Ten dogs drowned in the incident Aug. 14 in Northeast D.C.

In February, members of the D.C. Council grilled Heather McGaffin, the head of the District’s 911 system — the Office of Unified Communications (OUC) — about the agency’s response to the District Dog flood. While her agency had months to do so before that hearing, McGaffin did not release an after-action report that day as expected, saying it would instead come from D.C.’s Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency.

What she didn’t say is that the draft report was finished by Dec. 18 – months earlier.

D.C. Councilmember Brooke Pinto released that report Wednesday. The D.C. Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency didn’t explain to the News4 I-Team why it hadn’t released the report.

“As part of my oversight role of our emergency response and public safety agencies as Chairwoman of the Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety, I requested, obtained and am reviewing a draft of the after-action report on the tragic District Dogs flooding incident last August,” Pinto told the I-Team. “I firmly believe that increased transparency of the District’s emergency response is critical for improving accuracy, reliability and public trust, which is why I shared the draft after-action report from the executive with the public.”

The 25-page report breaks down the timeline of what happened Aug. 14.

Three 911 calls came in about District Dogs that afternoon.

The first call at 5:06 p.m. came from an employee who wasn’t at work but watching the flooding from a remote camera. That employee and their partner, Corvo Leung, who was also on the call, told the call taker people and animals were trapped with rising water. According to the report, the call taker questioned how to code the incident in the dispatch system. According to the report, the call taker was told by a supervisor to enter it as “water leak.”

Despite the call, no emergency response was dispatched to District Dogs after that first call. That’s because the report said up until that time, a water rescue inside a building had never occurred in the city.

“To hear that classified as a water leak, when we very clearly said that people and dogs’ lives were in danger … It boggles my mind,” Leung told the I-Team. “And it troubles me on a very, very high level.”

OUC got a second 911 call at 5:09 p.m. from another employee off site who also said there were people and animals inside. Only then did OUC dispatch the first rescue team to District Dogs, but the call over the radio to crews on scene was still described as a “water leak.” At that moment, the report says, “the dispatch did not mention people or dogs being trapped.” It was still coded in the dispatch system as “flooding-public assistance.” That’s considered a “low priority,” so the fire commander turned the rescue crew around, which is standard practice.

A third 911 call came in at 5:17 p.m. from a person actually trapped inside. That’s when the computer system was finally updated to “water rescue.” It was 11 minutes after the first call. Five minutes after that, at 5:22 p.m., OUC made it clear for the first time over the radio to firefighters on the scene that people and animals were trapped and in danger.

The report reveals firefighters didn’t get into District Dogs until 5:29 p.m. and didn’t reach the third caller until 5:35 p.m.

Leung still can’t make sense of it.

“I believe that had there been a faster response, a different response, a more accurate response, that the people that I know and care about and love wouldn’t have as severe PTSD, that they would not have flashbacks every time it rains,” they said.

The report says any change in the coding would not have saved the dogs. The dogs were already dead, the report said, but it would have ensured proper resources were dispatched from the initial dispatch.

OUC says all its call takers and dispatchers have been trained since this incident to code future indoor water rescues as an emergency — categorizing them as “rescue or building collapse.”

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The report does not address the lack of problem solving or a work around for OUC when dealing with an emergency it never encountered before.

OUC didn’t respond to the I-Team’s request for comment.

Pinto said she will push for more insight at OUC.

“With the implementation of my Secure DC public safety omnibus legislation that requires sustained public transparency of our 911 and emergency operations, I’ll continue to push for increased transparency to improve the accuracy and reliability of our emergency response and build trust with the public,” she said.

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Rick Yarborough, and shot and edited by Steve Jones.

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The U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland’s office recently announced the conspiracy charge against Ejike Asiegbunam, whom they say made more than $1.6 million in what they called a “scheme to defraud.”

According to court documents, Asiegbunam was the owner and operator of a nursing school in Florida and a nursing exam prep school in Maryland. The feds allege that, between 2018 and 2021, Asiegbunam — along with three others — “conspired to provide purchasers with false and fraudulent RN degrees” from the Florida nursing school.

In the filing, U.S. Attorney Erek Barron accuses Asiegbunam of accepting thousands of dollars from students to “complete required prerequisites” to enter that nursing school for them. The U.S. attorney alleges Asiegbunam charged purchasers between $15,000 and $22,000 for the false nursing school documents and as much as $5,000 to complete online prerequisites.

The feds also say he conspired with a woman identified as Johanah Napoleon to sell fake degrees from the Palm Beach School of Nursing in Florida to people in Maryland and New York. Reached by News4, her attorney confirmed Napoleon previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy related to a fake nursing degree case in Florida.

The court documents don’t name the test prep business or the nursing school the feds allege Asiegbunam operated, but in 2021, the News4 I-Team reported concerns from local students who took online classes from Asiegbunam’s Jay College of Health Sciences.

Students interviewed at the time said they were out thousands of dollars when the school abruptly shut down that year.

The I-Team’s monthslong investigation found that while Jay College was approved by Florida officials to teach in-person classes there and had temporary emergency approval to offer programs online due to the pandemic, state education officials said it has not been approved to offer distance learning to students across the country.

At the time, Maryland higher education officials told the I-Team Jay College had not received the required approval to offer nursing programs to Maryland students online or in-person, either.

What’s more, the I-Team found local graduates wouldn’t be able to sit for Maryland’s nurse-licensing exams, because even though some states’ nursing boards recognize degrees from Jay College, the Maryland Board of Nursing did not include the school among its approved in-state or out-of-state programs.

“The reason why I chose this school was because it was online,” said a Montgomery County, Maryland, woman.

She said she was enrolled in its practical nursing program for just a couple months when it was suddenly canceled in 2021. She asked News4 not to use her name out of concern for reprisal.

“It was just very devastating for me that all of that happened — the way it happened,” she said.

Neither Asiegbunam nor his school returned repeated requests for comment at the time of that report. On Wednesday, his defense attorney declined comment on the federal conspiracy case.

In its filing, the U.S. attorney’s office said it plans to seek forfeiture of at least $1.6 million from Asiegbunam if he is convicted.

On Monday, Rick Rahim became the third former auxiliary sheriff’s deputy to plead guilty to bribing Jenkins.

The indictment against Rahim and Jenkins alleges Rahim paid Jenkins $25,000. He handed Jenkins the cash in manila envelopes, prosecutors say. They claim Rahim also paid for a campaign billboard, 200 custom knives and a $17,500 loan “towards a new home Jenkins was building.” Prosecutors say Rahim never asked to be paid back “because he wanted to maintain a good relationship with Jenkins.”

Rahim denied wrongdoing to the News4 I-Team on his way to the federal courthouse in Charlottesville Monday morning.

“I didn’t do anything,” he said.

Just minutes later, Rahim told the federal judge he did.

Prosecutors laid out the plot. Rahim was convicted of four financial felonies in the 1990s. Felons can’t own guns, so Rahim lost his right to own one. Federal prosecutors say and court documents reveal Rahim met then-Sheriff Jenkins in 2019 and a plan started to get Rahim his right to own a gun restored.

In exchange for the cash payments, Jenkins would allegedly use his official position to both help Rahim get his rights restored and become an auxiliary deputy, which further enhanced his rights.

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Rahim is the third former auxiliary deputy to plead guilty in the case. It helps complete the picture of how then-Sheriff Jenkins allegedly worked the bribery scheme to collect cash and checks. Court documents say only some of that money made it to Jenkins’ campaign account. The rest allegedly went to Jenkins’ personal accounts. In exchange, Jenkins gave all three of the men auxiliary deputy badges, allowing them to legally carry a gun.

Rahim also was assigned to a security detail for President Joe Biden during a visit to the Culpeper area in 2022.

Jenkins has pleaded not guilty. His attorney did not respond to an email Monday asking how Rahim’s plea affects the case against Jenkins.

Court documents and previous testimony make clear the feds have hours of recordings of the alleged bribes in this case. All of those tapes and now testimony from three former deputies who have pleaded guilty could be part of former Sheriff Jenkins’ trial. It is now scheduled for late July.

The White House executive visit to Germanna Community College on Feb. 10, 2022, was a chance for President Joe Biden to pitch a prescription drug price relief plan.

The 20-page “law enforcement sensitive” plan obtained by the I-Team shows many Culpeper Sheriff’s Office deputies were assigned to guard entrances and exits and key points at Culpeper Regional Airport where Marine One, the presidential helicopter, landed. Deep into the plan, auxiliary Deputy Rick Rahim is listed as a rover to provide relief to other deputies at the airport.

The I-Team has reported on Rahim before. Court records show he was sworn in as an auxiliary deputy in May 2021. Rahim is a felon with convictions for conspiracy to commit grand larceny and obtaining money under false pretenses in the 1990s.

Former Sheriff Scott Jenkins, who appointed Rahim, did not answer questions about his appointment or background check when the I-Team first reported it. In recent weeks Jenkins’ attorney did not respond to questions about how Rahim ended up on the presidential assignment.

According to the plan, there were more than a dozen deputies working that day. Rahim was one of at least three auxiliary deputies the I-Team on the schedule that day, but the Culpeper Sheriff’s Office had dozens of auxiliary deputies on a roster.

Jenkins is scheduled for a federal trial in July, accused of allegedly accepting bribes to make at least three people, including Rahim, an auxiliary deputy. Rahim is charged for allegedly paying the bribe. Both pleaded not guilty.

Court records show Rahim is expected to change his plea next week. The I-Team reached out to Rahim’s attorney about the plea hearing and the presidential visit but did not hear back.

When asked about the presidential security assignment, former Secret Service Special Agent Matt Doherty told the I-Team it was “jaw dropping that this would happen in a U.S. police department, that a convicted felon would be authorized not only to carry a gun and badge but charged with the protection of the citizenry and to support the Secret Service in their protective machinery.”

Doherty, who is now a workplace risk assessment expert for the consulting firm Sikich, told the I-Team the Secret Service relies on local law enforcement agencies to assist with every high-level visit. He said the agency has no choice but to trust local agencies.

“We assume that those individuals have been vetted,” Doherty said.

“The Secret Service protective model ensures the highest level of security for our protectees,” the Secret Service told the I-Team in a statement. “There were no security considerations or issues that impacted the President’s movements during the 2022 visit to Culpeper, Virginia.”

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Doherty echoed the statement, assuring the I-Team the president was not in danger that day, but called Rahim’s inclusion in the plan “a horrible dereliction of duty, not only for the president, but the day-to-day interaction with the citizenry.” 

 The Secret Service statement continued, “As it relates to vetting partner law enforcement agencies that assist the Secret Service, there are rigorous legal and background requirements to obtain law enforcement certification in every state. Each local jurisdiction is responsible for ensuring the efficacy of that process. In this instance, there may be questions as to whether that process was followed.”  

 The Secret Service wouldn’t comment more specifically, citing the pending federal case against the former sheriff.

The new sheriff suspended the auxiliary deputy program when he started in January.

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Rick Yarborough, and shot and edited by Steve Jones.

“My brother got shot right here,” the Maryland man said, pointing to the sidewalk in front of a small apartment building.

Robert “Bobby” Plummer was among a group of people hanging outside the evening of Oct. 5, 2020, when police say someone opened fire at them, killing Bobby and wounding three others.

His family believes Bobby – a favorite uncle whom they described as loving and joyful — wasn’t the intended target. Years later, no one has been arrested in the crime. Plummer, his brother-in-law Kenneth McGee and Bobby’s daughter, Alexis, are convinced someone knows something but isn’t talking.

“I’m angry, but I’m not surprised,” McGee, also of Maryland, said. “We have been programmed that doing the right thing is actually doing the wrong thing.”

The Plummer family isn’t alone in its pain. Bobby’s case is one of nearly 120 unsolved homicides from 2020, according to the Metropolitan Police Department’s website. D.C. police are also working to solve 172 homicides from last year – more than 60% of last year’s homicide total.

“The reason they’re not getting solved is because no one will stand up and speak on them,” a frustrated Plummer said.

Bobby’s family knows why some witnesses may stay on the sidelines: fear of police, fear of incrimination, fear of being called to testify or fear of being called a snitch.

There’s one tool, though, they hope someone will use to solve their brother’s case: an anonymous tip line luring callers with the potential for cash.

But the News4 I-Team found not only do these tip reward programs vary widely in how they’re run, there also are concerns over whether having cops run their own program hurts the cases they’re trying to solve.

“Negative perceptions of policing is a major reason for a lack of witness participation,” said Tom Scott, a social scientist with RTI International who studies policing and crime.

He said that while there’s little formal research into what makes a successful cash reward for crime tips program, it’s unusual to have police run them. Most, he noted, are operated by small nonprofit or volunteer groups such as Crime Stoppers or Crime Solvers, which typically fundraise to pay small rewards and aren’t subject to much scrutiny.

D.C. police use public dollars to pay out rewards as high as $25,000 but are also reliant on tips from a community that Scott said may be skeptical of them.

“You’re trying to incentivize witnesses and victims to share information with law enforcement … even when they might have negative personal experiences with law enforcement,” he said.

Frustrated by unsolved homicides, former D.C. Police Chief Charles Ramsey created the department’s rewards program more than 20 years ago. The program has since expanded to include payouts for tips about shootings, robberies, gun seizures and illegal ATV operators.  

Through an open records request, the I-Team found D.C. police have paid out a combined $1.93 million for homicide-related tips to 191 people since fiscal year 2018. The rewards, associated with convictions related in 73 cases, represent 6% of all homicide cases since that year.

A police spokesman noted there could be additional people who were eligible for reward funds who didn’t follow through with collecting them. 

Scott said even a single closed case makes the program worth it but wonders if there would be even more pay outs if tip calls weren’t fielded by cops. For example, on homicide flyers like Bobby’s, the police department advertises a tip line that sends callers to its 24-hour Command Information Center.

“I think as much as law enforcement can separate themselves from their Crime Stoppers program, those negative perceptions of the police and law enforcement would be less likely to hamper participation in those programs,” Scott said.

D.C. does have a separate Crime Solvers group, which MPD’s rewards page indicates pays out tips on lower level offenses. But the head of the D.C. Crime Solvers program told the I-Team it receives its tips from D.C. police. What’s more, the I-Team found the phone number for the local organization directs callers to other surrounding Crime Solvers organizations, instead of the D.C. program.

In Prince George’s County, local Crime Solvers Chairman William Steen explained his group oversees payouts for tips it receives directly, as well as some that are submitted to Prince George’s County police. In those instances, Steen said, the police tell Crime Solvers about tips that helped close critical cases — usually homicides — and the Crime Solvers board decides how much to award the tipster.

Steen said his group works with police but not for police, a key difference, he said, not just in perception but in reality for the anonymity they provide tipsters.

“If you were to call the police department and you were to give your address or your name or proximity to the case, then they’re obligated to take that information and add it to the file,” Steen said. “With Crime Solvers, we make sure that even if you start down that process, that we stop you because we don’t want any of that being a part of the official record.”

D.C. police, however, pushed back on that notion, telling the I-Team in a statement that it “guarantees anonymity to all tipsters.”

A spokesman also told the I-Team they aren’t concerned about a potential lack of tips, noting Chief Pamela Smith recently credited the public’s help for tips that lead to the arrest of a teenager in a recent Brookland Metro station shooting.

But the I-Team found it could be years for those tipsters to be eligible for a reward in D.C., where most tips have to lead to conviction. That’s a higher bar than in many other places in the D.C. area.

In Prince George’s, Montgomery and Fairfax counties — where Crime Solvers programs aren’t run by police – the I-Team found they typically pay rewards for tips leading to an arrest or indictment.

“If you’re only providing rewards after conviction, I don’t think your Crime Stoppers program will be very effective,” Scott suggested.

In a phone interview, the executive director of Crime Stoppers USA told the I-Team her organization doesn’t measure success by how many tips its member groups receive, but by how well they maintain a reputation for providing anonymity to its callers.

She also said her group recommends paying tipsters when they help solve a case – not for conviction.

In the end, the Plummer family doesn’t care what motivates someone to come forward with information about Bobby’s killer. They just want the phone to ring and justice to be served.

“He was a jewel that was picked from the crown of this family,” McGee said.

Plummer said the grief over unanswered questions hangs over his family.

“Someone needs to pay for their mistake,” he said. “I know it won’t bring my brother back, but it’ll bring closure to this family.”

Anyone with information about the killing of Robert “Bobby” Plummer is asked to call D.C. police at 202-727-9099.

This story was reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Katie Leslie, and shot and edited by Jeff Piper. NBC Boston contributed to this report.

A Virginia woman says she found herself in a financial mess after discovering that the used car she bought from a private seller wasn’t what she’d been told.

Barbara Aboagye, from Woodbridge, Virginia, thought that she’d hit the jackpot, and found “a dream come true,” she told News4.

“I saw this car, a 2015 Porsche Macan,” she said. “And I love it.”

There it was, Aboagye’s dream car, listed on Facebook Marketplace by a private seller from Pennsylvania, for $25,000.

