9am.

The days blur, my hand on backs, foreheads, my ears alert for coughing, thermometer at the hip like a gunslinger.

The days blur, I touch my husband, so I don’t forget what it feels like.

The days blur from rain or crying, the world a watery vision framed by window panes.

The days blur until it’s midnight, 1am—I’ve waited out the cacophony of children for a silence smothered in anxiety. Privilege is a house, the hum of a deep freezer, a steady job.

The days blur and my waistband expands as my mind frays, needing a hem.

The days blur and the wound I am oozes, the scab yet to start.

The days blur and racists fight for the right to be served—humanity is a bauble and capitalism has slashed the price.

The days blur as COVID types its initials on a new high score and doctors adjust the margins.

The days blur and when I finally walk out my door, the world will be less, not more.

12 june 26, 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

“Sideways”

by Gregory Luce “Remedy”

by Gabriela Orozco – A remedy of upright trees and room to breathe The blossoms beckon, blooming city blocks call my granny from a continent away I send her pictures of the sidewalks Despite the time difference, I pray that I remember it regardless, that my remedy won’t wake her up.

She misses springtime here, and for the first time in seventy six years she lights the Shabbat candles alone, her blessings warming an empty home – A remedy of sunshine, soft hands, and bike rides The silence of this city is soothing A lullaby of red lights, marble, limestone and living room folding parties.

The rain’s blowing sideways so even the dog won’t go outside and you retreat back into the apartment and brood, maybe an extra cup of coffee, dog stretched out sulking at your feet. Idling, body rooted to the chair, the mind has to go somewhere as energy pools and accumulates.

You watch the dog’s tail rise and fall and thump the floor like your heart knocking on your chest from the inside.

You can almost feel the blood coursing through your body and the nerves firing their signals one to the next along the great network from brain around to brain again. One deep breath suspends all movement for a lingering moment, then the flow resumes.

– A remedy of small children, sweet rain and a welcome storm A remedy of daffodils sprouting, dizzy spinning and an electron dance My sister and I piss ourselves with laughter We play pretend, put our wheels together Pillows on the couch, anything to avoid this disaster: – A remedy of sisterhood, a shehechiyanu (how lucky we are to be together), a psalm and soothing balm My family holds me tight, A hug wrapped in a place to sleep each night the Shema reminds me to keep it on my lips I forget the words, the Hebrew forms itself into fragile shapes and twists.

I rip the blinds open, shelter in the holiness of light I have no synagogue to go to, The doors of the ark shuttered closed A Shabbat of loneliness The minyan consists of my mother and some memories My own prayers and whispered pleas – A remedy of peace, prayers texted to my rabbi of restless practice, rustling leaves, and a world repaired again We relight the candles My mother recites the priest’s blessing, But none of us are priests or priestesses We’re just souls on fire, faithful to an extent dressed in pajamas and princess dresses Kept alive by prayer and hope we open our throats Refuse to let the smoke swallow us we recall South African sunsets Let the song rise and roll through us As I am blessed, my sister’s hands settle on my head, I take a deep breath and hope for the best.

ARTS “The Balance”

by Halim A. Flowers Kapitalism has died or at least stood still As the Mother Earth kept spinning and moving and dancing For she doesn’t have to cry as much anymore The iron horses have settled And the commercial birds no longer soar So now, the dolphins can play on the shore of Sardinia and the filth has disappeared from the waters of Venice, along with the void of polluting people.

The air can finally breathe and the wind can win And we can all be concerned how we touch one another again Sad that so many had to die For the Mother Earth to no longer cry For so many to finally live In a world protected from the insanity of our collective Matricide The markets are closed The traders and merchants are at home discovering that they have little to no intrinsic value to exchange when currency is lost The places of worship are empty and the callers to prayer are silenced, forcing people to carry God with them inside of the temple of their own souls Sad that we had to be confined For the sun to shine through, as we were imprisoned to our home To gentrify the layers of the ozone From the stratifications of the mess That our social constructs created for those that have less Now we all wear masks For Mother Earth to breathe For everything else to live free…….

“THE SOCIAL DISTANCE”

by Kim Roberts The fashionable looks this season are bandit or surgeon. One senator cloaks his face in a Confederate flag then feigns surprise when some are offended.

On the fourth yarzheit of my mother’s death, I think of her, unable to read lips through all those masks: the muzzled world.

On the sidewalk, we try a new geometry, but some repeatedly fail their math.

Paper products become the new currency: my love brings me two boxes of tissues.

I try to imagine an innocent time when we could stand under strobe lights, heat rising from a herd of bodies, bass notes like glorious thunder the only thing transmitted through the air.

“In This Short Life”

by Regie Cabico How much—how little—is within our power —Emily Dickinson In this short life I surround myself With fertile power Lilies, Jasmines, Gardenias These buds Alone While in Isolation Are worthy Of a widow’s dower

“Distant Apologies”

by Mecca Verdell My Father scans the grocery store goes throughout the aisles He tries to remember my favorite snacks. knowing even if he chooses the right one it will be the wrong one.

He’s not here for snacks, He is looking for an apology, nothing else can make us full.

I’m too old for junk food, and he is too old to understand, this is how love can starve.

How daughters embrace famine.

Is it hard to say I’m sorry, because you admit Something? Surrender? Sorrow? Not remembering someone’s favorite snacks? His fingers passes my phone Number as he asks my mother for advice.

I am home trying to understand how we Apologize in this house. How we wait out hurt between Dinners, and hope if we give pain enough rides to The mall, the outing will be enough of an outlet to reset.

I always remember the gifts, and never the humility Always feeling undeserving of this since he gave me half of my life But has been chipping away at it with every conversation neglected.

Every announcement of “if you don’t pay rent” Then he don’t pay attention to when I cry That he has exhausted my heartbeat.

My father comes home never saying hello But throwing me my favorite snacks, and I accept.

Since this is the only way we know how to forgive in our house.

We give distant apologies we hope will add up To the real thing since it be a technique that was never Passed down. It be a redemption in practice. Traffic on the way To holy, and several trips to the grocery store.

Kim Roberts is the author of A Literary Guide to Washington, DC: Walking in the Footsteps of American Writers from Francis Scott Key to Zora Neale Hurston, and five books of poems, most recently The Scientific Method. Her newest book, an anthology of early DC poets called By Broad Potomac’s Shore: Great Poems from the Early Days of our Nation’s Capital, will be released by the University of Virginia Press this October. Her website is kimroberts.org.

Teri Ellen Cross Davis is the author of a more perfect Union, winner of The Journal/Charles B. Wheeler Poetry Prize in 2019, and Haint, winner of the 2017 Ohioana Book Award for Poetry. She’s the poetry coordinator for the Folger Shakespeare Library, a Cave Canem fellow, and lives in Silver Spring with her poet husband and two children.