The two arranged to meet, and according to Aboagye, the seller handed her a clean title. That means there were no liens on the car, and he owned it outright.

She then secured a loan with her bank. The seller got his check, and she got her car.

For 19 months, Barbara said she’s been paying down her loan and hasn’t missed a single payment. She even paid double some months.

But the joyride came to a screeching halt when, in early spring, she looked out the window and noticed her beloved Porsche was gone.

“I was like, oh my God, what is going on? Is this stolen?” Aboagye said.

She was even more confused when she called police and they told her it wasn’t stolen — it had been repossessed.

“I said, what is going on? How come?” she said.

Aboagye’s bank told her they didn’t repossess the car, and confirmed she was current on her payments.

So if her bank didn’t order the repo, who did?

After weeks of getting no straight answers, Aboagye contacted NBC4 Responds. We went to her house to see if we could get to the bottom of the mystery, and she gathered all of her paperwork for us.

After several hours and several phone calls to all the parties involved, we found the answer: The car was still under the seller’s name when it was repossessed.

That’s the same name that was on the supposedly clean title she was given.

The seller purchased the Porsche from Carvana in 2020, and financed it through Bridgecrest — Carvana’s finance company. According to Bridgecrest, the seller was delinquent on paying the loan, only making three payments in 2022.

The company said it repossessed the vehicle not knowing about the fraudulent sale.

When Aboagye called the man she bought the car from, he told her the car was paid for.

Bridgecrest is “working with law enforcement to understand what occurred and the unlawful actions the seller took to fraudulently sell the vehicle for which he never paid,” the company told News4.

Since Aboagye was able to purchase and register the car unknowingly using a fraudulent title, the vehicle identification number was linked to her home address, which is where the tow truck was sent to repo the car.

“I’m shocked,” Aboagye said. “I’m speechless. I hear stories and stuff like that but I never knew I would be a victim one day.”

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According to Ira Rheingold, the director of the National Association of Consumer Advocates, title washing is the most common scam for vehicle titles.

“The person who sold the consumer the car clearly was the person who committed the fraud,” Rheingold said.

Title washing is when unscrupulous sellers “wash” a title to remove information, like liens or salvage.

“Fraudsters are out there. They’re always looking to take advantage of folks,” Rheingold said.

Luckily for Aboagye, her journey had a happy ending. While her repossessed dream car had been sent to an auction house, and was about to go on the auction block, both Carvana and Bridgecrest agreed to release the car so she could take it home.

“I feel so relieved,” Aboagye said as she got back behind the wheel. “Super happy. I can’t thank you guys enough. I am so grateful.”

News4 contacted the seller numerous times, but he never responded.

As for Bridgecrest, they told News4 they contacted several law enforcement agencies but haven’t heard back from any of them. They have not pursued any civil action against the seller.

How can I protect myself from title fraud?

When buying a car from a private seller, experts have a few tips:

• Ask for a photo ID and compare the names to those on the title to be sure they match.
• If the title is a duplicate, be wary and ask more questions. Ask where the original is and if you can see it.
• Get a CARFAX report. If it shows the car was salvaged, the title should reflect that. If it doesn’t, walk away from the sale.

One woman said her abuse began in first grade. Another said a priest routinely threatened her with a gun and once held her head underwater near a boat’s propellers to keep her silent about her repeated rape. A man described how the abuse he endured as a young teen set him on a path of destruction that has haunted him for years. All said they live with depression and nightmares of their abuse to this day.

The sex abuse survivors have fought for this opportunity since the Archdiocese of Baltimore filed for bankruptcy last fall just days before a Maryland law called the Child Victims Act took effect. The law allows survivors to sue regardless of when their abuse happened but has faced several legal challenges since it was enacted.

U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Michelle Harner recently ruled to allow the survivors to address the court — something that isn’t a guarantee in typical bankruptcy proceedings.

“The court will provide time and space for listening,” she said Monday.

Lori listened intently as survivors told the stories of how their lives and, in some cases, their will to live, were taken at the hands of church leaders whom they trusted.

“I came as a priest and pastor and someone who hopes that by doing this I can contribute in some small way to the healing,” Lori said.

One survivor, who kept her eyes on Lori as she told of the years of abuse she said she endured, explained the importance of giving her testimony.

“This is a day of liberation for me in this courtroom, at this moment,” said the woman, whom News4 is not naming to protect her privacy, addressing Lori directly. “I am grateful I am allowed this moment and you are listening to me.”

She hugged Lori after sharing her story, but other survivors were not as forgiving.

“I wanted him to hear what happened to all of us and realize the church could have acted a lot earlier than they did,” said Teresa Lancaster, a survivor and attorney who said the sexual abuse she endured at Archbishop Keough High School in Baltimore began as a junior in 1970, continuing until she graduated in 1972.

What happened to Lancaster and other girls at that high school at the hands of Father A. Joseph Maskell was explored in a 2017 Netflix series called “The Keepers.” Church leaders initially tried to discredit parts of the series. Then last spring, Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown released a report detailing how more than 150 Catholic priests and other Maryland clergy sexually abused more than 600 children and were never held accountable.

Lancaster spent decades advocating for the passage of the state’s Child Victim’s Act and has criticized the Catholic Church for trying to dismantle it. The Archdiocese of Washington has repeatedly questioned the constitutionality of the law in civil cases now playing out in court.

“We finally got it passed, and now the church is stomping on it, trying to destroy it,” Lancaster said.

A Prince George’s County Circuit Court judge upheld the law in a March decision, allowing a class action lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Washington to proceed.

Last week, a Montgomery County Circuit Court judge ruled the same law unconstitutional in a case against the archdiocese.

A case against the Harford County school system also upheld the law.

The question of constitutionality is expected to ultimately go before the Maryland Supreme Court for a final ruling.

“All of the survivors that have started to come forward have done so because of this law,” said Jonathan Schochor, the attorney representing the plaintiffs in the class action lawsuit in Prince George’s County against the Archdiocese of Washington. “It’s a huge step for all Marylanders, including all minors who had been sexually abused.”

Survivors have told the News4 I-Team they feel like they are being further victimized by the church fighting the Child Victims Act.

“The reason we entered into Chapter 11 was so that we could, in fact, help as many victim survivors as equitably as we can while at the same time carrying forward the mission of the church,” Lori said.

Several challenges to the Child Victims Act making their way to Maryland’s Supreme Court. Meanwhile, attorneys who are involved in the bankruptcy process say they don’t know how long it’s going to take, maybe several months or longer.

Survivors are encouraged to get their claims in by May 31.

Reported by Tracee Wilkins, produced by Katie Leslie, and shot and edited by Jeff Piper.

“I have nothing. I don’t have his death certificate. I don’t have the autopsy report … We have nothing but this corpse,” said his mother, Christina Jeter.

Last October, Jeter was found unresponsive in his cell at USP Victorville, part of a massive federal facility in California. According to his mother, a prison chaplain called her to say her son was in grave condition and had been transported to a nearby hospital.  

“She said, ‘Your son was found unresponsive.’ I said, ‘Is he dead?’ She said, ‘I don’t know,’” Christina Jeter said.

She told the prison official she was on her way to be by his side.

“That’s when they told me that, by the time I got to California, he’d already be dead because he doesn’t have brain activity,” she said.

According to coroner records, Jeter officially died Oct. 27 at Arrowhead Regional Medical Center, and his body was sent to the coroner for review. But his mother said the family didn’t receive his body in D.C. for nearly six weeks and have waited more than five months for information that could shed light into his passing.

Their search for answers highlights a lack of transparency and unique challenges the News4 I-Team found many D.C. families say they face after their loved one is incarcerated in the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP).

That’s because without a dedicated federal prison, people convicted of crimes in D.C.’s Superior Court are shipped to federal facilities across the country. Through a Freedom of Information Act request, the I-Team found more than 2,550 of D.C.’s convicted residents are currently serving time in federal prisons across the U.S.

And though a BOP policy requires the bureau to try to place inmates within 500 miles of their home, last year Jeter was transferred to Victorville – nearly 2,600 miles away from the District.

“He should have never been there,” his mother said.

In an email, a Victorville prison official declined a request for an interview and directed the I-Team to file open records requests with the BOP for information about Jeter’s death. The I-Team has submitted multiple questions and records requests to the bureau headquarters and its western division and has not yet received the information.

Early challenges

Before Jeter was federal inmate 50080-007, his sister Tyria says he was her lovable little brother.

“He was a happy kid,” she said. “He was just very loving and he would make you laugh at any moment, even if you were having a bad day.”

But that changed as he got older and struggled with learning disabilities. Barely able to read and write, his family said he was bullied and eventually dropped out of high school.

“Robert just started getting into things that he shouldn’t have been getting into; following people, doing things that was out of the ordinary,” Christina Jeter recalled.

In June 2012, Jeter and a friend were arrested for carjacking and armed robbery.

“Robert couldn’t even comprehend the danger he had put himself into,” his mother said.

He was sentenced to 12 years and, according to his family, began his incarceration at FCI Gilmer in Glenville, West Virginia. His family often visited him there, but after serving more than half his sentence at Gilmer, his mother said he was moved farther and farther from D.C. until he arrived in California last year. 

His mother said she doesn’t know why he was transferred there as his hopeful release date approached. The BOP declined to specifically address Jeter’s case to the I-Team, but a spokesman said while the BOP attempts to place inmates within the 500-mile radius, the inmate may be placed elsewhere due to “specific security, programming, or population concerns.”

Medical assessments in court records reviewed by the I-Team showed he was in good health while incarcerated in West Virginia. His mother said she doesn’t know what could have changed by the time he arrived at USP Victorville, where prison officials told her his health “had been failing” around the time he was taken to the hospital.

She said she had even more questions after speaking to a doctor at the hospital, who — according to Christina Jeter — told her that her son appeared to have “trauma to the brain so severe that his brain had swollen and hemorrhaged” and that he was “beaten so severely that his liver was, you know, split.”

Christina Jeter said no one at the jail or BOP has confirmed those injuries to her. She hoped his autopsy would give them some insight into his death. Instead, earlier this year, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department coroner ruled Jeter’s death “undetermined.”

The I-Team requested all available records from the coroner’s office but has been told it could take six to 12 months following his death to receive them.

Seeking answers

“I have heard of autopsies and investigations being blocked and results taking a long time, but this is at the extreme end of what I’ve heard,” said Deborah Golden, a local civil rights attorney who has represented many D.C. inmates and their families.

She said it’s not only difficult to get timely answers from BOP about in-custody deaths but even more difficult to get justice if wrongdoing is potentially found.

The longer it takes, she said, the more families lose “any sense of accountability. Any sense of justice. In many cases, the ability to pursue legal action because statutes of limitations have run. And the human sense of finding out what happened to your loved one is lost.”

Former D.C. Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Roger Mitchell, author of “Death in Custody: How America Ignores the Truth and What We Can Do About It,” said he encourages families to pursue a second autopsy when a loved one dies in custody.

“A second forensic autopsy on an individual that died in custody is extremely important. It’s like getting a second opinion when you’ve been given a diagnosis of cancer,” he said.

But Mitchell said it’s best to do so in a timely manner, noting that critical information would have been lost in the several weeks it took for the Jeter family to receive his body. The Jeter family, meanwhile, opted against a private autopsy, as they were told it would cost several thousand dollars.

Mitchell said Jeter’s story underscores why he added a checkbox to the D.C. death certificate to help track in-custody deaths. It’s something he wants to see on all U.S. death certificates to help track the frequency and cause of deaths behind bars.

“We have a very accurate account of how many people are dying from fentanyl and opioids, and we should, because that’s a public health approach that informs policy well beyond the public health policy,” Mitchell said. “What I’m saying, and what the National Medical Association is saying, is that we need that same approach to death in custody.”

Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, who represents the District in the U.S. House, introduced multiple pieces of legislation she said are aimed at improving life behind bars for D.C.’s incarcerated. One bill would keep D.C. inmates serving federal time within 250 miles of the District.

“One of the most important things you could do for an inmate is to make him as close to his loved ones as possible,” Norton told the I-Team. “Putting him miles away will make reentry difficult and will make it difficult for him while in prison.”

Her other measure would require the BOP to provide routine updates to the D.C. mayor on where local inmates are housed and their expected release date.

Norton’s questions surrounding the deaths of two D.C. inmates at USP Hazelton in 2018 prompted the Office of the Inspector General for the Department of Justice to study death-in-custody procedures at the BOP.

In February, the OIG released a report into the deaths of 344 BOP inmates who died between 2014 and 2021.The OIG found the BOP’s response to medical emergencies often insufficient and that a lack of available information about inmate deaths limits the BOP’s ability to potentially prevent future deaths.

In a hearing before Congress about the OIG’s findings, BOP Director Colette Peters said the bureau is making improvements but that short staffing and a lack of funding for competitive compensation are part of the problem.

That’s little comfort to the Jeter family, which buried Robert Jeter just before the new year.

“He had hopes. He wanted to live his life,” Christina Jeter said.

She said she has accepted that she won’t see her son again, but she can’t rest until she knows how his prison sentence became a death sentence.

This story was reported by Tracee Wilkins, produced by Katie Leslie, shot by Steve Jones and Jeff Piper, and edited by Jeff Piper. News4 photographer Evan Carr contributed to this report.

That much was reported at the time, but now the News4 I-Team has the federal documents proving a concerning number of guns the Metropolitan Police Department helped bring into the District ended up at crime scenes. So many guns recovered at crime scenes, in such a brief period, that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives placed D.C. police into a program designed to give extra scrutiny to dealers with higher levels of so-called crime guns.

MPD’s gun dealing was different than what many gun owners may be used to. Theirs was not a typical gun store with display cases and racks of guns to peruse. When a D.C. resident wants a legal handgun, they usually go to a gun store in Virginia or Maryland or to an online site. They pick the gun out, pay for it and have it shipped to a licensed dealer in D.C. – at the time, D.C. police headquarters. That D.C. dealer plays an important role in the sale process as the only place a federal background check is conducted, looking for past crimes or other disqualifications.

In recent weeks, the group Brady United Against Gun Violence released hundreds of letters sent by the ATF to gun dealers across the country that sold 25 or more guns recovered at crime scenes in a single year. The I-Team found one sent to MPD in May 2022. ATF calls it the Demand 2 Program.

“We are not anti-gun dealers at Brady,” Josh Scharff, the group’s general counsel, told the I-Team. “We are anti-irresponsible-gun dealing.”

According to Brady, just 2% of gun dealers across the country are in the ATF program any given year. The I-Team found 14 dealers in D.C., Northern Virginia, and the Maryland suburbs. That includes both currently licensed dealers in D.C. along with MPD from the time when it was an active gun dealer.

That means at least 25 of the guns MPD helped sell to D.C. residents in 2020 and 2021 were recovered at crime scenes in 2021 alone.

“It was a little bit surprising to see that the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department receive a demand letter,” Scharff said.

Federal firearms licensees (FFLs) play an important part in crime investigations.After a gun is found at a crime scene, the ATF traces it all the way back to the original sale with dealers and then follows the trail to see who else may have bought the gun before it was used in a crime. Detectives use the traces to develop suspects.

Short ‘time-to-crime’ with DC police dealt guns

According to the ATF, a gun found at a crime scene is on average 10 years along from its first sale – a calculation the ATF calls “time-to-crime.” The ATF explained to the I-Team, “Shorter time-to-crime periods could be indicators of illegal trafficking and provide crucial intelligence to investigators.”

The agency says if that happens within three years of the first sale, it deserves extra scrutiny into the gun dealer. For the dozens of guns recovered at crime scenes that D.C. police helped sell, the time-to-crime was at most 20 months – less than two years.

MPD is ‘ultimately responsible’

D.C. police has since stopped operating as an FFL, but Scharff told the I-Team the department should want to know why that time-to-crime was shorter and be able to tell D.C. families if their loved one was shot with a gun they helped bring into the District.

“MPD is ultimately responsible for the public safety of the residents of the of Washington, D.C.,” Scharff said. “Everything that they do should have an eye towards protecting the public safety. If Washington Metropolitan Police Department is engaged in selling firearms to the public, they have an obligation to the residents of D.C., to make sure that they are doing so safely and responsibly.”

Gun dealer had concerns about MPD’s practices

Shawn Poulin opened DC Security Associates in 2021. He is one of two FFLs in D.C. currently working with the public. He said he sees himself as the last check on responsible sales.

“We have a conscience just like everyone else. And we believe in responsible ownership,” he said.

Poulin opened his business months after MPD started operating as an FFL. At that time, MPD was the only licensed operating gun dealer in the District. D.C. police were then – and, according to everyone the I-Team talked to, is still – the only police department in America to help sell or have sold guns to the public. Federal records show D.C. police held a Type 1 federal firearms license, which the ATF defines as a “dealer in firearms other than destructive devices.”

Even before Poulin opened, he said D.C. police told him they wanted out of the gun business.

“They asked us to open early by four weeks?” Poulin told the I-Team at his D.C. location. “They were getting sick and tired of managing all those firearms they had down there. They had thousands of firearms waiting to be processed.”

D.C. police would not talk to the I-Team about Poulin’s claim.

When asked if he agreed with D.C. police getting into the gun business, “Heck, no,” Poulin told the I-Team, explaining, “My biggest point there for a while was if your firearms branch screws up, you’re going to inspect and enforce your own firearms branch?”

Looking back, Poulin said he was not surprised to see D.C. police on the list of dealers with guns that ended up at crime scenes.

“Does not surprise me one bit,” he said. “I walked in there, and it was, it was archaic. The processes, the systems they were using, to manage that process. It was archaic. I offered advice and offered little suggestions.”

D.C. police did not respond to that concern, either.

The I-Team also found Poulin’s business and the other D.C. FFL also received an ATF Demand 2 Program letter. Poulin told the I-Team his managers submit quarterly reports as required by the program and responded, “We don’t play games with (requests from the ATF).”

Few answers from DC police

After weeks of trying to obtain even basic answers from both D.C. police and the mayor’s office, the I-Team received few answers about the department’s time as an FFL. Brady’s Scharff told the I-Team D.C. residents deserve to know more about how their police department legally moved more than 8,000 handguns into the hands of District residents.

The trail started in 2012. At the time, D.C. had recently and repeatedly been in court over its stringent gun regulations and the 2008 Supreme Court decision in District of Columbia v. Heller had upended many of them.

The D.C. Council passed a law in 2012 allowing the city to seek a license to sell guns to D.C. residents if no other private business would do so.

Eight years later as COVID-19 took hold in the District (and, as federal statistics show, gun purchases rose rapidly), D.C.’s longtime lone licensed dealer closed his business. A D.C. police spokesperson told the I-Team, “MPD was required to operate as an FFL from April 3, 2020, until January 4, 2021, to uphold a constitutional right in the District.”

The department would not say how many guns were eventually tracked to crime scenes, or if they told families D.C. police helped sell a gun used to injure their loved one. D.C. police would not tell us how many people were assigned to the gun dealing unit. Nor would they say if they ever refused a sale – as is a dealer’s right.

While D.C. police didn’t answer most specific questions the I-Team sent, even basic answers the department offered were confusing. D.C. police said it started dealing guns more than two weeks before Mayor Muriel Bowser’s order allowing them to do so. D.C. police has not offered any explanation.

The law that allowed D.C. police to get into the gun business also allowed them to charge $125 per firearm transfer. D.C. police confirmed it charged that much, meaning they brought in more than a million dollars. A spokesperson said the funds collected from the transfers went to the city’s general fund.

In a statement to the I-Team, a D.C. police spokesperson wrote, “MPD has never sold guns. MPD was required to operate as an FFL from April 3, 2020, until January 4, 2021, to uphold a constitutional right in the District. During that period, the department facilitated the legal transfer of 8,038 firearms.”

That spokesperson also said once MPD ceased operations as a gun dealer, the department complied with requirements to submit transaction records to the ATF.

DC mayor told Virginia to better oversee gun dealers months before DC became one

Before Bowser told D.C. police to get into the gun business, she criticized Virginia lawmakers for not overseeing dealers in the commonwealth strictly enough.

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In a letter she sent Virginia legislative leaders on Jan. 8, 2020, Bowser urged Virginia legislative leaders to do more to keep guns legally sold in Virginia from being used in DC crimes. “Illegal guns originating in Virginia are a key driver of gun crime in D.C.,” Bowser wrote. She continued, “According to the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, ATF data show that criminal or negligent gun dealers are responsible for ‘nearly half’ of the total number of trafficked firearms uncovered in ATF investigations.”

Four months later, she signed that mayor’s order authorizing D.C.’s police department to become a dealer themselves, and those ATF records show clearly, D.C. helped bring guns into the District eventually used in crime, too.

The I-Team asked about the letter and D.C. police’s role as a gun dealer two weeks ago. The mayor’s office acknowledged the questions but never answered them.

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Rick Yarborough, and shot and edited by Steve Jones.

If you’re a D.C. taxpayer, that’s your money – and a lot of it.

The D.C. Council is set to vote on the deal Tuesday without a public hearing or meeting, although Council Chairman Phil Mendelson has asked residents to email or stop by to share what they think. There’s been no formal way for taxpayers to weigh in on how their money should be spent when it comes to the downtown arena.

Aside from what we’ve already reported, the public still doesn’t know the finer details of this deal. But D.C.’s elected leaders do, because they heard about them in a meeting the public had no idea about.

Last Wednesday, Mayor Muriel Bowser, Monumental Sports majority owner Ted Leonsis and most members of the D.C. Council packed inside Capital One Arena to announce the teams were staying in the District. This was a big celebration, and maybe that was warranted.

But just hours before, Mendelson told Council members he wanted to see them in his office at 1:30 p.m. that day, the News4 I-Team has learned. There was no public notice of that meeting, or “gathering,” as he called it.

A majority of Council members showed up — D.C.’s Open Meetings Act calls that a quorum. Inside Mendelson’s office at the Wilson Building, the Council’s budget director briefed them on the deal about to be announced, Mendelson told us Monday. At some point, a deputy mayor showed up.

Mendelson said they didn’t vote on the deal but acknowledged they “gathered information and discussed” it.

“Gather information” and “discuss” are words taken right out of the D.C. Open Meetings Act, designed to make sure D.C. residents know “full and complete information regarding the affairs of government and the actions of those who represent them,” according to that law’s own wording.

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On Monday, Mendelson said he saw no issue handling the matter behind closed doors and didn’t see it as a violation of open meetings laws.

“These were highly confidential negotiations,” Mendelson said. “To have notice for a gathering — a gathering, not a meeting — to discuss something that, to put in other words, is secret, doesn’t work.”

While the D.C. Council can meet in private, they have to tell the public before they do so, and they have to vote to close the doors. Virginia lawmakers did that before they privately discussed and voted on their own arena offer.

But the penalty for violating the Open Meetings Act in D.C. is … nothing.

The Council made the law but didn’t put a penalty in it. There is a fine for repeatedly violating it and another prong to overturn votes taken in private, but getting together to discuss how to spend half a billion of your dollars — no penalty there.

We called the District’s Office of Open Government, which oversees these rules, but we have not yet heard back.

The Council is expected to vote on the deal Tuesday morning.

Check fraud has exploded, increasing by more than 100% in the past five years. And by the time fraudulent checks are detected, the thieves are often long gone. In most cases, banks will put the money back into their customer’s account, but not always. 

Hyman said his company recently wrote a check for $2,150 to one of its vendors who deposited the check into their bank. A few weeks later, Hyman’s office manager noticed something was off when she was checking the books. That single check, according to Hyman, was cashed nine times, draining the business account of more than $15,000.

“Somebody got a hold of that check and washed it,” Hyman said. “We were the ones who caught it. The bank never contacted me.”

The amounts and the check numbers were replaced along with the payee name, which was changed to names no one at Hyman’s company recognized. Only the note in the memo remained unchanged.

After filing a fraud report with Capital Bank, Hyman said they did return the entire amount back into his business account. But he said, without notifying him, the bank took some of the money back.

“Capital Bank of Maryland went back into my account and took out $6,400,” Hyman said. “They said that they can’t get the money back from the bank that the checks were cashed at, so they’re out $6,400 and they wanted to split it with me.”

Hyman said he reluctantly agreed to split the difference and then switched banks after 30 years of being a customer.  

“I would think that the bank, after 30 years, would stand up to, you know, a relationship that we have and help out,” Hyman said. 

Capital Bank’s CEO told the News4 I-Team he couldn’t discuss Hyman’s case because of privacy laws. But when fraud is suspected, the bank will provisionally return money to a customer’s account while they investigate.

Adam Rust, the director of financial services for the Consumer Federation of America, says by law customers, including businesses, are entitled to be reimbursed for check-washing fraud under the Uniform Commercial Code, which sets standards for banks.

“Ultimately, the depositing bank has liability, but it will be between your bank and that bank to determine how the actual liability is shared,” said Rust.

Rust says when it comes to commercial banking, the UCC does hold businesses more accountable for ensuring the security of their checks.

“Businesses write many checks and businesses write checks for larger amounts,” he said. “So, it’s really important for a business to be looking at their checkbook quickly to see if checks are showing up on the register when they wrote them.”

Hyman said his frustration isn’t about losing $3,200, it’s about principle. His company no longer writes checks. Instead, transactions are done electronically.

“If we do need to write a check, it’s written from the bank and mailed from the bank. We do not write it. But 99% of our vendors now will take ACH wire transfer,” said Hyman.

The I-Team reached out to all the banks involved. Hyman’s former bank, Capital Bank, said it did investigate the fraud, but Hyman said he never heard the outcome. TD Bank, where some of the checks were cashed, told the I-Team it refunded two of the fraudulent checks but have not received any other claims from Capital Bank. A TD bank spokesperson said if they do receive the necessary claims, it will work to help recover the other funds. United Bank, where the original check was deposited, said the I-Team was the first to alert them to any fraud issue and that no one ever contacted them regarding an investigation.

How to protect your checks

• If you suspect a check was washed, contact your bank immediately,
• Even if your bank reimburses you, close the original account.
• Freeze all of your credit reports.
• If possible, avoid writing checks and use electronic forms of payment.

Reported by Susan Hogan, produced by Rick Yarborough, and shot and edited by Jeff Piper.

As many looked at the crumpled wreckage of the Key Bridge in awe, engineers the News4 I-Team talked to were looking at what was in place before the accident to protect the bridge from just that type of collision. In pictures and video of the bridge, large concrete circles in the water – called dolphins – are visible. Those columns extend to the bottom of the Patapsco River. They’re designed to absorb the impact of an errant ship and hopefully slow it down enough to keep the support from taking a direct hit.

The Key Bridge has two dolphins on either side but at some distance from the bridge supports. National Transportation Safety Board drone video shows when the Dali lost control, the nearly 1,000-foot-long ship didn’t even come in contact with those protective features before it collided with the bridge.

Bridge engineers tell the I-Team many protective features came about after the collapse of Tampa’s Sunshine Skyway Bridge on May 9, 1980. In that accident, a cargo ship blew off course in a storm and hit a bridge support, collapsing the bridge. Thirty-five people died.

When that bridge was rebuilt seven years later, the new Skyway Bridge had dozens of protective dolphins. Additionally, the bridge supports are surrounded by islands, which extend underwater, designed to force a ship aground before a collision.

The safety of the bridge is now part of the NTSB investigation.

“We look at changes over time, whether we look at bigger container ships or traffic on a bridge or whether a structure that may be decades old is safe,” NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy told News4.

One hundred miles up the coast from Baltimore, the Delaware Memorial Bridge along Interstate 95 near Wilmington is in the middle of a three-year, $95 million safety upgrade.

“The structures themselves that are in the water to act as that bumper would absorb the impacts of the ship and keep it away from our tower,” Jim Salmon, a spokesperson for the Delaware River and Bay Authority told the I-Team.

In renderings of the new project, the protective features are placed closer to the Memorial Bridge than those at the Key Bridge and surround the piers from approaching ship traffic. The Delaware River and Bay Authority predicts if the same accident happened under their bridge once the system is complete, it would still be standing.

“We’d have significant damage to the fendering system, the new cylinders,” Salmon said, “but people will be still using the bridge.”

Engineers reminded cost is a key consideration in bridge planning. Collisions are rare, improvements are expensive, but every day the port is closed has a $10 million economic impact, said Daraius Irani, Ph.D., a Towson University expert.

The I-Team asked the Maryland Transportation Authority when the Key Bridge dolphins were installed but hasn’t heard back.

This week a Harford County Circuit Court judge ruled against the Harford County Board of Education’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit brought by a former student who said he was abused by two employees in the 1980s and 1990s. The man, identified only as John Doe in the filing, alleges he was repeatedly sexually abused by a teacher at Deerfield Elementary and later by an employee at Edgewood High School.

In its motion to dismiss, attorneys for the school board unsuccessfully challenged the constitutionality of the 2023 law, saying the board is protected from these claims by prior statute of limitations.

But the attorneys also laid out arguments for why they say the survivor may also bear some responsibility for the abuse he alleges occurred as a teenager, writing: “Nowhere in the Complaint does Plaintiff allege that [the accused] forced Plaintiff to engage in sexual activity. To the contrary, the Complaint reveals that Plaintiff had numerous opportunities to extricate himself … yet he chose not to do so.”

The attorneys continued: “The Board respectfully submits that an ordinarily prudent minor of that age knows or should know that repeatedly engaging in sexual conduct with an adult carries certain risks and consequences.”

In an interview with News4, the survivor called that argument “reprehensible.”

“It shows how out of touch they are with true victims that they do not understand the abuse that has occurred and the mental health aspect to that,” he said.

The man called his years in public school “the most difficult years of my life” and said “the damage thrust upon me by my offenders is a life sentence that will never go away.”

In their response to the board’s motion to dismiss, attorneys for John Doe wrote: “To suggest that a child can consent to his sexual abuse is morally outrageous and legally meritless.”

This week, Harford Circuit Court Judge Alex Allman dismissed the constitutionality challenge but also dismissed a count of negligent infliction of emotional distress brought by Doe.

A spokesperson for the Harford school system declined News4’s request for comment on the lawsuit, though they’re expected to appeal the judge’s decision.

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Doe’s case is the latest challenge to the state’s landmark abuse survivor law.

Earlier this month, a Prince George’s County Circuit Court judge ruled a class action lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Washington can proceed, dismissing a similar challenge brought by the church to the constitutionality of the Child Victims Act. In that case, three men are suing the Archdiocese for abuse they say they endured as children.

Attorneys for the archdiocese argued the institution is protected from civil lawsuits because of the 2017 Maryland law they say granted them “vested rights” to be free from liability as non-perpetrator defendants. The judge disagreed.

As in the Harford case, that matter is expected to head to appeal and likely the Maryland Supreme Court.

Reported by Tracee Wilkins, produced by Katie Leslie, and shot and edited by Jeff Piper.

A Maryland homeowner who uses propane to power her heat and water heater told News4 she’s never had a problem with her tanks but added, “I will always have my nose listening for that smell of cabbage.”

However, the recent propane tank explosion in Sterling, Virginia, certainly raised concerns among homeowners who have similar tanks and now wonder about the integrity of theirs.

“You can’t just set it and forget it,” said Holly Burgess, who works for the National Fire Protection Association, a nonprofit that sets the standards and codes for propane tanks. “Maintenance is key.”

Experts like Burgess say propane is relatively safe to use, but homeowners should still look for signs of wear and tear on their tanks.

“So, what you’re looking at is, is there any sort of pitting in it?” Burgess said. “Is there any sort of rust?”

But Burgess warns that’s about all the visual inspection homeowners should do. The rest should be left to experts.

“You should have a local gas company that’s going to come out,” she said.

“They’re going to check for leaks and they’re going to follow everything that’s in that code,” she added.

According to the Propane Education and Research Council, aboveground tanks and underground tanks are relatively safe since they’re manufactured to government-approved standards. But periodic maintenance is necessary.

If tanks are leased from a propane supplier, that supplier is subject to compliance inspections regarding tank maintenance and will maintain that tank.

If a homeowner thinks there is a leak, the primary indicators are pungent odor and a hissing noise. However, a gas detector is another tool that alerts homeowners of a gas leak inside.

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Natural gas is another option for homeowners to power their stoves, heat, dryers and water heaters, but just as with propane, maintenance of appliances is the key to keeping families safe.

Steve Himmelfarb of Washington Gas walked News4 through simple tips to follow, starting with a gas stove. He said the flame should be blue and steady

“If there are any wavering colors of yellow, it’s an indication that the appliance needs to be looked at by a professional,” he said.

Insulation wrapping a hot water tank could be a fire hazard and should be removed.

Also, make sure to replace or inspect HVAC filters monthly. Not doing so could result in clogs leading to fires and a buildup of carbon monoxide.

Regardless of whether using propane or natural gas to fuel a home, that rotten egg odor means get out immediately. Don’t bother shutting off lights or appliances and don’t even use a cellphone until outside. Just by turning the lights on or off could trigger an explosion.

“Not at this time,” Loudoun County Fire & Rescue Chief Keith Johnson told the I-Team as he looked back on the response from Feb. 16. At the time of the explosion, firefighters were responding to a gas leak call. Radio calls indicate crews found a leaking 500-gallon underground propane tank in the backyard.

It is believed that gas seeped from the leaking tank into the home before it exploded with firefighters inside.

“Most people will ask, you know, why were you in the house?” Johnson said. “The answer is simply, well, we have occupants to remove in the house. They were inside. Our first job is life safety. We will risk a lot to save a lot.”

The I-Team learned it is far from the only underground tank in the county. Loudoun County does not maintain records on the number of underground storage tanks in the county, but building records show at least 2,000 permitted tanks countywide.

The fire department pointed out that as development spreads across the county, not all neighborhoods are served with underground gas lines.

In Prince William County, Virginia, approximately 5,030 residential gas storage tanks are currently permitted.