Gabriela Orozco is a D.C. native and a junior at School Without Walls. She takes inspiration and pride from her heritage as a Jewish Latina daughter of immigrants. As the 2019 DC Youth Poet Laureate, Orozco reads her poetry and leads youth poetry writing workshops across the city. She has received a National Gold Medal and American Voices Medal in the 2020 Scholastic Arts and Writing Awards for her short poetry collection, A Conquistador’s Currency, Echoes from the Quarry.

Spoken word artist Kim B Miller’s poetry is her heart expressed in words: opinionated, thought-provoking, and real. She is an award-winning performer and writer who has been the featured poet/speaker/facilitator in several states, and she has written several books. Miller is honored to work with Diabolically Haitian on her poetry program at a women’s prison as a poetry class facilitator. Her website is kimbmiller.com and she is iamkimbmiller on all social media.

Gregory Luce, author of Signs of Small Grace, Drinking Weather, Memory and Desire, Tile, and the forthcoming Riffs & Improvisations, is the 2014 Larry Neal Award winner for adult poetry, given by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. In addition to poetry, he writes a monthly arts column for Scene4 magazine. He is retired from National Geographic, works as a volunteer writing tutor and mentor for 826DC, and lives in Arlington.

Mecca ‘Meccamorphosis’ Verdell is an author, actress, teaching artist, and poet. Verdell first garnered national attention after winning Brave New Voices, an international youth poetry slam. Since then, Verdell has been traveling the country performing, teaching, and building upon the intersection of activism and art. She is currently crowned one of the top five poets of the world by the Individual World Poetry Slam. Verdell is a voice for Black women everywhere.

Regie Cabico is a pioneer of spoken word poetry, winning top prizes in three National Poetry Slams. He has appeared on NPR’s Snap Judgement, HBO’s Def Poetry Jam, and TEDx Talk. He is the publisher and producer of Capturing Fire Press & Summit, and a founding board member of Split This Rock.

He is single and lives on top of a Trader Joe’s.

Halim A. Flowers is an artist, writer, designer, and criminal justice reform activist. Flowers was arrested in D.C. at age 16 and sentenced as an adult to two life sentences. His experiences as a child in the adult prison system were filmed in the Emmy award-winning documentary Thug Life In DC. Flowers published 11 books before his release from prison in 2019, after serving 22 years. He was awarded the Halcyon Arts Lab and Echoing Green fellowship awards in 2019 and the Eaton DC Hotel Artist-Residency in 2020. His current artistic focus is his visual arts PhotoPoetry practice.

washingtoncitypaper.com june 26, 2020 13

ARTS THEATER

Performances may be canceled, but D.C. theaters are still using their spaces to support community members and protesters.

By Ian Thal Contributing Writer Theaters were among the many cultural and community organizations that halted operations in mid-March due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Productions were cut short or canceled, and staff were left wondering how they could use their physical spaces and other resources now that meetings, rehearsals, and performances were paused for the foreseeable future. Now, as many people around the world grapple with the systemic nature of anti-Black racism and police violence and take to the streets in protest, theaters are reopening for another purpose.

The #OpenYourLobby initiative began at the New York Theatre Workshop in early June.

NYTW Executive Fellow Declan Zhang reportedly observed police actions against protesters near the theater, and implored his bosses to make NYTW a safe haven. A new hashtag was born.

While several local theaters and performance venues have joined the initiative to support and shelter in some similar ways, such as providing restrooms, bottled water, snacks, menstrual supplies, first aid kits, air conditioning, and a place to recharge phones and use WiFi, the particulars are often determined by location, size, and available resources.

One of the larger operations is in the lobby of Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company on D Street NW. The theater, located two blocks north of the National Mall, previously hosted gatherings for Black Lives Matter and opened its lobby for protesters participating in the Women’s March in 2017, 2018, and 2019.

“Part of our mission is to ‘engage with our world in unexpected and often challenging ways,’” says Timmy Metzner, Woolly’s director of marketing. “The engagement work is about creating authentic relationships with the people in the DMV area—and not just audience members, but everyone. Protesters came through our building [on the weekend of June 6] with no clue who we were or what we did, but were grateful for the services we were providing.”

The operation at Woolly was largely carried out by a group of volunteers from the local theater community. Theater artist and organizer Dylan Arredondo, who previously had no

Courtesy of Shakespeare Theatre Company

Opening Doors

working relationship with the theater, reached out to Woolly on June 2, after compiling a list of roughly 100 local theater artists willing to volunteer. The initial plan had been to keep the lobby open during daytime protests, but after looking at what had happened the evening before in Lafayette Park, when law enforcement officials violently expelled peaceful demonstrators, it became obvious that there was a need to remain open into the night. As Arredondo notes, “Stuff tends to go sour after the sun goes down,” which led to a security plan being instituted that allows the lobby to remain open as late as 11 p.m. on evenings when there are protests nearby. The plan includes a clear chain of command, a private security guard, and one individual authorized to speak to the police, as well as contingencies in the case of police actions.

The volunteers at Woolly are assigned to specialized teams, including a welcoming team that explains rules before entry, including the requirement to use masks and hand sanitizer and to maintain social distancing once inside the building. Inside, there are teams assigned to keeping bathrooms and other public areas clean and overseeing the distribution of food, water bottles and other offerings. There is also a team assigned to provide first aid, a parenting room for those nursing children, and a volunteer mental health professional. Arredondo says, due to the nature of the protests, “it was important to find Black healers to fill that role.”

While national attention has focused on protests around Lafayette Park and the recently renamed Black Lives Matter Plaza, Arredondo says many of the protesters Woolly welcomed came from gatherings on the Mall and around the U.S. Capitol. The lobby has primarily been open for weekend protests, with weekday afternoons set aside for receiving donations, but it has opened to support some weekday evening protests, such as the June 8 Public Defenders March outside D.C. Superior Court.

Around the corner from Woolly Mammoth, Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Michael R. Klein Theatre is welcoming protesters to its lobby on 7th Street NW. Because of the proximity of the two theaters, their volunteers have shared supplies. STC Artistic Director Simon Godwin says the company’s decision to participate and express solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement “is about improving our own practices

14 june 26, 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

and becoming a better member of society.” The street-level windows and doors of the company’s other stage, Sidney Harman Hall on F Street NW, have been boarded up and painted with a mural supporting Black Lives Matter created by artists from the Design Foundry and the Denver Smith Foundation as part of the #CRE8CHANGE initiative.

In a June 10 phone conversation, Godwin estimated that about “550 protesters have visited us since we opened our lobby,” and had been served by a team of 30 volunteers coming from STC staff, its acting company, and its patrons. Food and drinks originally purchased for the theater’s concession stands are now nourishing visitors.

Arena Stage on 6th Street SW has also kept its lobby open, providing snacks, bottled water, and access to the restrooms. “Our neighborhood and friends, including the Southwest BID and Ford’s Theatre, stepped right up to donate the supplies, so it’s accurate to say it was a neighborhood effort,” says Edgar Dobie, Arena’s executive director. Due to the distance from the main protest, however, he says the theater “had the wonderful problem of our neighborhood donating supplies, like water bottles and snacks, so much so that we had more than we needed … We were able to share with other protest rest sites that are closer to the source of activity.”

The larger theaters are not the only ones opening their lobbies. Many of these efforts are scalable to smaller venues. Keegan Theatre on Church Street NW near Dupont Circle can only accommodate 10 people in its lobby under safe distancing guidelines. “We’re less of a rest area than a rest stop,” quips Emily Dwornik, Keegan’s production manager. Nevertheless, Keegan opened its doors on June 6, in support of a queer and trans rally in the Circle. “That Saturday, we had 180 to 200 people come by,” says Dwornik, “but the following Sunday, between 2 and 7 p.m., we only saw 10 to 15 people.” Time and place becomes key, she says: “We’re using social media to monitor when or where there will be protests in Dupont or on 17th or 18th streets so we can strategize when best to be open, then Marketing Associate Gary [DuBreuil] can get the word out.” Supplies have been purchased by the theater, or donated by neighbors, patrons, and actors.

“It’s a wonderful thing, opening our lobby to protesters, but it’s only a small thing in [the effort to] dismantle White privilege in the theatrical

community,” Dwornick says. “These issues of police brutality and White privilege are not going away soon. We owe it to the Black artists in the city.”

On 14th Street NW, Studio Theatre was in the midst of its run of Antoinette Nwandu’s Pass Over when COVID-19 forced it to suspend operations. The play’s subject matter, which depicts police brutality and incidents of anti-Black racism, underlined Studio’s compulsion to act.

“After events in Lafayette Park, we were able to immediately paint ‘Black Lives Matter’ in our windows and started discussing how to open our lobby,” says Managing Director Rebecca Ende Lichtenberg.

As of June 11, when Ende Lichtenberg spoke with City Paper, “demand has not exceeded our capacity to serve. Only with the restroom have we had to set limits on how many people are in at a time. We’ll continue opening our doors to protests as long as needed.” At the time, many protesters were walking along 14th Street NW between the White House and Malcolm X Park, making a stop at Studio and “taking time to refuel and recharge.”

Four blocks north of Studio, Source Theatre is also participating. Owned and operated since 2007 by CulturalDC, which operates as both a presenting organization and an advocate for development of cultural spaces, The Source is home to resident companies Constellation Theatre, IN Series, and Washington Improv Theater. According to Kristi Maiselman, CulturalDC’s Executive Director, after the events of June 1, including the kettling of protesters on nearby Swann Street NW, “the artists we worked with were calling on us to do something … As an organization located in the historical U Street Corridor, we have a commitment to our local Black and LGBTQ communities.”

“Boarding up our windows would send the wrong message,” says Maiselman. Though there had been large protests in response to the police action on Swann Street, “everything we have seen in our neighborhood has been peaceful, with no signs of looting or vandalism.” In putting an #OpenYourLobby plan together, CulturalDC had to consult with its insurance company about liability, and the procedures put in place included information collection for contact tracing. Due to the small lobby, only five people, including two volunteers, can be inside and maintain social distancing, so most goods and services are provided on the sidewalk by two additional volunteers. The volunteers have come from the staff of CulturalDC and the three resident companies.

“Constellation’s core values are to treat everyone we work with dignity, kindness, and respect, and so we had to support Black Lives Matter,” says Nick Martin, an artistic associate with Constellation. According to Martin, most visitors to Source are traveling to and from rallies at the Trump International Hotel, Black Lives Matter Plaza, Malcolm X Park, and along the U Street Corridor, estimating that over the course of the June 6 weekend, the Source had 150 visitors and 600 to 700 passersby picking up supplies.

Maiselman, noting that CulturalDC has a staff of only three people, says its strength comes from its ability to work with other groups.

“Collaboration is how organizations are going to survive this situation.”

ARTS BOOK REVIEW

Food For Thought The Shooting at Chateau Rock

By Martin Walker Knopf, 320 pages Crime and cuisine make a zesty fictional pair. At least that’s what Martin Walker’s latest novel, The Shooting at Chateau Rock, demonstrates. Rarely does the police officer from a popular mystery series also have much-loved, real-life cookbooks named after him, but that’s the case with Walker’s hero, gourmet chef and crack investigator Bruno Courrèges. This new Bruno novel digresses into cookery, dog breeding, constructing a chicken coop, and other details of rural French life in Périgord, “the true home of French cuisine.” The novel also is bursting with recipes.

The Shooting at Chateau Rock begins with Bruno investigating the swindle and possible murder of a local sheep farmer. This entails elaboration of French farmers’ difficulties with EU regulations. But the case has an aspect that infuriates Bruno—neglect of the deceased farmer’s sheep, dogs, and poultry. He alerts those responsible that they’re in trouble, “trying to suppress a grin at the thought of these city slickers learning the expensive lesson that animals have rights too.” Bruno himself keeps chickens and, as a dog lover, takes his basset hound, Balzac, with him everywhere. Bruno also cogitates on war dogs, about which he is knowledgeable, having done military service.

Military public relations, he recalls, emphasized tracked robots and drones, “but Bruno knew most of the troops preferred to rely on the dogs.”

The sheep farmer’s demise tangles up with the denizens of a local chateau, a former rock star, and his wife and grown children. Indeed, every event in this story binds the characters closer to each other, and also to international intrigue and criminality, such as money laundering, fraud, and human trafficking. This international skulduggery snags the interest of the elite security services in Paris, because it involves Russia, Ukraine, and their nationals purchasing Maltese and Cypriot passports—a side of the story inspired, Walker writes in the acknowledgments, by the October 2017 car bombing assassination of intrepid reporter Daphne Galizia, after her blockbuster exposes on the sale of Maltese passports.

So Bruno has his hands full. But he still has time to muse about French vineyards and wine. The novel also features a guitarist and flautist, and therefore much discussion of classical and contemporary music. But mostly the story emphasizes Bruno as totally part of and one with his community—so different from American police. Bruno starts his day in the town, with coffee and a croissant at a local eatery, then: “Bruno began his patrol of the market, greeting friends, enjoying the sight of the

stalls loaded with fresh strawberries, cherries, radishes …”

Throughout, Bruno ruminates on food.