In Maryland the Department of Permitting, Inspections and Enforcement in Prince George’s County has permitted approximately 700 above ground and underground gas storage tanks since 1982 and about 230 propane storage tanks. In Montgomery County, there are more than 2,300 permits for storage tanks.

As with many fire departments, Loudoun County firefighters carry a gas meter equipped to measure pentane, which they described to the I-Team as an effective way to detect either propane (normally stored in tanks) or methane (piped natural gas).

As the I-Team examined how departments across the area respond to gas leaks, that handheld meter emerged as one of the most important tools they carry.

“Our meters obviously are calibrated to read gas, and we have action levels,” Johnson said. “When it gets to a certain actionable action level, we will remove ourselves from the environment. We can’t operate in an environment that’s not safe.”

“(It is) still yet to be determined what the crew saw when they got there, what they had on their meters,” Johnson said. “That’s all in the review.”

Johnson hopes his department’s internal reviews will be complete by the end of the year.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health — a national workplace safety agency — is investigating as well. NIOSH investigates all firefighter line-of-duty deaths to find causes, but also to determine better techniques.

NIOSH’s current best practices for gas leaks insists every firefighter should know how to use that gas detecting meter; crews should maintain cold, warm and hot zones to know where it is safe; and a “defensive approach” should be used “until all gases have been eliminated from any structure and surrounding area.”

“It’s hard to say that you should never go inside of a building with a natural gas leak,” said Jamie Burgess, the director of hazardous materials training for the International Association of Fire Fighters. “For the most part, firefighters are going to go inside, because we have to stop, we have to stop the source. We have to stop the leak, or at least identify the source of, of the leak.”

The D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department recently allowed the I-Team inside its training academy to see a gas leak scenario up close.

D.C. Fire Marshal Mitchell Kannry started by explaining why responding crews do not pull up to the front of the gas leak.

“We start at 200 feet away,” he said. “That’s what our policy is. And then we slowly and kind of actually make our way closer.”

It is a common policy among fire departments.

First crews will lay a water line in case a fire starts, and a team will approach with their gas meters.

In the scenario the I-Team witnessed, crews found an elevated gas level. It meant they had to turn on their air tanks and evacuate the building while trying to determine the source of the leak.

“We have a responsibility to search,” Kannry explained. “For the safety of all those citizens, we can’t just leave and wish everybody good luck.”

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Once the building was secure, the training firefighters left the building as well and staged outside at safe distance – outside what they called a ‘collapse zone’ — hopefully far enough to avoid both a building collapse and flying debris.

The danger is very real.

“Essentially what these buildings are, when they’re, when they’re pumped full of natural gas, they’re bombs,” the IAFF’s Burgess emphasized. “All they need is an ignition source.”

D.C. firefighters used that safe distance near the site of a gas leak Jan. 18 in Southeast. That morning, a delivery truck hit the gas line next door to Baby Einstein Child Development Center on Marion Barry Avenue.

“We actually smelled gas (inside and on the second floor),” Baby Einstein owner Regina Snead said.

She jumped into action, getting 16 kids, some just months old, into their coats and out the door.

Minutes after they got to the corner, the windows exploded out of the day care’s building, and the convenience store next door collapsed.

“If we didn’t think quickly, we could have been in the middle of all this,” Snead said.

Not even one of the kids she cared for was hurt.

​In the midst of it, the dozens of responding D.C. firefighters escaped injury, and not a single truck was damaged.

​A month after the Sterling explosion, Battalion Chief Sam Myers said he can see some added concern from his fellow firefighters who respond to gas leaks these days. And as Johnson said, that night will stay with him and his entire team.

“It is the behavioral health aspects of what our folks experienced,” he said. “Both those that were injured and not injured is yet to be seen. There’s a lot of emotional trauma besides the physical trauma, and I don’t know that we’re going to know the extent of that for quite some time.”

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Rick Yarborough, shot by Jeff Piper and Steve Jones, and edited by Jeff Piper.

Video obtained by the News4 I-Team shows the moment on Dec. 30 that Rita Iannazzi says she was hit while walking in a crosswalk at the corner of Cathedral Avenue and Massachusetts Avenue in Northwest.

The delivery driver’s dashcam video shows Iannazzi waiting at the crosswalk for the signal to change. The driver, seen in the video eating at the time, turns into the intersection, striking her. A D.C. police crash report obtained by the I-Team shows the driver was issued an infraction for “colliding with a pedestrian.”

Iannazzi had 11 surgeries for multiple broken bones and spent nearly two months in the hospital.

“I’m angry; I feel tired,” said her husband of 40 years, Gianfranco Mancini, who spoke exclusively to News4 on her behalf as she recuperates at home.

She wasn’t up to showing her face, though she did share pictures she says are from happier times.

Mancini was in Italy at the time of her accident, talking with his wife on a video call at the moment she was hit.

“I saw her starting to step to cross the road, and suddenly, I saw the sky,” he said. “I heard people screaming; I could see later an officer approaching … And I saw her bleeding, and she told me, ‘Well, I had an accident,’ and, ‘Don’t worry about that; they are helping me.’”

 He said his wife still needs more surgery and will face a lifetime of medical care.

Mancini knew the delivery truck belonged to Amazon, saying, “They had a sign on it.”

News4 covered the accident, and the video shows a blue truck with “Prime” on the side.

“To the general public, everyone knows it’s an Amazon van. It says ‘Amazon;’ it says ‘Prime’ on it,” said attorney Patrick Regan, who represents the couple.

But despite that Prime logo, Regan said the driver actually worked for a third-party company, what Amazon calls a delivery service partner (DSP). 

Amazon told the I-Team it uses more than 3,500 DSPs to deliver 20 million packages a day across 19 countries. 

“What they’ve done is they’ve attempted to insulate themselves from responsibility by creating these DSPs, and yet all the money flows to Amazon,” said Regan.

Regan said when there is a crash, consumers are often directed to file claims with the DSP instead of Amazon. But he said from his experience with other similar cases he’s filed, the DSP’s insurance coverage is grossly inadequate.

“In this case, the insurance coverage that the DSP has is less than the medical bills to date,” he said.

The couple is suing both Amazon and the DSP — Orion’s Harp LLC of Lanham, Maryland. The I-Team reached out to Amazon along with the DSP about the lawsuit but has not yet heard back.

News4 I-Team

Education Mar 13

As pandemic dollars sunset, schools grapple with how to continue tutoring programs

gun laws Mar 7

In Democrat-led session, gun safety advocates ask why Virginia Dems won't get more on gun safety

Amazon previously told News4: “Since 2018, the Delivery Service Partner (DSP) program has empowered entrepreneurs who want to launch and operate their own delivery service to do business with Amazon. Now, more than 3,500 DSPs are delivering over 20 million packages every day across 19 countries. As has always been the case, nothing is more important to us than safety, which is why over the last five years we’ve invested more than $8 billion in state-of-the-art technology, safety enhancements, vehicle fleets, and exclusive services for DSPs and their drivers. These investments in safety technology and programs in delivery vehicles have decreased collision rates by 40%. And we’re not done — we’re always innovating with new technology, making process improvements, and helping DSPs provide better training to their employees to improve the safety of drivers, customers, and the communities we serve.”

The lawsuit claims Amazon, along with DSPs in general, prioritize “pickup/delivery speed over driver safety.”

“It’s the sheer volume of the deliveries that these drivers have to deliver every single day, or expected to deliver every day, that causes them to speed, go fast, to cut corners, to be distracted,” said Regan.

Mancini said he puts most of the blame on the companies and the push to deliver so many items, sometimes at a dangerous cost.

“It will surely happen again if you force your workforce to work at that way,” Mancini said. “They are human beings. This kind of accident that will happen again, someone will die for them.”

Reported by Susan Hogan, produced by Rick Yarborough, and shot and edited by Steve Jones.

Prosecutors charged 55% of suspects arrested between October through December 2023, according to figures released by the U.S. Attorney’s Office Thursday. Another 4% were referred to other agencies for prosecution. It is a 2% increase over the three months before.

For years, the so-called “no paper rate” steadily climbed. It’s the rate at which arrests by D.C. police are not prosecuted in court. In fiscal year 2022 (ending Sept. 30, 2022), two of every three criminal arrests in D.C. were not prosecuted – 67%. In fiscal year 2023 (ending Sept. 30, 2023), that rate dropped to 56%.

D.C. U.S. Attorney Matt Graves told reporters Thursday the increase is due in part to better evidence collection by D.C. police and D.C.’s Department of Forensic Sciences crime lab coming back online. D.C. can now test its own drug and DNA evidence, which helps bring cases faster.

The announcement comes as D.C.’s crime rate is coming down from alarming levels. This year, D.C. police report homicide is down 36% and overall violent crime is down 15% as of March 14.

Graves said the drop is not due to more prosecutions insisting, “We’ve always been charging violent criminals. You can look at any point in time, and roughly 90% of our most serious violent criminals are charged at the time of arrest.”

According to the release from Graves’ office, “Nearly 90% of violent gun offenses are charged at the time of arrest; the remainder are subject to additional investigation.”

Graves said his focus on proactively investigating a relatively small number of people driving a large percentage of violent crime, holding gun criminals in custody before trial and making sure there are “swift and certain consequences” for violent crime in D.C. is driving gun violence down.

D.C., Graves said, is on “the same trend line as other cities.” But he suggested the District is six to 12 months behind falling crime rates across the country. Graves blamed that on the crime lab closure and lingering COVID-era restrictions at D.C.’s Superior Court.

For the first time since 2021, Democrats control both houses of the Virginia Legislature. As the session started, Democrat leaders promised a big push on gun safety.

As the session went on, the Virginia Citizens Defense League, a gun rights advocate group warned its members, “It is absolutely an all-out war (on lawful gun owners).”

But as the session ends and attention turns to what Gov. Glenn Youngkin will sign, gun safety advocates still want to know what will become law.

Gun safety bills sailed through the General Assembly. 

A bill to ban Glock switches, also known as auto sears, is one of them.

It’s a small device that turns a common handgun into an incredibly dangerous and lethal machine gun. They’re already federally banned. Former Loudoun County prosecutor, now Democrat State Senator Russet Perry, led the charge in the Senate to outlaw them in Virginia.

“It can be one of those things that gives states an extra tool to combat, you know, dangerous gun violence that most people can get behind and agree on,” she said.

It passed out of the Senate with bipartisan support. In the Virginia House of Delegates, a nearly identical Glock switch ban Del. Mike Jones, D-Richmond, sponsored has unanimous support. In initial votes, it did not get a single no vote even from a Republican.

“I’m proud of my Republican colleagues,” Jones said. “Everyone always talks about working across the aisle. This is one of those issues. Safe streets matter to everyone. It’s not a blue or red issue.”

The News4 I-Team found even gun rights supporters support it — sort of.

“I’m not going to lose any sleep if they signed that into law, because it won’t affect a law-abiding citizen,” firearms trainer Curt Sebastian said. “It’s not going to affect me.”

The Glock switch ban is now on the way to the governor’s desk for his signature and is expected to get it, but that may be where the agreement on this issue ends in Richmond and the politics of it take over. Gun safety advocates told the I-Team just signing something on gun safety isn’t what they were hoping for this session.

“I am sure (Youngkin), and his team will evaluate them and then he’ll cherry pick which ones he might want to sign,” said Lori Haas, an advocacy manager for the Center for Gun Violence Solutions at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Political observers expect the governor to sign the Glock switch bill along with a tax credit for gun locks, which expands an existing price break on simple safety devices to lock guns up.

Youngkin could also support a modified safe storage law, which would make it a misdemeanor to leave a gun where kids could get it and possibly bring to school or use in a crime. It would only be a felony if the person knew the child was a threat.

But Haas says, “It’s not enough. It’s just not enough.”

For Haas, this is a personal issue. Her daughter Emily survived the Virginia Tech shooting on April 16, 2007. Thirty-two students died in that mass shooting.

“On average, three people will die today from firearms. What about those families?” Haas asked. “What is the governor doing to care for them? What is the governor doing to prevent that violence?”

Haas hopes the governor would sign a more robust safe storage bill which is also passing through the House and Senate and consider the assault-weapons ban that Democrats pushed through. 

She’s not optimistic about that.

“He’s going to veto the bill, and you know, that bill is something the general public wants over and over and over again,” Haas said. 

The expanded safe storage law is a non-starter to Sebastian, who trains law enforcement and civilians and advocates for training for all gun owners.

“Frankly, I like the idea of my 12-year-old being able to defend herself even if I wasn’t with her,” he said.

The assault weapons ban would be even worse for Virginia, Sebastian says. He predicts political doom for the governor should he sign it.

“I think, obviously, it would decimate him,” he said.

Jones knows the governor may not sign the assault weapons bill, “but he’s going to have to tell the Virginia delegation, he’s going to have to tell everyday Virginians, he’s going to have to tell moms, dads that we don’t care about these streets, these guns being on the street.”

The governor has until Friday to sign or veto the few gun bills already on his desk. He will have 30 days to act on dozens more once the session ends.

“Virginia’s gun laws are already among the toughest in the nation, and Gov. Youngkin continues to pursue policies to hold criminals that commit crimes with guns accountable by strengthening penalties to effectively keep criminals off the streets and Virginians safe,” a Youngkin spokesperson said.

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Rick Yarborough, and shot and edited by Jeff Piper.

“Big blue arrow on the side of the blue truck,” said Garland, referring to an Amazon delivery truck that he says sideswiped him.

Garland said the incident caused roughly $2,000 in damages to his truck and trailer. And he thought after exchanging information with the driver, repairs would be easy.

“You just wouldn’t believe how many different scenarios that played out in this and how many different people that I’ve talked to over this,” said Garland. 

That’s because Garland found out that the truck emblazoned with the Amazon logo — and the driver who he said hit him — really wasn’t Amazon.

‘Not Amazon employees’

“These people are not Amazon employees. The person that comes to your door with your package says ‘Amazon’ and on the uniform. The truck says ‘Prime’ and ‘Amazon.’ They’re not,” said Patrick Regan, a personal injury lawyer in Washington, D.C.

He said he’s handled dozens of these kinds of cases involving Amazon delivery trucks. Including this crash on Dec. 30 when, Regan said, a delivery truck hit a D.C. woman while she was in the crosswalk at the intersection of Cathedral and Massachusetts avenues.

“Her son called me and said, ‘My mother was hit by an Amazon van,’” Regan said. “Your viewers are going to look at this, saying, ‘Yeah, that’s an Amazon van.’”

“She faces a very, a very difficult, a very long recovery,” said Regan.

Despite the Prime logo on the truck, Regan said the vehicle was actually a third-party company, what Amazon calls a delivery service partner (DSP). An Amazon spokesperson told the I-Team the company uses more than 3,500 DSPs to deliver 20 million packages a day across 19 countries.

“They say Amazon on their uniform, they say Prime and Amazon on the truck, but they disavow any legal responsibility,” said Regan. 

In the police report, the driver admitted “he was tired.” When asked who was responsible for the $5,000 in damage to Means’ landscaping, she replied, “Amazon is responsible to pay for this damage.”

But Means said calling Amazon got her nowhere. She was directed to contact a company she’d never heard of. Turns out it was a DSP. But their insurance company never responded to her, Means said. So, she filed with her insurance company, which took over the fight.

“I would drop dead if I heard back from Amazon two months after the fact,” said Means.

Eight months later, she did hear back, but not from Amazon. Her insurance company told her the DSP, which owned the vehicle, ended up paying her claim. 

The News4 I-Team reached out to Amazon about its DSP program. Spokesperson Branden Baribeau said: “Since 2018, the Delivery Service Partner (DSP) program has empowered entrepreneurs who want to launch and operate their own delivery service to do business with Amazon. Now, more than 3,500 DSPs are delivering over 20 million packages every day across 19 countries. As has always been the case, nothing is more important to us than safety, which is why over the last five years we’ve invested more than $8 billion in state-of-the-art technology, safety enhancements, vehicle fleets, and exclusive services for DSPs and their drivers. These investments in safety technology and programs in delivery vehicles have decreased collision rates by 40%. And we’re not done; we’re always innovating with new technology, making process improvements, and helping DSPs provide better training to their employees to improve the safety of drivers, customers and the communities we serve.”

Third-party delivery service partners can cause confusion

When it comes to those vans and trucks, according to Amazon, DSPs can use their own vehicles or lease Amazon branded vehicles through a third party.

But Regan argues the blurred lines can be confusing to customers.

“Amazon controls every aspect of it, including their uniform, including equipment that’s in the vehicle, including the software that tells them where to take the packages,” Regan said.

Amazon disputes this, saying that they make their relationship with DSPs very clear.

Garland said the DSP driver that hit him initially gave him an expired insurance card. He was finally able to file a claim with a different insurance company, but three months later they denied it.

Neither DSP in Garland’s or Means’ case responded to News4’s emails or calls. Amazon said DSPs are required to carry general liability, insurance policies and workers’ compensation. Lapses in insurance can result in a breach of contract, Amazon said.

Amazon said it also offers training to drivers on how to handle accidents and shared a recent release about the program.

Regan said he’s planning to file a lawsuit against Amazon and the DSP to help pay for his client’s recovery.