“Making gazpacho was for Bruno much more important than preparing a simple soup. It marked the moment when spring had turned indisputably into summer, when he routinely ate in the open air, and the garden provided most of his meals.” And, most notably, this open-air dining is never done alone. It is social.

Even though Bruno lives by himself, at every meal, friends drop in to partake, emphasizing the sociability of eating.

While the novel has its bad guys, good and evil are less starkly drawn than in many American police tales. That’s partly because good has been so humanized here, with the characters holding people to very French standards: “He likes his food and wine, so you’ll have to admit that proves he’s sound at heart.”

Criminal intent is often blurred in this story, so by the novel’s end, it seems more that victims have suffered bad accidents or had really lousy luck. A Syrian refugee, who came to France via Greek camps, appears in the story not in the most law-abiding capacity, but clearly her circumstances are desperate, so Bruno inclines to forgive her.

The only real bad guy in this novel is too powerful to bring down, but he is not untouchable, as the Parisian security service discovers.

Bruno’s reaction to this limited criminal justice is telling: Retribution holds no allure for him.

Instead he settles for the certainty that the wicked are thwarted, as befits a police officer of such expansive humanity and the novel’s ethos of the social over the solitary, the human and animal over the machine, and life over death.

—Eve Ottenberg washingtoncitypaper.com june 26, 2020 15

ARTS FILM REVIEW

DIVERSIONS CROSSWORD

Dog Catchers

By Brendan Emmett Quigley

41. Golden Knights milieu 42. ___ billing 43. “I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation� speaker 45. Savory taste 48. Hell of a guy?

50. ___ precaution 51. Instant lawn product 52. Bake on the beach 54. WWE star Mustafa ___ 55. “UR the best!�

56. Emo casting call headline?

60. Stations of the Cross letters 61. “___, Sing America� (Langston Hughes) 62. “I ___ to die, Bury me low and let me lie� (Robert Louis Stevenson) 64. Bits of cocoa 65. Steve in the ESPN documentary The Last Dance 66. At full volume 67. Tween on This is Us 68. Chatted through a window?

Across 1. COVID-19 testing requirements 6. $5 10. Some homeschoolers 14. Rigid doctrine 15. Former NBA player nicknamed The Candy Man 16. Note in Nuremberg 17. “Li’l� cartoon character 18. Like a real scuzzbucket 19. Comic Drescher 20. What a freewheeling dentist does after putting on a crown?

23. Boxer’s feint 24. Word processor file 25. “Put a sock in it�

26. Crab eggs 27. Parisienne honorific: Abbr.

28. The goods place 30. “That’s impossible�

32. Alongside 34. 63-Down’s org.

35. Debt letters 36. Tunes that soccer star Brandi likes?

12. Pull from, as influences 13. Shakespearean writing 21. Scribble in the margins 22. Sch. of Athens 23. X5 and X7 automaker 29. Yogurt dish with a curry 31. Drop a few f-bombs 33. “Women in Music Pt. III� band 35. African antelope 37. Time traveling genre 38. “Hush your mouth!�

39. Pissed off words 40. Transaction done without taking credit 44. Salon application 45. Money maker?

46. Unification Church member 47. Totes cute 48. Methodology 49. Assassins in black 53. Therapeutic touch 57. Besmirch one’s name 58. Zipped (through) 59. Riding mower brand 63. See 34-Across

69. 48-Across’s quarry Down 1. Metro stop: Abbr.

2. xkcd, e.g.

3. ___ Chase (Percy Jackson’s girlfriend) 4. Backing up sound 5. Some expensive strings 6. Bliss after pigging out 7. “Yeah, dog�

8. Win-win situation 9. Patty who sang “The Warrior�

10. Like chainsaw jugglers 11. The break of dawn

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Ferrell plays Lars, an Icelandic musician 7 (Eurovision 6 6 with Fire , who dreams of winning Directed by David Dobkin

Saga, a group he founded with his longtime friend Sigrit (Rachel McAdams). They have enthusiasm and Sigrit is a gifted vocalist, but everyone in their small hometown thinks they are losers, especially Larsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; father Erick (Pierce Brosnan). An elaborate corruption scheme somehow gets them into the contest anyway: The Icelandic government worries they cannot handle the hosting responsibilities, and since the winning country must host the following year, they figure Fire Saga is their best hope for failure. This is mostly a pretense for the pair to leave Iceland for Scotland, where they can hobnob with Eurovisionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s best. This includes Alexander Lemtov (Dan Stevens), the favorite whoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s resigned to not being openly gay as long as heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s stuck in Putinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Russia.

Director David Dobkinâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;who was born in D.C.â&#x20AC;&#x201D;has the good sense to stand back and let his actors work their magic. He got his start shooting music videos, so he understands the rhythms and demands of filming recorded music. Like This Is Spinal Tap, a film that clearly influenced this one, Dobkin understands that the best punch lines require some build-up. By

the time Dobkin gets to Fire Sagaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s big performance, there are visual gags so funny they canof comic )not be , spoiled, 1 6plus a well-earned ' $ sense ' 6 anarchy. Unlike the Judd Apatow model where dialogue is the primary 2the' 2 0 ( 8source 5 of2humor, Ferrellâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s script (co-written with Andrew Steele) 2creates , funny / < situations.) 5 $ 1 Another key the filmâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ' * 2 7 to2 7 2success : is1how it treats its characters. Lars and Sigrit are often the &butt of jokes, 6 but + Ferrell + and McAdams 5 2 (show us they are in on it. Brosnan plays a familiar arche2type5(the(gruff parent , & 1 7comes who $ ultimately around), and while he is blunt, he is never cruel.

0 $ , 2 8 Unlike other Ferrell vehicles like Anchorman $or Step , Brothers, 1 0 there 8 is6no malice , &here. All the characters are essentially good-natured and 2each 3 other. Intentionally 6 + $ or: care7about not, this gives Eurovision Song Contest: The Story 6 $ 7 $ 1 $ 6 $of Fire Saga high replay value. Youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll want to revisit once,+and; not just <these characters $ / more , than 7 because their songs are better than you might 6expect.

7 : $ is1about 7 a tight-knit ( ' commuThis film nity of outsiders, so it is welcoming to those who 7are2 2 - 2 < ( ' on their wavelength. tradition ( The 5 music 5 continues $ in5the2 $ of5ABBA, a mix of populist bombast and good cheer. What 0adds(a palpable ' 6 of 2credibility 8 / and 6 more sense feel-good vibes are that many Eurovision participants are also in the film, recreating the tunes that helped put them on the world stage. The real asset is McAdams, who further proves her comedic bonafides. She previously collaborated with Dobkin on Wedding Crashers, but here she is more than just an object of affection. Sigrit follows Lars because she loves himâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s too single-minded to see itâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;so there is an intriguing subplot where she tries and tries again to show she will not wait forever. When she lands oneliners, theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re all the more hilarious.