Reported by Susan Hogan; produced by Rick Yarborough; shot by Steve Jones, Carlos Olazagasti and Lance Ing; and edited by Steve Jones.

Del. Michelle Maldonado, D-Manassas, sponsored the Virginia Senior Safe Act, though she calls the bill “Larry’s Law” in honor of a local Navy veteran whose family says lost more than $3 million in an alleged wire fraud scheme.

The News4 I-Team first reported Larry Cook’s story last year after, his family says, his credit union should have done more to stop him from wiring millions overseas.

His family said they discovered the apparent scam after his death when paperwork showed he had made nearly 75 wire transfers overseas in 2022. The family believes he was vulnerable to fraud after suffering a stroke that left him cognitively impaired.

Though many banks already report suspected concerns of financial exploitation of seniors or vulnerable adults, Maldonado said H.B. 692 is designed to create uniform training guidelines in Virginia for spotting and reporting the abuse, while giving them broader legal protection should they be accused of sharing private information in the pursuit of protecting a customer.

She said the measure will encourage banks to not just contact a trusted person listed on a customer’s account if they suspect financial exploitation, but also to potentially reach out to another relative with their concerns if all else fails. In exchange, banks and credit unions that undergo this training won’t be held civilly liable for disclosing their concerns to the proper people and authorities.

The bill directs the Virginia Bureau of Financial Institutions to create the training guidelines by January 2026.

Janine Williamson, who is Cook’s niece, has been pushing for stronger protections following her uncle’s death. She said she hopes the measure will lead to mandatory standards.

Williamson sued the credit union where her uncle banked over his losses. Records show the financial institution had reported concerns to Adult Protective Services and, in court records, the institution indicated it had warned Cook “numerous times” he was being victimized.  

Williamson’s case was dismissed, and she is now appealing that decision.

More than 88,000 people over age 60 reported losing a combined $3.1 billion in elder financial scams, according to the Internet Crime Complaint Center’s 2022 Elder Fraud Report.

Last year, Baltimore saw historic declines in homicides while the District saw a historic spike.

The News4 I-Team has been investigating the reasons for the gun violence and looking for solutions over the past two years. While investigating why D.C.’s neighboring city up Interstate 95 was having measurable success in its fight against homicide, the I-Team found that both cities consult with some of the same experts to reduce crime, and although D.C. spends significantly more each year than Baltimore, the trends have been different. 

Kelief Hendricks said he’s an example of the changes in Baltimore.  

“I was caught up in the street life,” the 22-year-old said.

In 2022 he was one of hundreds shot, but he survived.

“I would say wrong place at the wrong time,” Hendricks said.

Hendricks’ family felt the pain of gun violence before. He said he lost his dad to gun violence one month before he was born. Without a dad, the men he saw on the corner filled that void and guided him in the wrong direction.

“It was all I seen growing up was people selling drugs,” he said. “So, I just went, okay, they got nice things, I want nice things, and I want to be able to provide for my family.”

Hendricks said he knows he’s lucky to be alive. The year he was shot, 330 others died in Baltimore. And in the two years that have passed, something has happened in his city: progress. 

Jeremy Biddle lives in D.C. but recently served as special advisor for the Group Violence Reduction Strategy to Baltimore’s mayor and police Commissioner. Now he serves as senior advisor for the University of Pennsylvania’s Crime and Justice Policy Lab.

He told the I-Team that before taking the job in Baltimore, he had a list of must haves for the collaboration to be successful.

“Leadership from the mayor first,” he said. “If you don’t have city and political leadership that’s deeply invested in doing this and doing it the right way, meaning not having a plan that you abandoned after a month with the first road bump, but really making a plan and sticking with it, you can’t get anywhere.”

In 2021, Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott initiated a comprehensive violence prevention plan consisting of three pillars: treating violence like a public health issue, promising community engagement and government collaboration and evaluating and providing accountability for what’s working and what’s not.

“It’s not just flooding areas, doing car stops, field interviews,” Biddle said. “It’s knowing the people involved and focusing.”

And he said that plan included very specific goals.

“You understand who’s most directly impacted by violence, and you craft and tailor a strategy directly around that population,” he said.

That includes people like Hendricks, who’s been involved with a program called Roca for a year and a half.

“This program, it changed me,” he said.

Roca Managing Director JT Timpson admits his staff is relentless in trying to break through to those most at risk of being caught up in violence, knocking on doors and not taking no for an answer.

“We built a program for young people who we knew wouldn’t show up,” he said. “We built a program for young people we knew we have to go drag out of bed because they are the ones who need it the most.”

Timpson told the I-Team Roca takes a holistic approach — not only providing things like job training — but helping young people understand their emotions and behaviors through therapy and healing.

“Trauma is living in Baltimore for a lot of our young people,” he said. “We define trauma as we train. We define trauma as the fear that won’t turn off, so imagine that, imagine what our young people go through every day living here.”

While there is still substantial violence in Baltimore, for the first time since 2015 the city had fewer than 300 homicides last year – 263 according to the police department. That’s a 22% decrease in the past two years.

Biddle said there is a difference between Baltimore and D.C.

“I will say this, D.C. has a lot going for it,” he said. “It has a good community violence intervention, infrastructure, strong street outreach, strong resources behind kind of transformative mentorship and life coaching. What it does not have is a strategy. Baltimore city has a strategy. That is the difference.”

“Mayor (Muriel) Bowser has set clear priorities for reducing crime, gun violence and juvenile crime to create a safer, stronger Washington, D.C.,” D.C. Deputy Mayor for Public Safety and Justice Lindsey Appiah told the I-Team. “This means ensuring all residents are safe, victims of violent crime experience justice and those that harm our community are held accountable.”

The office went on to say there have been encouraging results, with violent crime and homicides down compared to this time last year.

David Muhammad with the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform has helped both cities develop strategies for reducing gun violence.

“While not perfect at all, [Baltimore’s leaders] are putting the pieces in place to reduce gun violence, and so, this specificity and intensity is working in Baltimore,” he said. “Baltimore is not resource rich, is not a place that I would call resource rich, but they have focused their resources.”

Bowser previously said D.C. spends more than $100 million a year on programs to reduce gun violence. In Baltimore they’re spending about a quarter of that $22 million to $25 million a year according to the mayor’s office.

gun violence Jan 29

Report looks at the drivers of gun violence in DC

gun violence Jan 5

Baltimore celebrates historic 20% drop in homicides even as gun violence remains high

Timpson said working together is important and that Roca is sharing resources with D.C. by doing training with some of the District’s violence interrupters.

“Here’s the thing: If they don’t enter into this work in a healthy space, then they’re going to crash out, and that’s what happens to a lot of people who do this,” he said. “We crash and burn so fast because we’re dealing with trauma constantly.”

And while Roca believes in educating and healing, counselor Tyrone Kent said there is also talk about consequences.

“I would say that police in prosecuting and in some situations, prison is necessary,” he said. “Without accountability, there is no self-evaluation … You know, if you don’t self-evaluate, you don’t change.”

Hendricks said he’s accepting the change he’s learned, and for the first time, he’s seeing a new purpose for his own life. He hopes to one day work with youth.

“If I can change, I know the next generation under me can change,” he said.

Reported by Tracee Wilkins, produced by Rick Yarborough, shot by Jeff Piper, and edited by Jeff Piper and Steve Jones.

“I basically have three jobs, my third being Uber, and just trying to save up money,” said Adam who drives for Uber a few times a week around the D.C. region.

News4 agreed not to use his last name because he’s concerned about his safety after what happened to him in December.

He got a pickup request via Uber’s Connect service, which started up early in the pandemic to help transport things like care packages and gifts to people. When he pulled up to an apartment complex off Suitland Parkway in Southeast D.C.

“The gentleman went to my back door and placed a loosely tied bag in the back of my car,” Adam said.

But while Adam drove to the delivery address, the bag started flying around, he said. So, he called the customer back to make sure there was something inside.

“And he said yeah it’s in there,” Adam said.

According to Uber’s website, there’s a list of items that aren’t allowed to be delivered, such as alcohol, weapons and drugs — whether pharmaceutical, over-the-counter or recreational.

When Adam looked closer at the bag in his back seat, he got nervous.

“I could see through the bag and what looked like to be drugs. Um, it looked like loosely packed pills,” he said.

Those pills he just picked up turned out to be oxycodone, he said.

“Unfortunately, I was the drug mule in that situation,” Adam said.

While it’s difficult to know how often drugs are being transported through ride shares, there’s plenty of chatter about it online. The I-Team found reports of similar cases in other cities, including Chicago and Tampa. And in Arizona, a mother said her 22-year-old daughter died after overdosing on fentanyl delivered via Uber Connect.

But sometimes, ride-share drivers are not innocent bystanders, investigators said. Two Virginia men were charged in D.C., accused of using ride-share services to sell cocaine. 

“We allege that the person wasn’t just a unknowing delivery person, that they were actually actively involved,” U.S. Attorney Matt Graves told the I-Team.

While packages delivered by the U.S. Postal Service and other companies are randomly inspected, Uber Connect does not.

“My first action was to throw them out and then call Uber to let them know what was happening,” said Adam.

That made an already stressful situation even worse, he said.

“Uber took too long to answer,” Adam said. “They didn’t know who I should speak to. They kept bouncing me around to different individuals. And while I was on hold with Uber, the guy called me four times.”

Adam said he also got mixed messages from the company. One text apologized for his experience and said he wouldn’t be paired with the customer again. Another message noted Adam needed to return the items because the customer had complained.

The I-Team asked Uber about Adam’s experience.

“We are committed to the safety of Uber drivers and delivery people,” a spokesperson said. “Using Uber for illegal activity is expressly prohibited and may result in losing access to the platform. We have a global investigations team that aims to identify suspected crime on the platform, take action against accounts connected to illegal activity and work with law enforcement on their investigations.”

Uber said drivers can decline a request to pick up or cancel a delivery if they feel unsafe and that it won’t count against them. A company spokesperson said Adam was not penalized for not completing the delivery.

D.C. police said any person who discovers suspicious items should immediately call 911 and not make contact with the materials.

News4 I-Team

News4 I-Team Feb 20

I-Team fights for access to Alexandria arena deal details, comes up against black ink and withheld records

News4 I-Team Feb 16

Push for new product safety regulations on lithium-ion batteries as fire concerns grow

Adam said he did call police, too, but since he had dumped the drugs, they didn’t take a report.

Going forward, he’s changing course.

“I just drive people,” he said. “I don’t I don’t do the package thing anymore.”

Reported by Tracee Wilkins, produced by Rick Yarborough, and shot and edited by Steve Jones and Jeff Piper.

For months, the I-Team filed Freedom of Information Act requests in D.C., Richmond and Alexandria seeking emails, letters, presentations, studies and documents related to how the deal came together and the studies supporting it. Except for a long-sought study released Friday, the results have been limited.

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin unveiled the proposal in December and said at the time that “any project like this would first and foremost be good for the Virginia taxpayer.”

His sell was “no upfront cost” to taxpayers to build what Monumental Sports and Entertainment’s owner Ted Leonsis calls the most advanced arena ever. Of the $2 billion it is expected to cost, at least $1.5 billion is tax dollars collected once the sports complex is built.  

We’re told by his team that the governor and Leonis met face-to-face at least three times in July, September and November of 2023. High-level staff meetings were held before and after those. The I-Team asked to see PowerPoint decks, letters or notes from those meetings. We were denied. Once the deal was announced, we requested emails between the governor and his staff and Monumental. Those too were denied. No explanation or citation of any legal exemption was given.

In December, a select group of Virginia lawmakers, the Major Employment and Investment Project Approval Commission, met at the State Capitol in Richmond and unanimously approved the deal.

Using Virginia Open Records laws, we asked to see the documents they saw in closed session before voting.  The group provided the one-page agenda, but that was all. There’s no mention of a billion-dollar project on the agenda. According to a video of the open portion of the meeting, lawmakers referred to it only as “Project Potter” without any mention of the cost.

In the closed meeting – the one where elected leaders agreed to a plan putting Virginians on the hook for a billion plus dollars – legislative staffers connected to the Commission withheld “all meeting materials.”

“The law does not require their disclosure,” they wrote the I-Team.

Sports economists who study how your dollars are used on arena projects tell the I-Team the details matter, and the promises are easy to make but harder to fulfill.

“I think that it’s often the case when these deals are presented, they’re presented as though it’s totally done,” Kennesaw State University economist J.C. Bradbury told the I-Team, “There’s no reason to fight back when in fact, there is a huge fight coming.”

Virginia Feb 19

Virginia state Senate budget proposal strips funding for new arena

Alexandria Feb 16

Alexandria arena study predicts 22% job growth; economist calls it ‘a fantasy document'

Bradbury, who has studied many arena proposals and is generally a skeptic of them, told the I-Team that Virginia taxpayers have every right to be upset with the secrecy of this deal.

“All the research that has been done ever by economists, regional scientists, urban planners, they tend to find there’s little to no economic impact from hosting professional sports teams or building new stadium, and that public dollars devoted to subsidizing them are poorly spent. It’s not a great use of money,” Bradbury said.

Andrew MacDonald is a former vice mayor in Alexandria and is now part of the Coalition to Stop the Arena at Potomac Yard. He said he too has tried to get some of these documents without much more luck.

“They clearly don’t want us to, to fully understand how this whole how this process began,” McDonald told the I-Team. “You can’t make good decisions if you aren’t providing information for people. And it basically begs the question, is everything just a fantasy?”

For months, the I-Team has been asking for documents with the City of Alexandria, where the posted summary of the deal shows taxpayers will pay $106 million to develop projects around the arena and share in the risk of the bonds.

Attorneys for the City of Alexandria denied those requests calling the documents proprietary and confidential. They claimed releasing them could jeopardize the deal. Those attorneys eventually released the $108,362 contract to do the analysis, but redacted much of the work to be done.

Just days ago, Alexandria Mayor Justin Wilson told the I-Team: “I am frustrated at how long it is taking [to release deal documents]… I wanted this out as soon as possible. I wanted this out in December, but we’ll get it out as soon as we can. “

Days after that, the Alexandria Economic Development Partnership released a partially redacted Economic Impact Analysis.

The analysis projects billions in economic impact and the creation of more than 22,000 jobs at the sports and entertainment complex.

Once he read the analysis, economist Bradbury called it “simply not credible.”

Bradbury said it raises more questions about huge job creation figures, where all the new revenue would come from, why some portions are still redacted and the basic methods the study relied on. He said it makes clear the need to get this material out early in the process – instead of now – with three weeks left for Virginia lawmakers to consider the proposal.

“This is very common in stadium deals where you want to put the numbers out and you don’t want to give people time to talk about them or reflect upon them, because it always results in, revealing the problems with these numbers. And the more people hear about them, and hear about the problems with, the more likely they are to question them.”

The Alexandria Economic Development Partnership stands by the project and the analysis that supports it. Stephanie Landrum, AEDP’s CEO, told the I-Team: “The benefits of a fully built-out Potomac Yard are very real — monetarily, but also in the creation of a new, vibrant, walkable, dense, transit-oriented neighborhood and entertainment district.”

Correction (Feb. 20, 11:34 a.m.): This story previously misstated the name of AEDP’s CEO. It’s Stephanie Landrum. This article has been updated.

“My sister called me and said: ‘Tom, the house is on fire,’” Kennedy recalled.  

Just days before Christmas, a fire broke out in his Sandy Spring, Maryland, garage, quickly spreading to other parts of the home. It wasn’t long before firefighters found the cause: lithium-ion batteries he had purchased for his yard tools. Kennedy said he bought the batteries last summer from a local hardware store and kept them on their chargers in his garage, where they sat for months until they exploded.

Though many by now have heard of fires caused by faulty or after-market batteries in e-mobility devices like e-bikes or scooters, Kennedy said he had no idea the batteries powering his tools posed a risk.

“I didn’t know that, and I guarantee you, no one in my neighborhood knew that,” he said. “They do now.”

Stories like his have become increasingly common as the use of lithium-ion batteries has soared during the past 20 years. The batteries fuel thousands of everyday products, but have also been blamed for exploding and causing deadly house fires.

The risk is fueling a growing push for the U.S. to impose federal regulations governing their safety in products — something fire safety experts called for this week in a congressional hearing. As of now, safety standards are voluntary.

Though national data is hard to find, cities like New York reported more than 250 fires caused by e-scooters, e-bikes and hoverboards last year alone.

Closer to home, a spokesman for Montgomery County Fire & Rescue Service said it battled at least 24 major fires involving these batteries last year. Fairfax County had 17 incidents and the District had eight, according to the International Association of Fire Chiefs.

At least 19 people died across the nation because of fires caused by micromobility devices powered by lithium-ion batteries from January 2021 through November 2022, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.

“Anything that used to have a power cord and has a battery now probably has a lithium-ion battery,” explained Adam Barowy, an engineer who studies the batteries for Underwriter Laboratories’ Fire Safety Research Institute. “They are so good at what they do. They provide a lot of power.”