You do not need to be a Eurovision fan in order to appreciate Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga. Longtime fans will probably be relieved that Dobkin, Ferrell, McAdams, and others treat the premise with the amount of respect it deserves, and nothing more. The highest compliment I can give this film is that newcomers to Eurovision, after seeing this, will no doubt yearn for the contest to return next year. â&#x20AC;&#x201D;Alan Zilberman Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga premieres on Netflix on June 26.

CITY LIGHTS

midst of the pandemic, Health’s Angels is now coming straight to you, via Zoom. The night promises to be “emotional, heartfelt, and hilarious.” Past story topics have included religious trauma, reproductive health, addiction, illness, disability, and mental health.

As Health’s Angels puts it, the recurring show helps empower womxn and foster community, and the virtual performances are no different. The show begins June 28 at 7 p.m.

Registration is available at eventbrite.com.

Choose your own donation; proceeds will benefit Freedom Fighters DC. —Sarah Smith

City Lights

Sa-Roc’s Tiny Desk Concert

City Lights

Beyond the Single Frame In the virtual event Beyond the Single Frame, two photographers with strong connections to Washington, D.C. will share the ins and outs of documentary photography and their own experiences covering stories across the globe.

Michael Robinson Chávez, a Pulitzer Prizewinning staff photographer for the Washington Post, has covered such stories as the collapse of Venezuela, the invasion and occupation of Iraq, and the Egyptian revolution. Hector Emanuel, a Peruvian-born documentary photographer based in D.C., has photographed extensively in Latin America and the United States, including projects in Colombia and the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Emanuel is also a founding member and president of Metro Collective, a group of photographers that was established in D.C. The event is sponsored by Leica as part of their #StayHomewithLeica series. The event begins June 28 at 4 p.m. Registration is available at eventbrite.com. Free.

—Louis Jacobson

City Lights

DC JazzFest From Home Ordinarily, this would be the time of the DC Jazz Festival. The jazz ecosystem, and festivals in particular, have been uniquely devastated by the coronavirus pandemic, with venues and events from New York to Sydney going dark. But the dauntless artiststurned-entrepreneurs known as Live From Our Living Rooms are stepping into the void.

After mounting an entirely online festival in

April based on the titular conceit—performers livestreaming music from their homes— LFOLR is taking the show on the road by teaming up with the jazz impresarios of our fair city. DC JazzFest From Home is featuring 18 virtual performances in nine days, with two acts each day; like the traditional DC Jazz Festival, it includes a healthy mix of worldrenowned acts (including violinist Regina Carter and pianist Orrin Evans) and D.C.’s great local talents (like saxophonist Sarah Hughes and trombonist Reginald Cyntje).

Yes, it’s far from an ideal festival; still, getting to see and hear world-class live jazz, with neither you nor the musicians having to step outside, has its own charm. DC JazzFest From Home runs through June 29 at livefromourlivingrooms.com/dcjazzfest. Free, donations encouraged.

—Michael J. West

City Lights

Health’s Angels Some consider storytelling the most important human tradition; stories can educate, inspire, and help forge powerful connections. But what happens when existing platforms exclude certain types of stories? That’s where Health’s Angels comes in. Autumn Rain, the author and activist behind the comic book Descension, and Jenn Montooth, a storytelling coach and writer, were tired of hearing that stories about womxn’s health—with the x, because “our organization and event welcomes trans and cis womxn, as well as other queer, trans, genderqueer, gender nonconforming, and non-binary individuals”— were “too dark.” They created a space of their own, starting Health’s Angels: Personal Stories About Womxn’s Health, a recurring show where storytellers new and old could come together. The show provides a means of destigmatizing health topics and uplifting ignored—or silenced—voices. And in the

Pull out your sage, get your energy straight, and join Sa-Roc, a rapper from Southeast D.C., for her Tiny Desk (Home) Concert, with her producer and life partner, Sol Messiah.

You won’t be alone—three minutes into her 20-minute virtual performance, Sa-Roc lights her own sage as she introduces herself and waxes poetic about the importance of maintaining good energy in the era of coronavirus isolation. “Whether we burn sage or incense or meditate, we need to have those spaces of pure love and joy,” Sa-Roc says, “especially when there’s so much going on out in the world that causes the opposite of that vibe.” Creating spaces full of love is the topic of “Deliverance,” Sa-Roc’s opening number and one of two unreleased debuts she performs from her upcoming album, The Sharecropper’s Daughter.

The powerful song sets the tone for the rest of the concert, throughout which Sa-Roc seamlessly and rapidly weaves her way through four songs over Messiah’s understated beats.

“Deliverance” is followed by “Hand of God,” “r(E)volution”—Sa-Roc’s second unreleased song—and “Forever,” her magnum opus on self-love. Although it appears the performance was filmed before the murder of George Floyd and the protests against anti-Black racism that have manifested across the country—a movement Sa-Roc has shown ample support for on Twitter and Instagram—the rapper’s music still speaks to the current moment. During “Deliverance,” Sa-Roc and Messiah proudly put up Black power fists, and in “r(E)volution,” Sa-Roc declares: “This is revolution, get on up.” The performance is available at npr.org.

Free.

—Ella Feldman

City Lights

Black-footed ferret webcam It’s time for a little chat about the birds and the bees, or in this case, the ferrets. In March, as the rest of the world entered lockdown, black-footed ferrets Potpie and Denver hit it off. The result of all the ferret flirting was a litter of six kits, born in early May at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute.

Thankfully, keepers at the SCBI use a webcam to monitor the family, which means working from home just got a whole lot cuter.

It’s dark in Potpie’s habitat—so the webcam streams in black and white—but there’s still plenty to see. Like typical black-footed ferret mothers, Potpie is very defensive and nurturing of her kits. Much of her time on camera is spent grooming them and curling up around them to keep them warm. And while the SCBI’s webcam is an adorable experience, it’s also a testament to the Smithsonian’s important breeding and reintroduction programs.

Black-footed ferrets are the only native ferret species left in North America, and they were once thought to be extinct. Potpie and Denver were both born in captivity, and now are part of a breeding population designed to change that. When their litter is old enough, keepers will return the kits to the wild, so their contact with humans is currently quite limited. The ferret webcam is a win-win scenario. Animal lovers can support conservation work all while enjoying Potpie in her maternal glory.

The webcam is available at nationalzoo.si.edu.

Free.

—Sarah Smith

City Lights

Be proud at home with the virtual Latinx Pride Official Dance Party In recent years, corporations have rapidly gone from viewing queerness as an abomination to seeing it as profitable aesthetic, and the origins of Pride celebrations have been lost in a sea of pink capitalism. Stonewall was an anti-cop rebellion largely led by transgender women of color, including Marsha P. Johnson, a Black trans woman, and Sylvia Rivera, a Latina trans woman, and the protests against anti-Blackness and police brutality that have swept across the nation this month ring much truer to those events than banks covered in rainbows do. Still, the loss of Pride gatherings to COVID-19 this year is tough for many of us.

Thanks to the Latino GLBT History Project, we can still be proud from our living rooms with the organization’s virtual Latinx Pride dance party, La Fiesta En Casa. For the past 13 years, the Latino GLBT History Project has organized Latinx Pride events in the District, and this year, they’re bringing their events online with a lineup that features 15 local performers, including Latinx drag stars Daddy Yank-Me and Darcy De La Cuadra. General admission is $5, with options to add $10 to enter a raffle for a sex toy or donate what you can to the organization’s Queer Families Covid-19 Relief Fund, a fundraiser they’ve organized to financially support queer undocumented and mixed-status households. La fiesta may be en casa, but there won’t be a Wells Fargo float in sight. The party will stream online on June 26 at 8 p.m. Tickets are available at eventbrite.com. $5–$10; donations encouraged.

—Ella Feldman

washingtoncitypaper.com june 26, 2020 17

DIVERSIONS SAVAGE LOVE

ABUSE, SEX AND DRUGS A Novel by Taylor

THE LIFE OF TEENAGERS ON THE STREETS OF AMERICA The story of friends forced by circumstance to find a better life for themselves on the streets.

But the streets are hard, and the world is unforgiving. And unfortunately, not everyone is strong enough to make it.

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Stay tuned with local news.

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I’m committed to my male partner and he’s committed to me. (I’m a woman.) But we both understand we need to flirt and that we will both want to sleep with someone else at some point. We live together, we have a dog, and neither of us believes in marriage.

We plan to purchase a house in the coming months.

Here’s the issue: He met a woman at work. He’s not sexually attracted to her at all. She, however, would love to blow him. She’s in an unhappy marriage and has no friends. They exchanged numbers when my partner was transferred and now she texts him constantly. It doesn’t totally bother me. But not only does she text him at all hours of the day and night, but she continuously tells him he’s the hottest man she’s ever met. She sends him nudes, which I’ve seen, and wants to suck his “huge dick.” (It is huge.) Even though I know he’s not sexually attracted to her, I’m still feeling threatened. I have extremely low self-esteem right now and I’m struggling with depression. I’m speaking with a therapist and I’m on meds, but the meds have made me gain about fifty pounds, which doesn’t help with the depression. I get the need and desire to flirt, but right now I’m not confident enough to be OK with him being sexual with another person even if it’s just texts. I feel this way knowing he has no plans to be with her! He continues to tell me he has no desire to spend his life with anyone else but me, yet he’s suddenly hesitant to buy a house. I guess I’m asking WTF should I do? —Dinging Phone Really Exacerbating Semi-Serious Depression You say it doesn’t bother you—it doesn’t totally bother you—that this woman texts your partner day and night, DPRESSD, which strikes me as odd. Because that shit would drive me up the wall. Blowing up someone’s phone at all hours of the day and night screams, “I HAVE NO BOUNDARIES! I AM INCAPABLE OF BEING CONSIDERATE! I HAVE NO SELF CONTROL!” Even if you were in a place where you felt better about your partner getting some attention elsewhere, the shit this woman is pulling would still be annoying, unsettling, and totally bothersome.

And this shit should be disqualifying— meaning, your partner should’ve shut this woman down already. He should’ve told this woman to knock it off, and if she didn’t knock it off, he should’ve told her to fuck the fuck off and blocked her number. If he tried to shut her down and she kept texting him, DPRESSD, then I have to wonder why he hasn’t blocked her number already. Assuming he’s telling you the truth about not being attracted to her—and it sounds like he is—he may have allowed this to go on because he enjoys feeling desirable and/ or he doesn’t want to hurt her feelings. If it’s the former, make it clear to your partner that you wouldn’t have a problem with him finding someone else to swap flirty sext messages with, so long as it’s someone who can sext in moderation and at appropriate times. If it’s the latter, DPRESSD, make it clear to your partner that this shit is hurting your feelings and, as his partner, you expect him to prioritize your feelings over his former coworker’s feelings.

All that said, DPRESSD, even if the thought of your partner going off to play with another woman didn’t make you feel insecure, you wouldn’t want your partner getting blown by

18 june 26, 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

this particular woman. Even if your partner has never said, “Don’t text me at all hours of the day and night,” that’s no excuse. No one wants their phone or their partner’s phone blowing up at 3 a.m. That’s not a boundary anyone should have to articulate to set and, articulated or not, no one with any common sense would do that. (And, holy crap, if this is how this woman behaves in pursuit of your partner’s big cock, how is she gonna behave after she gets a taste?)

As for the house issue, DPRESSD, press your partner to clarify his sudden hesitancy. It may have nothing to do with your relationship. It’s entirely possible that he’s freaked out by the state of the world—because, my God, who isn’t?—and he’s having second thoughts about sinking his savings into a house. Depression often puts the worst possible spin on things. It can lead us to reject a calming truth someone is telling us in favor of an alarming lie we’re telling ourselves. Don’t fall into that trap.

“Some people find sex after a devastating loss to be healing and affirming, and the last thing that person needs is for someone else to decide they shouldn’t be having sex or even wanting to have sex.”

And finally, DPRESSD, please talk to your doctor about switching out your meds. If weight gain is a side effect of the ones you’re on now and weight gain is making you more depressed, then it doesn’t make sense to keep treating your depression with the meds you’re on now. A different med might give you the same benefits without this particular side effect. —Dan Savage I met someone I connected with during quarantine.

We’ve all but committed to screwing our brains out after we’re given the all-clear. But she recently

suffered a devastating loss. We will meet, on her terms, most likely very soon. I know I should follow her lead, but should I avoid sex even if she wants to have sex? I don’t know if sex will help or hurt. Is being chaste and supportive the right move? Can sex help in a time of loss? I just don’t want to be the asshole someone winds up writing to you for advice about.

—Looking Over Sexual Timing Follow her lead—that’s a good impulse—and if she wants to have sex after you’ve met in person and after you’ve made it clear there’s no rush, LOST, and if you want to have sex after you’ve met her in person, go ahead and have sex. Some people find sex after a devastating loss to be healing and affirming, and the last thing that person needs is for someone else to decide they shouldn’t be having sex or even wanting to have sex. As for the all-clear you’re waiting for, well, that could be a long time off, seeing as COVID-19 rates are spiking all over the country. If you decide you can’t wait for the all-clear, please consult the New York Health Department’s safer sex/harm-reduction recommendations for people who want to have sex during this pandemic. (Google “New York Health,” “coronavirus,” and “sex.”) To quickly summarize: You can minimize your risk of contracting or transmitting COVID-19 by wearing a mask, not eating ass, using condoms, and using a glory hole.