The batteries, which range in size, power products including mobile phones, toothbrushes, hand vacuums, security systems, kids toys and more. According to an industry analyst with SmarterX, a retail and consumer goods data company, the batteries can be found in more than 40,000 consumer products.

Barowy said while most of these aren’t cause for concern, some can be, if the batteries aren’t safely charged and stored.

His team has studied how quickly things can go wrong when lithium-ion battery cells overheat and go into what they call “thermal runaway.” In one of FSRI’s experiments, an e-scooter erupted from smoke to flames in just seconds.

“I think we’re all still learning about the hazards of lithium-ion batteries and the types of things that can happen with unregulated products,” he said.

His organization has developed voluntary safety standards. Barowy said that, after Singapore adopted them, the country saw its number of tragedies involving e-mobility products and lithium-ion batteries drop from about 100 incidents in 2020 to 10 in 2022.

There are signs federal regulation could be on the way. A U.S. House committee recently advanced legislation that would create a safety regulation for rechargeable lithium-ion batteries used in products like e-bikes. It has yet to be approved by Congress.

Until then, the CPSC said in a statement to News4: “Development of potential mandatory safety rules is a time-consuming process, under existing statutes” and that its focus is to “provide important safety information as quickly as possible to industry and consumers.”

Kennedy just wishes he had more of a warning on the batteries he bought so he would’ve known not to keep them on their chargers. He said it will take well over a year for him to be able to move back home. Until then, he’s sharing his family’s unforgettable Christmas story with anyone who will listen.

“That might save a lot of people’s property,” he said. “Could save some lives.”

Using lithium-ion batteries safely

• Don’t leave batteries on the charger. Once they’re charged, unplug them.
• Place larger lithium-ion batteries, like those for power tools, on timers, so the charger will automatically shut off.
• Be wary of after market batteries and only use batteries recommended or made by the manufacturer for your product.
• Never throw these batteries in the trash. Take them to a battery recycling center or hazardous waste site.
• Don’t try to manipulate or alter the batteries. Experts said this dramatically increases risk of fire.

Source: UL’s Fire Safety Research Institute and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission

This story was reported by Susan Hogan, produced by Katie Leslie, shot by Steve Jones and edited by Jeff Piper.

It would be equal to Alexandria’s job creation since April 2000, according to Federal Reserve data, and represents a 22% job growth attributed solely to the sports and entertainment complex.

But a sports economist who reviewed the report called it “a fantasy document.”

After months of refusing to release the report, economic planners in Alexandria rolled it out on a background call with reporters Friday. It was posted online at the same time. In order to hear the authors and economic planners discuss the report, reporters, including those at News4, had to agree not to reveal the identity of speakers or answers they gave. 

The release comes as the arena plan continues to face tough opposition in Richmond. Thursday night, the Washington Post reported Sen. Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth, said she would strip the arena language from the budget bill in the Senate. That came days after she said she wouldn’t take up the bill in the Senate Finance Committee, which she chairs. There are just three weeks to go in the legislative session. 

The 29-page report released Friday reveals and confirms a few things. To create the $12 billion economic impact (over the next 40 years), supporters are relying on the complex hosting 429 annual events:

• 221 events at the arena
• 115 more at the concert hall
• 93 conferences at the complex

The study predicts 10,475 of the jobs created would be office jobs not related to the arena. That’s more than one of every 10 jobs currently in Alexandria. The traffic impacts people have been concerned about are not just related to game days.

Asked about the job creation projections, Stephanie Landrum, the president and CEO of the Alexandria Economic Development Partnership, told the News4 I-Team, “Alexandria is somewhat of an exporter of jobs. Many of its residents work in other jurisdictions. The job creation projections are along a 15+ year ramp-up as the entire district is developed and then occupied.”

There are also several sections redacted or blacked out in Friday’s report, including how much money existing businesses bring into the area now and how much money HR&A economists predict people will spend at events.

Monumental Move

Alexandria Feb 9

Big step for Monumental move, but even supporters say ‘long way to go'

Alexandria Feb 13

Virginia House passes Alexandria sports arena bill

transportation Feb 6

Potomac Yard Metro station could have 1+ hour of crowding after arena events: report

JC Bradbury, a sports economist at Kennesaw State University who has studied many reports like this and is generally skeptical of sports-based economic predictions, reviewed the report and called it “a fantasy document designed to give the appearance of an economic rigor when it is just gobbledygook of meaningless nonsense that serves as a pretense for claiming a large economic impact.”

“We agree that building a single stadium in a sea of parking is a bad idea,” Landrum responded. “Alexandria rejected that exact idea in the same location once before. But what we are evaluating today is two professional sports teams playing in an arena that is a small part of a much larger, privately owned, taxable district. The benefits of a fully built-out Potomac Yard are very real — monetarily but also in the creation of a new, vibrant, walkable, dense, transit-oriented neighborhood and entertainment district.”

The I Team worked for months to get documents like this. Monday on News4, the I-Team will show what it faced trying to get other detailed information on this deal from elected leaders that they want taxpayers to fund.

This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser.

The report is the first from the VA’s new equity team launched last summer.

According to the study, in 2023 the VA looked at all mental health claims of close to 150,000 veterans who separated from active duty in 2017 and 2018.

It found while more Black veterans currently apply and receive slightly higher disability ratings than white vets, there’s a gap when it comes to claims for mental health conditions, including post-traumatic stress disorder.

Black veterans had a lower grant rate of 70% compared to 76% for white veterans. The report said that gap has declined since 2017, showing some improvement.

Over the past year, the News4 I-Team, NBC News and five other NBC stations have been telling the stories of Black vets who fought for years for some of the same benefits given to their white counterparts.

The Government Accountability Office released a study last summer looking at disability claims data by race and ethnicity over a 10-year span from 2010 to 2020. It found Black vets received the lowest approval rating with 61% overall compared to white vets with 75%.

The VA said its newest study showed that since 2017, Black vets have grant rates better or equal to others when they apply for disability compensation benefits within the first year of leaving the military and when they use a VA-accredited Veterans Service Organization.

Cindy Noel, an Air Force veteran who manages predischarge planning sites for the Veterans of Foreign Wars, said while she’s grateful for the work being done, she thinks the VA needs to dig more into why claims are denied.

“But when you look at what’s not being granted and the longer road it takes to get those denial turned around, that’s a bigger issue,” Noel said.

The VA said as part of its action plan, it’s visiting 15 or more Department of Defense installations to connect with servicemembers before they leave, updating training and conducting outreach directly to Black vets to make sure they’re applying for benefits.

The VA said it will continue to study and address the issue of disparities.

This article was reported by Tracee Wilkins, Rick Yarborough and NBC Philadelphia’s Lucy Bustamante. The report was shot and edited by Steve Jones.

During the Office of Unified Communications’ annual performance and oversight hearing Thursday, Councilmembers Brooke Pinto and Zachary Parker both questioned the agency’s response to the District Dogs flooding, in which 10 dogs drowned last August in flash flooding at a doggy daycare in Northeast.

At one point, OUC leaders were expected to release an after-action report into the incident, but on Thursday, OUC Director Heather McGaffin said the report would instead come from the District’s Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency.

Still, Parker pressed McGaffin over why her agency has defied Council requests by not releasing what’s in its purview – its computer-aided dispatch (CAD) records related to the flooding response. Parker also questioned why she hasn’t released information about staffing levels on a day last year when a District resident died, reportedly after what his relatives have publicly slammed as a slow response from first responders. Parker noted the agency is required by law to comply with the Council’s requests for documents or information.

“What I’m struggling with, director, is there’s a pattern of asking for information and then we don’t get it,’” Parker told McGaffin, later warning: “Legally a District agency cannot respond with, ‘I’m not going to produce that information.’”

During the hearing, McGaffin said she would discuss the matter with her general counsel and get back to the committee. Parker asked for the CAD reports by close of business Thursday and staffing levels for the date of the D.C. resident’s death. McGaffin wouldn’t commit to that but said she’d get them responses in what she called a “timely manner.”

News4 asked D.C.’s homeland security agency when it will release the District Dogs after-action report but has not yet received a response.

OUC has long faced criticism over its performance, such as misrouted calls or long hold times, with many errors blamed on short-staffing. Forced by the Council to provide greater transparency on staffing levels and errors, last fall OUC released data showing it had been short-staffed a third or more of the time since last July.

McGaffin testified Thursday the agency has made gains in hiring call takers – with vacancies down from 57 to 14, but admitted the agency has struggled to make similar gains in hiring dispatchers.

As of today, she said, OUC has 29 open dispatcher positions, which according to an I-Team analysis accounts for about 25% of all dispatcher roles. They are the OUC employees who send police or firefighters to a call.

Ahead of Thursday’s hearing, OUC submitted written records showing a decline in how many calls get answered in 10 seconds or less each year.  The records show OUC’s goal for last year was 90% of calls answered in 10 seconds or less, but the same records show OUC only met that goal 74% of the time. Without explanation, OUC noted in its report that its performance has “continually improved.” 

On Thursday, OUC leaders told Council the national standard changed in recent years to 15 seconds. According to data on its website, OUC only met that standard 78% of the time in fiscal year 2023.

McGaffin testified Thursday her agency has seen more recent signs of improvement, telling Council that, last week, it met the 15-second standard six out of seven days.

“I think it’s important to saturate Congress with truth tellers now,” he told a voter recently.

Dunn was a U.S. Capitol Police officer on Jan. 6. He resigned in December 2023 to launch his campaign.

“I don’t think we have the luxury to stand back and hope that everything works out,” Dunn told the News4 I-Team. “Democracy, I think, is under attack.”

There are signs he could be. too. Dunn showed the I-Team a social media threat he received shortly after announcing his campaign, warning him he “should have died” on Jan. 6.

“Do you try to reason with a person like that, or do you just continue to stay motivated and fight?” Dunn asked out loud. “This is what’s at stake, people that believe that political violence is acceptable.”

He’s far from the only one suggesting that’s so.

“2024 is the big year. It’s a federal election,” said Dr. Garen Wintemute of University of California Davis as he explained his latest research into political violence to the I-Team.

Wintemute is an emergency room physician who’s studied political violence for years. His most recent work — surveying more than 8,600 Americans — shows just how widespread the support is for political violence. A third of them said violence can usually or always be justified.

Wintemute is concerned what that could mean this election year.

“I think there are lots of people who are determined that if they can have their way, that election will have a particular outcome regardless of what the vote is. And they’re willing to use armed force to make that outcome come to pass,” he said. “I don’t think we’re going to have a next two years without violent rhetoric. To be honest, I think that’s a given, because it’s worked before. So, the people who have used it before are going to use it again. They’re using it now, and it works.”

Wintemute’s research shows it’s not just support for actual violence but support for people who condone it — even for anti-democratic leaders. Nineteen percent of respondents agreed that “having a strong leader for America is more important than a democracy.”

Wintemute said that number jumped to 31% for self-identified MAGA supporters.

The Southern Poverty Law Center’s Rachel Carroll Rivas echoed Wintemute’s work, telling the I-Team, “We know that these groups are organizing.”

“There is a hard right, anti-democratic, often white nationalist movement that is laying the groundwork to capture power and control in this country once again, or even for some of them for the first time in a way that I don’t even think we fully can understand. They are preparing and ready and on every front,” said Carroll Rivas, who’s studied the anti-government movement for almost 20 years.

“In 2022, it felt like a pause,” she said. “At the second half of 2023, we see sort of a reformation and eyes on building towards 2024 and 2025 and the opportunity for a hard right to recapture the power of government, to push for authoritarian rule or to use violence again.”

News4 I-Team

DC Public Schools (DCPS) Feb 2

Understanding absenteeism in schools: ‘It's such a deeper issue'

gun violence Jan 30

An officer's hope: ‘That better day is coming,' DC police veteran says

A just released report from U.S. Capitol Police shows 8,008 threats in 2023 against members of Congress and those the USCP protect. It is up 7% from 2022. U.S. Capitol Police Assistant Chief Ashan Benedict warned, “This is going to be a very busy year for our special agents.”

The Brennan Center for Justice surveyed local and state elected officials and reported in late January, “More than 40% of state legislators experienced threats or attacks within the past three years, and more than 18% of local officeholders experienced threats or attacks within the past year-and-a-half. The numbers balloon to 89% of state legislators and 52% of local officeholders when less severe forms of abuse — insults or harassment such as stalking — are included.””

A separate Brennan study asked election workers about threats. Sixty percent of those surveyed were very or somewhat worried about the “safety of your colleagues and/or staff including other election officials and election workers.”

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Rick Yarborough, and shot and edited by Steve Jones.

It was a trip Kevon could hardly have imagined just a few years ago, when the honor roll student struggled to make it to class after witnessing the death of his brother. On July 4, 2020, 11-year-old Davon McNeal was killed by a stray bullet in D.C. – a tragedy that sent the family spiraling in grief. In the months that followed, even more family members died, and school became an afterthought.

“When I was in sixth grade, I didn’t come to school a lot because I had a lot going on at home,” Kevon told the News4 I-Team.

Stories like Kevon’s are behind the numbers released last November showing the District of Columbia has some of the highest absenteeism rates in the nation. According to a November report from the Office of the State Superintendent of Education, 43% of D.C. students were chronically absent the last school year, meaning they missed school at least 10% of the time.

During the pandemic, schools across the country saw record levels of absenteeism. Some, like the District, are still struggling to rebound. Prince George’s County Public Schools reports 32% of its students were chronically absent last school year. In Montgomery County, the figure is 27%, and in Fairfax County schools, the percentage is 17%.

“Most folks think that either mom is negligent and just not taking her kid to school or the kid is somewhere cutting. It is such a deeper issue,” said Kichelle Coleman, a social worker and head of Boys Town Washington DC. Her organization helps schools and families with high truancy rates.

In her work to prevent families from being pulled into the child welfare system for educational neglect, she said she’s encountered a variety of reasons a family may struggle to get their kids to school – from unstable housing to transportation problems and lack of childcare.

“Or let one child be sick, let mom be sick, and then they just can’t get them to school,” she said.

Experts say people with means can more easily manage these problems than low income families and that the problems can be especially felt in some communities of color. D.C.’s report found Black students were nearly 10 times as likely to be chronically truant as their white peers.

“Think about it through this middle-class lens,” said Howard University School of Education Professor Ivory Toldson. “Of course, the parent is going to drop you off. We don’t think about parents that don’t have cars. [Or] of course the parent is going to wake you up in the morning. Well, think about the parents that have to get to work by 4 a.m.”

Toldson, the author of “No BS (Bad Stats),” says much of the truancy issue experienced across the country is deeply rooted in inequality, from the missing pages of Black history in some schools to policies that put more emphasis on standardized tests than student needs.

He said there have been generational disconnects from American education in the Black community, and while overall historic graduation rates are improving, the reasons that some Black families, particularly males, give up on education, remain.

“The schools that have a lot of Black students — there’s this constant cloud over it,” Toldson said. “You’re at risk just because you’re at the school … your stats across every indicator is worse at this school than anywhere else.”

Liz Cohen, policy director of a think tank called FutureEd, said data bear out that disconnect. She pointed to a DCPS survey that assesses, in part, how connected kids feel to their schools. 

“Every year, about 50% of kids in grades six through 12 will say that they feel a sense of belonging and 50% don’t,” she said.

Noting D.C.’s absenteeism report came out several months after the 2022-2023 school year ended, Cohen called for local districts to create a public dashboard showing up-to-date attendance rates so that policy makers and school leaders can respond more quickly to the data.   

She also said D.C. and urban school districts across the country must do a better job of assessing why some children are disengaged, but cautioned against turning to consequences.

“Instead of thinking about who do we blame and who do we punish, I would like to see the city think about what do we need to know and whom do we need to talk to understand,” she said.

Kramer Middle School Principal Katreena Shelby said that, to turn her school’s attendance problem around during the pandemic, she asked those questions of her students.

“One of the things that the students said that they wanted is an opportunity to talk to an adult for 45 minutes at least every single week …  a conversation about them, their needs and how they were feeling,” Shelby said.

By providing those weekly chats, additional tutoring, before and after school programing, and even coaching for parents on communicating with their kids, Shelby said her school saw its roughly 80% truancy rate drop to 20% in just three years. Her team of educators are now able to focus even more deeply on the kids still struggling to get to class.

Among the people who benefited from Kramer’s program was Kevon, whose mother is now a parent advocate on staff, helping students and parents with whatever they need. Crystal McNeal said becoming more deeply involved with the school community helped lift her out of depression following her young son’s death.

“I love it. I love being around the teachers, the staff, the students,” McNeal said. “It’s a blessing.”

Kevon said he gives this advice to friends who are still struggling: “Just don’t give up. Just do your best. If you can’t make it — try the next day. Just come to school.”

This story was reported by Tracee Wilkins, produced by Katie Leslie, shot by Jeff Piper and Steve Jones, and edited by Jeff Piper.

But Senate leaders haven’t yet indicated when, or if, the nominees could receive a final vote on the Senate floor. All seven were this close last year but never got the needed approval. Requests for information submitted to Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s office were not immediately returned.