—DS I’ve been dating someone long distance for seven months. I’ve been transparent about my need for an open relationship. Recently this gentleman asked me to tell him if I slept with someone else. I agreed because I’m not sleeping with anyone at the moment due to COVID-19. But since March, I’ve been having phone sex with a long-term booty call who lives across the country. Neither knows about the other and neither one knows I’m bisexual. No big deal, right? I’m a first responder in a male-dominated field and I put up with enough bullshit without the men in my life knowing I eat pussy. How much of an asshole am I for not disclosing what I don’t need to?

—Not Banging (Other) Dudes You’re being an asshole—to yourself. Hiding your bisexuality from the men you’re dating increases your odds of winding up in a relationship with someone who judges, shames, or hates you for being bisexual, NBOD, and why on earth would you want to do that to yourself?

Disclosing your bisexuality ups yours odds of attracting a guy who fetishizes your bisexuality, of course, but it’s easier to weed those guys out early than it is to leave (or divorce) some guy who reveals himself to be biphobic after you’ve made a huge emotional investment in him. As for the phone sex … you should disclose that, too. If Mr. Seven Months can’t handle you having phone sex with some other guy, NBOD, he certainly won’t be able to handle you sleeping with someone else. And if he can’t handle that, he’s not the right guy for a woman who wants/needs/requires an open relationship.

—DS Email your Savage Love questions to mail@savagelove.net

CLASSIFIEDS Legal DC SCHOLARS PCS INTENT TO ENTER INTO A SOLE SOURCE CONTRACT – DC Scholars Public Charter School intends to enter into a Sole Source contract with Jones Lang Lasalle for Facilities Management Services in SY20-21. The contract will be awarded at close of business on July 7, 2020. If you have questions or concerns regarding this notice, contact Emily Stone at estone@ dcscholars.org no later than 5:00 pm on July 7, 2020.

E.L. HAYNES PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOL REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS Special Education Related Services and Evaluations E.L. Haynes Public Charter School (“ELH”) is seeking proposals from qualified vendors to provide school-based special education related services and evaluations by making available qualified providers for the areas of: * Adaptive Physical Education, * Applied Behavior Analysis, * Assistive Technology, * Behavioral Support and Counseling, * Educational Audiology, * Educational Services (home and hospital services, specialized tutoring), * Neuropsychology, * Occupational Therapy, * Physical Therapy, * Psychiatry, * Psychology, * Speech Language Pathology * Counseling, * Transportation, * Vision, * Mobility and orientation training, * Interpretation, * Lindamood-Bell trained educators, and * Reading intervention.

Vendors will provide agreed upon regularly scheduled weekly services and any ‘as needed’ therapy services, evaluation, supervision, and support, at the request of the School. In addition, ELH is looking for providers who are able to provide evaluations and services in the areas listed above in Spanish or Amharic, as well as providers who can provide regular translation for meetings held with families requiring Spanish translation.

Proposals are due via email to Kristin Yochum no later than 5:00 PM on Thursday, July 2, 2020.

We will notify the final vendor of selection and schedule work to be completed. The RFP with bidding requirements can

be obtained by contacting: Kristin Yochum E.L. Haynes Public Charter School Phone: 202.667-4446 ext 3504 Email: kyochum@ elhaynes.org WASHINGTON LATIN PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOL REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS Issued: 06/26/2020 The Washington Latin Public Charter School solicits expressions of interest in the form of proposals with references from qualified vendors for the following services to support our possible expansion to a second campus • Real Estate Attorney • Zoning Attorney • General Contractor • Architect • Project Manager • Laptop Procurement for distance learning program For the complete RFP, please contact Ms. Eman Abdur-Rahman at eabdurrahman@latinpcs.org with the type of service in the subject line. Deadline for submissions is COB July 10, 2020. No phone calls please.

ACHIEVEMENT PREP PCS REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL Achievement Prep is soliciting proposals from qualified vendors for Special Education Related Services, Psychological and Mental Health Services.

Please find RFP specifications at www.achievementprep.org under News. Proposals must be received by 5:00PM on Monday, July 6th, 2020.

Please send proposals to bids@achievmentprep. org and include “RFP – SPED Services” in heading.

FRIENDSHIP PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOL REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS Friendship Public Charter School is seeking bids from prospective vendors to provide: * HR consulting services for a multi-campus charter school network * Graphic Design, printing and copy services The competitive Request for Proposal can be found on FPCS website at http://www.friendshipschools.org/procurement . Proposals are due no later than 4:00 P.M., EST, Friday, July 10, 2020. No proposals will be accepted after the deadline. Questions can be addressed to ProcurementInquiry@ friendshipschools.org YOUTHBUILD DC PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOL is soliciting quotes for Special Education Coordination Services and managed IT

services. To request a copy of the RFP, email komal. bansal@youthbuildpcs. org. Proposals are due by 5:00 P.M., Monday, July 6, 2020.

E.L. HAYNES PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOL REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS FENCE NETTING INSTALLATION E.L. Haynes Public Charter School (“ELH”) is seeking proposals from qualified vendors furnish and install 400 LF of 20-foot-high netting at the existing fence (netting posts independent to fence) on the west side of our soccer field.

Proposals are due via email to Kristin Yochum no later than 5:00 PM on Monday, July 7, 2020.

We will notify the final vendor of selection and schedule work to be completed. The RFP with bidding requirements can be obtained by contacting: Kristin Yochum E.L. Haynes Public Charter School Phone: 202.667-4446 ext 3504 Email: kyochum@ elhaynes.org GEN. CONRACTOR REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS Academy of Hope Adult PCS solicits interest for Gen. Contractor Services for renovating ~5,000 sq. ft. of an existing 1940s building. For add’l information, visit http://aohdc. org/jobs/. Deadline for submissions is 12:00 p.m. on July 10th.

SUPERIOR COURT OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA PROBATE DIVISION 2019 ADM 000197 Name of Decedent, Ione M. Lockhart (aka Ione Mary Lockhart). Name and Adress of Attorney, John M. Bryan, Esq, 2311 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 500, Arlington, VA 22901.

Notice of Appointment, Notice to Creditors and Notice to Unknown Heirs, Thomas S. Goldbaum, whose address is 5012 Baltan Road, Bethesda, MD 20816, was appointed Personal Representative of the estate of Ione M. Lockhart (aka Ione Mary Lockhart) who died on January 30, 2019, with a Will and will serve without Court Supervision. All unknown heirs and heirs whose whereabouts are unknown shall enter their appearance in this proceeding. Objections to such appointment shall be filed with the Register of Wills, D.C., 515 5th Street, N.W., Building A, 3rd Floor, Washington, D.C. 20001, on or before 12/18/2020.

Claims against the decedent shall be presented to the undersigned with

a copy to the Register of Wills or to the Register of Wills with a copy to the undersigned, on or before 12/18/2020, or be forever barred. Persons believed to be heirs or legatees of the decedent who do not receive a copy of this notice by mail within 25 days of its publication shall so inform the Register of Wills, including name, address and relationship.

Date of first publication: 6/18/2020 Name of Newspaper and/or periodical: Washington City Paper/ Daily Washington Law Reporter. Name of Personal Representative: Thomas S. Goldbaum TRUE TEST copy Nicole Stevens Acting Register of Wills Pub Dates: June 18, 25, July 2.

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3RD FLOOR FURNISHED UNIT FOR RENT IN HISTORIC COLUMBIA HEIGHTS DC neighborhood, 3 miles north of White House, $1450 DCLarry@aol.com

Employment SHEET METAL MECHANICS NEEDED Del Metro Inc. Send Resumes to adam@delmetroinc.com

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HIRING EXPERIENCED HAIRSTYLISTS at MOXee Salon in NW, WDC (202) 975-1109 PRECISION WALL TECH IS AN ESTABLISHED PAINTING CONTRACTOR BASED IN DC. We are seeking DC qualified Commercial/Industrial Journeyman who will meet our standard for the company’s FIRST SOURCE PROJECTS. Brush & Roll & Spray Experience Required + Minimum of 3 years working on large commercial jobs. Must have own trans, pass Security clearance and drug test. $18-26/hr DOE plus benefits. EOE. Send resume to careers@ precisionwall.com Now Hiring for the following projects: * 555 E Street * Residences @ St Elizabeth East * MLK Memorial Library * Stanton Square * Providence Place *Takoma Place Apts * Eliot Hines JOB:SENIOR FINANCIAL PROJECT ANALYST Supervises & provides guidance to a project accountant; assists projects in setting up projected financial requirements, works with project to manage costs, budget; oversees & reviews accounts to ensure accurate reconciliations & provides compliance & financial trainings to team members & field officers.

Req: Master’s degree in

THE CYCLOTRONIC DRIVE: A BRIEF EXPLANATION REGARDING ITS CAUSE AND EFFECTS Since I understand that the reader is familiar with higher mathematics I wish to address the nature of the molecular composition of the material that is used to build a Cyclotronic Drive. It is common knowledge that the Earth’s magnetic field is a result of the preponderance of the element iron in the makeup of the planet.

From my background in scientific research, one of the fundamental laws is nature laws of nature is that of the tendency of all matter to disintegrate, or “. . seek maximum entropy.’ This law is countered, within the scenario of living human beings, by their environment, that of the planet Earth, which has a mass of some six quintillion tons. According to my reference, the Time-Life “Life Science Library book “Planets”, the “ . . . mass of a planet is calculated from its gravitational effect.

The handiest method is to measure the distance an orbital period of a satellite, then insert these two figures in the proper equation derived from Newton’s law of gravitation, which gives the mass of the par-

ent body. “ To try to make this explanation as brief as possible, I will limit my references to known mathematical research (which would include work in more specialized yet pertinent fields like geology) to modern day, or known, facts, as they might be found within the Library of Congress or most libraries. These facts support the idea that all matter that exists is identical in behavior to all other matter.

Now for a practical application of the above: Since it is possible for a radio signal to travel at the speed of light (granted that no radio signal can be generated without the “destruction” of some type of matter) and since both light and many other frequencies of “solar” radiation emit from the center of the solar system (not the least of these known as “radio”) and since sufficient energy in the form of “heat” results from the bombardment of the planets by solar radiation to create the four most accepted descriptions of material states (solid, liquid, gaseous, and the more technical one referred to as plasma), it follows that the equilibrium that enables life to exist on Earth is also responsible for the positions of other known planets.

Spectrographic analyses point to the fact that the composition of the sun (and all stars) is primarily hydrogen and helium; though, there is no doubt in any cogent person’s mind, after a brief bit of research, that within the example of a star, or a “collapsing atomic furnace”, the mass of these two elements is impossible to comprehend. Better to digress a bit, to another known fact, that in addition to hydrogen and helium, every other element that is known to man exists in some state or another within the sun.

To keep the nature of this paper as concise and practical as possible, it would seem most conservative and advantageous to ask oneself, “In what way might man best make use of late twentieth-central technology?”

There is obviously a bountiful supply of accessible solar energy, most of which is being used to “bind’ the solar system together, if one were to consider gravity a “binding force”. The difference between mass and gravity becomes immediately obvious to anyone who might try to fly by flapping his or her arms; better stated, the difference between gravity and other dynamic mechanisms has

become so close to “second nature” that it is primarily presumed by most people in the late twentieth century that rockets, airplanes and other aeronautical craft do so under their own will. I may have thought so myself occasionally, however it is not an insignificant matter to place a certain priority on radio guidance. I posit that ultimately, the technology that made wireless radio communications possible will prove more cost and material efficient when figured over a period of time, by nature of the inevitable “limit” known as the speed of light (183,000 miles per second), which, depending upon environmental density, is identical to the speed of a radio transmission.

Previous to the turn of the 20th century, although the “speed of light” had been accurately determined (as far as Sir Isaac Newton and some others living in a terrestrial scenario need have been concerned) there was no such thing as the wireless radio as it was perfected by Marconi and others during the days of the American Industrial Revolution. During the mid-20th century, Arthur C. Clarke, a British mathematician, still alive and, as I understand, living somewhere in the vicinity of Sri Lanka, outside the sovereignty of India; and other scientists whose works are better known in the area of literature (science fiction); stated (though through the prolific and casual nature of his style of writing, it has never seemed to me that he has ever claimed credit for many ideas or inventions) that “. . .any race that could master the science of the radio could master any force in the universe. . .”

I do not want to burden you with a great deal of technical paperwork. One stylistic trait of Clarke’s which I have always envied has been the economy with what she makes difficult mathematical ideas understandable.

Instead, I will send you a sketch that offers a threedimensional condensation of a concept Clarke describes in his short story “Technical Error” (which can be found in Ballantine Books collection of his short stories, “Reach For Tomorrow”): and my own copyrighted representation of how one might start to explain the dynamic potential of the Cyclotronic Drive.

washingtoncitypaper.com june 26, 2020 19

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