Meanwhile, 19% of the Superior Court’s judgeships – totaling 12 positions – remain vacant.

The District’s Superior Court hears civil, criminal, family, local tax and probate cases. According to the court’s most recent annual report, 31,965 cases were pending as of Dec. 31, 2022. If the courts were completely staffed, each judge would handle 516 cases. Due to the vacancies, each judge must handle an additional 124 cases on average due to the vacancies.

A document obtained by the News4 I-Team from the courts indicates the vacancies contribute to an unsustainable workload amid what the document calls an “exponential increase in violent crimes in the District, involving both juveniles and adults.”

“These increases mean there are more cases coming in that must be heard within statutorily mandated time frames, by substantially fewer judges than is sustainable,” the unsigned document continues. “As a practical matter, ever-increasing caseloads paired with an insufficient number of judges, results in delayed justice. While judges work tirelessly to manage assignments, these bloated caseloads inevitably prolong the scheduling of trials and hearings, meaning the public simply must wait longer to have their day in court and their disputes resolved.”

As he urged colleagues to approve the nominations of seven judicial nominees, Homeland Security Committee Chair Gary Peters, D-Mich., said the “extensive vacancies … are straining the court, which handles some of the highest caseloads in the country and plays an important role in public safety all across our nation’s capital.”

All seven passed through committee, but each had some Republican opposition. 

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, who serves as the top Republican on the committee, was among the GOP members who voted against many of the nominees. His office did not return an I-Team request for an explanation, nor did he offer one during the portion of the committee meeting streamed online.

The nominees  — Tanya Jones Bosier, Danny Nguyen, Adrienne Noti, Kenechukwu Okocha, Katherine Oler, Judith Pipe and Charles Willoughby – will now wait to see if they receive a final vote. After their first nominations stalled last year, Senate rules sent the nominations back to the White House for reconsideration. President Joe Biden sent them back to the Senate in early January.

The I-Team asked the office of Schumer, who decides when nominations advance to a Senate floor vote. Two requests for an explanation of why there was no vote last year or if there is expectation of one this year have gone unanswered.

Last year was a tough year with 109 juveniles shot in D.C. This year, five have already been shot. But that number is down nearly half from the same time last year.

D.C. Assistant Police Chief Andre Wright knows this city better than most. Growing up in D.C., he’s seen the unique opportunities it can offer its young people. But he’s also seen what it can take, having patrolled and commanded in some of the toughest neighborhoods. He now leads the Metropolitan Police Department’s Youth and Family Engagement Bureau and says seeing kids gunned down on the streets of his hometown has taken a toll on him.

“Every time I see it, every time I experience, I’m on the scene quite a few times of these things. It’s not anything that you ever get used to or want to get used to,” said Wright. “I’m not used to it. I’m still not. Twenty-nine years of law enforcement, it still grates me and it still shakes me when I come on a scene and I see what was to be our future.”

While the number of juveniles shot in the District have steadily climbed since 2021, Wright is confident the trend can be turned around.

“Do I think that we could turn this around? I absolutely think we can do it. I think we will,” he said. “I think that this goes back to, A, having hope. B, making sure that everybody, everybody … has to play a responsibility in this. It cannot just be the conversation of what is the police doing.”

Wright is not passing the buck on officers’ roles in curbing youth violence. D.C. has plenty of programs aimed at cutting it, and the city’s struggles to arrest and prosecute young people involved in crime are well documented.

But he told the I-Team arrests can’t be the only police interaction that redirects a kid, which makes places like the Boys & Girls Clubs of America so important.

“I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for my interaction with the Boys & Girls Clubs,” said Wright.

Kids who grow up around the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Washington in Northeast, like Wright did, are no strangers to violent crime.  He assigns some of his officers to be there after school hoping to grow those relationships with police early.

“Our officers are here in the evenings, when they get here, when they get out of school,” Wright said.

But Wright knows many of the department’s officers are already stretched too thin, the pace of the job just keeps them too busy.

“They’re exhausted from working eight-, 10-, 12-, 16-hour days, running to and from and don’t really have the opportunity that I once had and others once had when we were strong in our numbers,” he said.

And yet even that hasn’t destroyed his belief that it’s going to be better.

gun violence Jan 29

Report looks at the drivers of gun violence in DC

gun violence Nov 15, 2023

As some DC families try to move away from gun violence, they find it's not always so easy

gun violence Nov 16, 2023

Gun violence: A call to action

“I hope and pray for these young folks that they get a chance to do what I did, which is outlive their mistakes,” Wright said.

When the I-Team asked him what keeps him up, what scares him, he paused for a few seconds.

“People who don’t have hope scare me. People who don’t believe that a better day is coming. People who have sentenced our youth in this city to a death sentence saying that they’re a lost generation. People who talk like that. People who believe and move in that in that manner. They scare me. They scare me,” he said. “Because you have to have hope. You have to have faith. You have to believe, first and foremost, that that better day is coming.”

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Rick Yarborough, and shot and edited by Steve Jones.

The report cites personal disputes and group conflict – gang-related shootings – as the two biggest drivers of deadly gun violence in the District. The report makes clear social media conflicts and, especially in D.C., music videos slighting crews or neighborhoods can escalate into shootings.

The analysis puts into stark terms the disproportionate impact the violence has on D.C.’s Black community.

The report finds more than 90% of the victims and suspects in homicides and shootings in the District were black and most were men, the majority between the ages of 18 and 34, despite Black residents making up less than half of D.C.’s population.

Almost 80% of homicide victims and suspects had been involved in the criminal justice system in the past – seven times on average.

Why D.C. is experiencing this level of gun violence is harder to explain.

The report’s authors reached out to police and violence interrupters for their reaction. They cited those music videos, too, and the incredibly easy access to guns in the District.

Officers also said there is a high bar to make arrests, higher bars still for prosecutors to take cases and a reduction in proactive policing due to – in officers’ words – rules from police leadership and the D.C. Council that make it harder to police. All this, they say, has led to a feeling of impunity among people.

The National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform (NICJR), which authored the report, recommends a number of changes to help reduce gun violence. Some have already been put in place, like police holding a weekly review of all shootings to try to prevent retaliatory violence.

But it also recommends training more officers on violent crime suppression and creating a nonfatal shootings investigations unit.

Finally, NICJR Executive Director David Muhammad recommends focusing more intensely on the people believed to be most at risk of committing or being a victim of gun violence

“The problem is a small number of young adults who are at a very high risk of being involved in gun violence. The problem’s also the massive number of guns,” he said. “But the part that we could do something about is a small number of young adults who have high risk factors who would be responsive to somebody engaging them in an intensive manner.”

gun violence Nov 15, 2023

As some DC families try to move away from gun violence, they find it's not always so easy

gun violence Nov 16, 2023

DC teens on gun violence: ‘Gun violence has definitely deprived me of my youth'

gun violence Nov 16, 2023

Gun violence: A call to action

“But we just have to do it,” he added. 

The researchers also found that while there’s been – in their words – an “extraordinary increase” in the number of juveniles involved in shootings, young people still constitute a small portion of overall shootings. The vast majority of shooting victims and suspects are adults, though juveniles are the ones driving carjackings.

News4 reached out to D.C. officials and police for comment.

“That’s all I knew then, and that’s all I know now to the story,” he told the News4 I-Team.

What Jackson didn’t know is the young man who was killed outside his home that day was someone D.C. leaders worried would meet a violent end. He was Jamal Gibson, a 23-year-old father and aspiring musician.

Those close to Gibson confirmed he was also part of D.C.’s People of Promise program – an effort designed to help those the District believes are most at risk for being a victim or perpetrator of violent crime – and had received other services from D.C.’s violence interruption efforts.

Several people close to Gibson declined to be interviewed on camera by News4, but by their many accounts, his death isn’t a sign those programs failed, but points out just how hard and ongoing the work is.

It also represents why one prominent violence reduction expert said D.C. must do more to get it right.

“We’ve had D.C. be one of the few cities in the country with a massive increase in gun violence and we know what we need to do, but it just hasn’t really happened,” said David Muhammad, a strategist hired by cities across the country, including the District, to develop plans to bring down gun violence.

His organization, the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform, helped design the People of Promise program and, in 2022, published a 16-point gun violence reduction plan.

“D.C. is particularly challenging given there’s a good amount of resources. There’s also a lot of talented people,” Muhammad continued. “They’re just not coming together. They’re just not coordinated.”

But that’s a criticism D.C.’s deputy mayor for public safety and justice flatly rejects.

“I don’t agree,” Lindsey Appiah said.

“I will not say we’re coordination poor,” she added. “I would say that we have ways in which we can grow in coordination and also in focus of what coordination looks like.”

And there’s a lot to coordinate. In October, the city administrator testified at a D.C. Council hearing the District has “about 100 different programs, activities and initiatives across 20 agencies” that contribute to reducing violence.

Appiah oversees some of them. In addition to police, fire and national guard, her portfolio also includes the Office of Neighborhood Safety & Engagement, which runs community-based violence prevention efforts.  

That’s separate, however, from even more violence reduction programs run by the Office of Attorney General and the city administrator, who do not report to her.

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser estimated the District spends more than $100 million a year to run these programs. In a public event last January, Bowser said evaluating the success of such programs can be “elusive” and acknowledged “there is likely some more coordination that we could do” between the programs her office runs and those by the attorney general.

At that time, Bowser also said, “I think what people want to know is if you’re spending $115 million, is it working?”

After 2023 closed with the highest number of homicides in years, the News4 I-Team asked Appiah the same.

“We have to look at: Are we getting the types of outcomes we want? Our crime numbers are telling us we have to make changes,” Appiah said.

Muhammad has long advocated for D.C. to merge its primary violence reduction efforts into a single shop with a clear leader.

“That person needs to have considerable amount of authority with police, but they need to have authority over the Office of Neighborhood Safety & Engagement, authority over the Office of Gun Violence Prevention, authority over all these other [efforts],” Muhammad said.

“D.C. is not that large to have so many offices,” he said.

Muhammad noted the District was on its way to consolidating some of those efforts under Linda Harllee Harper, who briefly led both the Office of Gun Violence Prevention and the Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement until her sudden death in May 2023. She has yet to be replaced with a permanent leader.

Councilwoman Brooke Pinto, who leads the Judiciary and Public Safety Committee, said if she had her way, she’d merge all of the city’s violence interruption programs – including those run by the attorney general – into one department with one person in charge.

“Every expert, every book I’ve read, every conversation I’ve had about best practices when it comes to violence interruption includes the point that there has to be city leadership that is behind the effort to coordinate it. That’s not what we have right now,” she said.

But Appiah said it’s not that easy and said, when it comes to public safety issues, she holds herself accountable.

“Ultimately, the buck stops with me,” she said.

Muhammad said the District is no doubt making strides, with the police department recently standing up a team to review each shooting for possible retaliatory violence. He’s hopeful even more changes could be coming this year, including hiring someone to replace Harllee Harper.

“In D.C. … we can do better and we can save lives,” he said.

No one knows, of course, if any of those changes would’ve been enough to save Gibson, whom News4 first profiled in 2018 when he was in juvenile custody receiving mentorship through another program.

Gibson eventually went to college, but for reasons that are unclear, left in the years that followed. Some of those who knew him said his mentors stayed close even when he got into legal trouble again.

In the end, they said, what Gibson did with the resources he was offered was ultimately up to him.

No one has been arrested in his murder.

This story was reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Katie Leslie, shot by Jeff Piper and Steve Jones, and edited by Steve Jones. News4 photographer Evan Carr contributed to this report.

This teacher has not been criminally charged, nor is he accused of inappropriate behavior with children, so News4 is not naming him. But according to a statement released to parents at Houston Elementary School in Northeast D.C., the teacher is now on leave and this is under investigation.

The News4 I-Team obtained two letters that were sent to this teacher on behalf of attorneys representing the D.C. apartment complex where he lives.

In those letters, Bozzuto Management accused him of recording lewd acts in public spaces within the apartment building, including the gym, and then uploading them to his social media. The letters went on to say that the videos show him walking nude in common areas, exercising nude in the building’s gym in front of other tenants, and masturbating in the gym.

They called all of this a violation of his lease agreement. In the letter, the complex banned him from public spaces within his building. In another letter, the management company informed him of their intention to file a lawsuit and begin eviction proceedings. The attorney who sent those letters confirmed them to News4.

“There are children in the building,” said a resident of the apartment complex who wanted to remain anonymous. “This is disgusting, and management is responsible for taking care of this.”

She said the behavior is widely known in the building.

These allegations do not involve children, the vice principal of Houston Elementary told parents in a letter from the school. The vice principal’s letter said the staff member is out of the building on leave and will not report while this matter is under review.

The News4 I-Team was able to confirm that this teacher joined DCPS in 2000.

And like millions of Americans, they turned to the federal government for help.

In 2020, the Perrins took out a $24,000 COVID-19 “economic injury disaster loan,” commonly called “EIDL,” from the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) to help keep their business afloat.

Their hard work paid off. While so many companies around the world closed during the pandemic, their business thrived.

“We more than doubled during COVID,” Alex said.

And they wanted to double their reach, so in 2022, the entrepreneurs said they took out a $575,000 loan to build a new and larger gym in Arlington, Virginia. During construction last year, however, they realized they needed even more money. Their lender advised taking out a new loan, and during the closing, the Perrins said they received a shock.

“They said, ‘You have an EIDL loan, and it’s coming up in default,” Alex recalled, adding, “We were shocked.”

The Perrins had made a few payments on their SBA loan in early 2023 but said they didn’t realize they had subsequently fallen behind, telling News4 they thought they had set up auto-payments. The SBA then “charged off” their loan in June 2023, which, according to the agency’s website, means the balance of the loan was removed from the agency’s accounting records, though the debt is still owed.

As a result, the Perrins’ bank couldn’t move forward with their loan until the problem was solved.

 “We were not just trying to deal with the SBA. We were trying to deal with our landlords, our bills, everything,” Chris recalled.

The Perrins made payments to bring their loan current but said trying to get the SBA to move them out of default status took several phone calls and emails — and time.  

“If there is an SBA number, we have called it every day. We emailed every day,” Chris said. 

Alex said a customer service representative explained, “There are thousands and thousands of people having the same issue, and you just have to wait your turn.”

The Perrins are far from the only borrowers in default. According to the SBA’s Office of Inspector General, roughly 1.3 million loans under $100,000 like theirs were past due, delinquent or in liquidation as of last May.

Trevor Curran and Linda Rey run a business and YouTube channel advising people how to navigate these SBA loans. They said that, unlike the Paycheck Protection Program loans, which have largely been forgiven, defaulting on EIDLs can cause big problems.

“If you want to get more money, grants or loans – not happening,” Curran said.

They said it takes time to get the problem fixed, even if the borrower pays up.

“You can bring the payments current, but you then have to send an email to SBA to say, ‘Please, update my status,’ and then wait for them to update the status in the system,” Curran continued.

It’s not uncommon to wait several weeks or longer for relief, they said, explaining they submitted a similar request for one of their clients six weeks ago and are still waiting for the process to be completed.

The SBA said that while verifying a borrower’s payments can take up to a few months, they do have an expedited process for people waiting on outside financing that can take as little as a few days. They recommend having one’s lender make that request so the SBA understands it’s legitimate.

The Perrins, however, said they weren’t informed about the expedited process.

In the end, it took about five weeks for the SBA to move them out of default, and their loan quickly went through. The Perrins opened their new Arlington gym this month.

“I’m shaking because I didn’t think it was going to happen,” Chris said.

They said while they’re grateful to the SBA for programs that help businesses like theirs, this was a growing pain they hope to never feel again.

This story was reported by Susan Hogan, produced by Katie Leslie and edited by Jeff Piper.

Tips for getting COVID-19 loans back on track

1. Make a payment. Even if you can’t pay all that you owe, pay whatever you can. If your loan is in jeopardy of assignment for collection to the U.S. Treasury, make a lump sum payment to bring the entire loan current.
2. Don’t ignore the SBA’s attempts to reach you and collect the debt, and make sure your contact information is current in their system.
3. Reach out by phone (833-853-5638) and email to discuss your situation. Plus, send follow up emails for every phone conversation to cesc@sba.gov and put your SBA disaster loan number in the subject line.
4. Read your EIDL loan authorization and agreement (LAA) to understand all of your responsibilities.

Source: EIDL Experts Trevor Curran and Linda Rey and others

Sheriff Tim Chilton has lived and worked in the community for more than two decades as a police officer.

“I didn’t have to meet a lot of folks. I knew them when the campaign started,” he said.

But there’s a lot he said he didn’t know about when it comes to what was going on inside the sheriff’s office he now runs.

“You describe inheriting not exactly the operation you hoped it would be,” said Investigative Reporter Ted Oberg recently when the newly elected sheriff sat down with the News4 I-Team.

“No, not at all,” said Chilton.

He said he kept 95% of former Sheriff Scott Jenkins’ staff and deputies and pointed out they’re ready and doing a great job. Among those he didn’t rehire: Six members of the former sheriff’s family who worked for the department.

As for the auxiliary deputy program that got the former sheriff in trouble, Chilton suspended it. He’s not even certain who had an auxiliary deputy badge, he said.

“The weird thing is there’s, like, three or four different lists of auxiliaries,” Chilton said.

Asked if he knew how many auxiliary deputies had Culpeper badges, the sheriff said, “Other than what I saw on your show? Nope. I had no idea, and neither did half the people here.”

Chilton said he’s had people from all around the country call him saying they had county badges and credentials. He doesn’t know if they had county-owned weapons.

That includes the three auxiliaries indicted last year for allegedly paying bribes to former Sheriff Jenkins to get badges.

Asked if there is any evidence that the sheriff’s office had asked for the guns and property back from those under indictment before Chilton took over, he said, ”I don’t think so. I don’t think anybody did. We’ve got three or four folks that are, that are chasing down addresses, chasing down information. Hopefully we can find any more.”

One of the indicted auxiliary deputies, Frederic Gumbinner, took a guilty plea in November. Another, James Metcalf, also pleaded guilty, according to court documents made public Wednesday. A third indicted auxiliary deputy pleaded not guilty.

As did Jenkins, who Chilton said just days ago surprised him with a visit to the office.

“There was a big amount of guns that he brought back,” he said. “He had 55 guns is what he turned in the other night.”

Chilton said they might have been used by the former sheriff for training. The guns were a mix of handguns and rifles, according to Chilton, some which can immediately be used by deputies who didn’t have a rifle.

The I-Team asked Jenkins’ current criminal attorney about the guns but has not received an answer.

Chilton also showed the I-Team another gun in the department’s armory.

“It’s a fully automatic .223 and it is probably a $7,000 weapon,” he said. “This is the one that was in Texas that you guys reported on.”

The I-Team first saw that particular gun in Dallas police body camera video after a Culpeper auxiliary deputy got into a car accident there in Oct. 2022. At the time, the I-Team thought it was a semiautomatic rifle. Chilton confirmed the gun was a full auto machine gun that was eventually shipped back to Virginia from Texas. The I-Team still doesn’t have an answer as to why a Culpeper County-owned gun was in an old tennis bag in the back seat of a Texas pickup truck. Jenkin’s attorney did not respond to the I-Team’s questions.

Chilton said he’s found at least six fully automatic guns and plans to trade them in for weapons the department can actually use.

“We’re going to trade them in and get something worthy of being used for law enforcement purposes,” he said. “This isn’t necessarily one of those things.”

He also asked Virginia State Police to audit every piece of evidence the department currently has in the evidence room.

When it comes to other surprises, Chilton explained he’s spent his first several days untangling the budget and financial records, which he described as being “in disarray,” including credit card bills the new sheriff didn’t know about and couldn’t understand.

“We found some of those receipts where they were $120, $220 buffets on county taxpayer money,” Chilton said. “I don’t think that’s right.”

He said that won’t continue.

The new sheriff said he’s eager to turn the page and do what he was elected to do.

“Are you ready to talk about fighting crime?” asked Oberg.

“Yeah,” Chilton said. “I still have a lot of gas in the tank for going out here and doing it myself, but right now I’m doing nothing but finding things to fix.”

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Rick Yarborough, and shot and edited by Jeff Piper.

A second man pleaded guilty in the case involving the former Culpeper County sheriff and three people accused of bribing him to become auxiliary deputies.

James Metcalf, a Northern Virginia businessman, admitted to paying then Sheriff Scott Jenkins a $5,000 bribe in August 2022, according to court documents made public Wednesday afternoon.

In Metcalf’s case, it was a check for the sheriff’s reelection campaign.

Metcalf is the second auxiliary deputy to plead guilty in the case, following businessman Fredric Gumbinner in November.

Culpeper County Nov 20, 2023

Virginia businessman pleads guilty in Culpeper County bribery case

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Jenkins, who lost reelection in November, pleaded not guilty. His trial is set for May in Charlottesville.

Metcalf’s attorney did not return calls late Wednesday afternoon.

Metcalf agreed to cooperate against remaining defendants, including former Sheriff Jenkins.

Researchers who surveyed more than 8,600 Americans about their support for and willingness to commit political violence shared their findings recently with the News4 I-Team.

A third of those surveyed told researchers violence would usually or always be justified to uphold at least one of 17 situations researchers asked about.

The most popular, 18.7% strongly or very strongly agreed that “if elected leaders won’t protect American democracy, the people must do it themselves, even if it requires taking violent actions.”

Nearly 8.5% of people in the survey agreed strongly or very strongly with the idea of using violence “to stop an election from being stolen,” and 12.1% said political violence is justified “to preserve an American way of life I believe in.”

In another question, 19% strongly or very strongly agreed that “having a strong leader for America is more important than having a democracy.“

“[They] think it’s very important for the United States to have a leader who reflects their views and who are willing to use violence to get there,” Dr. Garen Wintemute recently told the I-Team.

“The thing that really concerns me is the possibility that all of us in the middle are not going to wake up in time to keep that from happening.”

Wintemute is an emergency room physician who started the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California, Davis and authored the survey. He told the I-Team his work in the ER led him to follow gun violence trends and a growing anti-government movement. “And then Jan. 6 happened,” Wintemute explained.

“Everybody wanted to move on to other things and kind of put political violence behind us, but the gun purchasing didn’t slacken,” he said. “I started digging into the literature on political violence and talking to the experts and realized people may be arming up. We may be getting ready for civil war or something like that. We started a program of survey research to find out if the answers to those questions were ‘yes.’”

When his team asked those thousands of Americans if they thought civil war was coming, 50.1% somewhat, strongly or very strongly agreed “in the next few years, there will be civil war in the United States.”

‘The truth doesn’t matter … The storytelling matters.’

Jason Van Tatenhove, the former media director for the anti-government group the Oath Keepers, shares the concern. He left the group before the Jan. 6insurrection but told Congress during hearings on it, “I think we need to quit mincing words and just talk about truths. What it was going to be was an armed revolution.”   

Van Tatenhove is the author of a new book, “The Perils of Extremism,” and writes for The Colorado Switchblade, an online news outlet. In his book, Van Tatenhove acknowledges the error in underestimating the movement he was once a part of. He writes Oath Keepers founder “Stewart [Rhodes] had always sprinkled the coming civil war into the messaging, but I had always made the mistake of dismissing such rhetoric. That was a mistake I will no longer make.”

“We’re in a country that’s spiraling right now, and we’ve got to figure out some ways to reengage,” Van Tatenhove told the I-Team in his Colorado hometown.

As someone who spent years crafting the Oath Keepers message, the I-Team took particular note when he said, “The truth doesn’t matter in any of this. The storytelling matters. That’s what matters. That’s what people consume. That’s what they get worked up about.”

“[Is it] also why they leave their house with a loaded weapon?” the I-Team asked.

“Yes,” Van Tatenhove replied.

He explained much of the anti-government movement fed on people’s anxiety over change in the country and then filled the gap with a notion that the work was for a greater good.

Supporters of anti-government movement show higher support for political violence, survey finds

Rachel Carroll Rivas, a 20-year researcher of the anti-government movement for the Southern Poverty Law Center, said on Jan. 6, “None of it surprised me.”

“The anti-government movement for decades used the concept that there would need to be a moment that people would have to take up arms against their own government for patriotic reasons in their minds,” she said. “So, yes, these conversations are very real, and they happen often.”

“I saw that everything that happened on Jan. 6 felt like exactly what they had been saying they were going to do when the time came. For all of those years,” she said.

And still happening — even since Jan. 6 — with the thousands of arrests and trials.

Carroll Rivas said while those cases might have cut out leadership from some groups like the Oath Keepers, a group that drew membership from elected leaders and some civic-minded volunteers, the arrests and federal cases empowered other groups like the Proud Boys or Boogaloo Boys, whose very existence, she says, is predicated on being ready to resist the government.

In Wintemute’s research, supporters of those groups, at least 70%, showed higher levels of support for political violence. According to his results, 41.5% of strong supporters of the Boogaloo movement were very or completely willing to kill a person to advance a political objective.

“Policymakers need to understand that there are groups out there interested in overthrowing the United States. And what our survey suggests is, apart from the groups, the ones who have names that we studied, there are plenty of people just out in the population who share that interest,” Wintemute said.       

Researchers however did not stop at named groups, but studied differences between non-gun owners, those who owned guns and subsets of gun owners. Overall, the survey showed support for political violence between gun owners and the general population was not much different, but support grew among those who said they were recent firearm purchasers and grew even more among those who admit they always carry a firearm outside their home.

According to the survey, 5% of non-gun owners and 6.6% of gun owners said they are “somewhat willing” or “very willing” to kill someone to advance a political objective.

That number jumped to 13.3% for respondents who say they almost always carry a weapon outside the home.

That’s hundreds of people in the survey results, but Wintemute says it equates to millions of Americans in the overall population.

“What the data tell us is there are, on any given day, thousands of armed people walking around in the United States who think that political violence is justified,” Wintemute said.

When his team drilled down even further, it found 62.5% of people who always carry weapons and 29.9% of people who recently purchased a firearm said it was very or extremely likely they would be armed when political violence is justified.

“Denial is not our friend here. We need to believe these data and act on them,” Wintemute said.

“I got sucked in and I got radicalized to a certain extent,” Van Tatenhove told the I-Team as he looked back on his time with the Oath Keepers. “I was lucky in that I was shaken awake and didn’t recognize myself anymore. And I was like, ‘What am I doing?’”

As for solutions, Van Tatenhove offered this warning: “I think our leadership needs to take a much harder stand and say this is not acceptable. This is not who we are as Americans. We’ve got to reject the notion of political violence.”

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Rick Yarborough, and shot and edited by Steve Jones.

Economists hired by the city say it will create thousands of jobs and billions in revenue across the state.

The 30,000 predicted jobs across Virginia include positions directly and indirectly created by the arena district.

The plan calls for a new arena for the Capitals and Wizards. Those teams are expected to pay about $403 million — around a quarter of the cost — but it will be mostly financed by $1.5 billion in city- and state-issued bonds.

Under the plan, announced earlier this month, those bonds will be paid off with extra revenue raised by business in the arena district.

While the newly-released analysis predicts around $7.9 billion in annual revenue across the state, there is no explanation of how it will be created.

The summary says the arena will be used for 221 nights. The NHL and NBA each play 82-game seasons (roughly 40 home games each). Without considering pre-season and possible playoff games, that would leave over 100 nights open for non-team events—not including the 115 events to be scheduled in the performing arts venue. The analysis does not say how many people have to attend, how much they will have to spend nor how many restaurants, apartments or businesses have to be occupied to fulfill projections.

Those answers may be in the full report, but only a summary was released Friday evening. You can read that summary by clicking here.

The city and state originally said they would roll out the plan Thursday, and didn’t answer when the I-Team asked if they were trying to ‘dump’ the news at 7:15 p.m. at the beginning of a holiday weekend.

This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser.

“I didn’t even see the gun at first. I just heard him say, ‘Give me your keys, Ma,’” said Monyea, who picked up the teens in D.C. for a ride to Fairmount Heights in late November. “And I turned around, like, ‘Are you kidding me? You’re not really doing this.’”

In that moment, Monyea nearly became one of a record number of carjacking victims in the D.C. area this year. 

The latest data show that while carjackings are on pace to fall by nearly 10% in Fairfax County, Virginia, which has only seen a couple dozen carjackings in 2023, the crime is increasing in other parts of the D.C. region.  

Year-to-date data shows carjacking has jumped roughly 40% in Montgomery County, Maryland, with more than 100 recorded as of mid-December. Prince George’s County, meanwhile, has seen a nearly 20% increase from last year and has recorded more than 490 carjackings so far. 

But that’s nothing compared to D.C., where carjacking has more than doubled, rising to roughly 940 carjacking reports as of this week. 

“It’s getting ridiculous,” Monyea said.  

D.C.’s surge comes at a time the News4 I-Team found carjacking is falling in some other major American cities, including New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and Baltimore, which have all seen double-digit declines in carjacking rates from 2022.  

U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Matthew Graves — whose office has fielded criticism for not pursuing more of these cases — has blamed D.C. law that loosened penalties on young violent offenders as contributing to the problem. His offices said it’s now charging more cases, and Graves is urging D.C. officials to reinstate tougher mandatory minimums for the crime.

“I have been sounding the alarm that the criminal justice system that D.C. has built does not meet the moment that we are in,” Graves said earlier this year. “The mayor has correctly flagged that the law has swung too far over the last seven years. Armed carjacking is a great example of her and my point.” 

Graves’ office recently indicted 10 young people associated with carjacking rings in the District and Maryland, alleging the groups sold the cars from a garage on Florida Avenue NE.

But University of Texas at Dallas criminologist Bruce Jacobs, who has studied carjacking for years, said while a portion of carjacking is perpetuated by organized gangs, it’s also often a crime of opportunity.  

“A lot of the reason that these kids are carjacking these vehicles are really mundane … Like, ‘I was stranded. I needed a ride. I didn’t want to wait for the bus. No one was picking me up,’” he said.  

Jacobs said while it’s tough to get a full picture of the problem due to differences in the way agencies track this form of vehicle theft, what’s clear is that roughly 75% of carjackings are committed by teens and young adults.

He agreed a perceived lack of consequences can explain some of the surge cities like D.C. are seeing.  

“It’s called vicarious punishment avoidance effects, which means, ‘Oh, my friends just did this. They didn’t get caught. Or if they did get caught … not much happened to them,'” he said. 

A quick glance at D.C.’s carjacking data suggests some of that could be at play. 

Data from the Metropolitan Police Department shows that, of the more than 900 carjackings recorded this year, there have only been about 170 arrests. It’s unclear how many carjackings those arrests are associated with. Sixty-three percent of those arrested are juveniles.

The D.C. Office of the Attorney General, which handles crimes involving kids, reports prosecuting about 57% of the roughly 170 carjacking and armed carjacking cases it received through October, saying there wasn’t sufficient evidence to pursue the rest.  

Monyea, who is driving Uber on the side to help her terminally ill daughter, managed to keep her car by doing what experts say you shouldn’t do: She fought back. While one of the teens held a gun to her face, she said, an oncoming car tooted the horn and caught his attention.  

“He turned around, and look, that was his mistake. When he did that, I shoved him as hard as I could … and then I pulled off,” she recounted.  

Two of the teens were still in her backseat but bailed out when she told them she was driving them to a police station, she said.  

At her family’s urging, she’s since installed cameras in her car and is now driving around with Kevlar plates.  

“In the event somebody else points another gun at me, at least I have a way to protect myself from the shot,” she said.

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Katie Leslie, shot and edited by Jeff Piper. News4 I-Team reporter Tracee Wilkins contributed to this report.  

A new report from the National Retail Federation said the industry had $112 billion in losses last year, mainly driven by shoplifting and retail theft.

KJ Singh, owner of JJ Liquors in Northeast D.C., told the News4 I-Team dealing with shoplifting is a daily challenge.

“Between $30 to $50 worth of merchandise every day,” he said.

That daily loss each day adds up to thousands of dollars every year.

Despite more than a dozen security cameras peering down on just about every inch of the floor in his store, thieves are still able to walk out the door undetected, he said.

“An eye of a person cannot look at 16 cameras at once,” Singh said.

Software looks for suspicious activity by shoppers

Human eyes might not be able to, but he’s counting on something else that could. Singh recently added a new level of high-tech security — artificial intelligence software developed by French company Veesion that plugs right into his 16 cameras.

The program looks for suspicious body activity from shoppers and records in real time, Veesion Sales Manager Pablo Blanco Poveda said.

“Every time someone takes an item from the store, if they put it inside the pocket, inside the trousers, inside the jacket, we send an alert so you can see that before they leave,” he said.

The News4 I-Team saw firsthand how it works with a producer agreeing to play the thief. Less than 30 seconds after he snatched a bottle of wine and put it in his coat, Singh got an alert on his phone. The message read “very suspicious activity” and provided a video clip of the producer caught in the act.

“You have the proof. So, when you go to stop someone, you are not going to do like, ‘Open your bag.’ No. You have proof; you show the video,” Poveda said.

According to Veesion, more than 350 stores in the U.S. are using the system. More than 30 are here in D.C., mostly smaller retailers.

But larger retailers also are beginning to incorporate AI to nab shoplifters.

“These are some really effective tools that can layer in on top of existing camera systems, existing camera technologies,” explained Khris Hamlin, with the Retail Industry Leaders Association, a trade association for major retail giants like Macy’s Target and Walmart.

According to the National Retail Federation survey, more than one third of respondents — 37% — said they’re researching technologies, including AI.

AI is not enough of a deterrent

While technology offers one layer of deterrent, it’s not enough, Hamlin said. Recently, the association launched the first of its kind national partnership to combat retail crime, bringing together leading retailers, law enforcement and district attorneys’ offices.

“Now you have this collaboration of different resources to be able to say, ‘How do we deal with this? How do we send that habitual offender to the correct side?’ Or, ‘How do we have a diversion program that gets it to a social service entity?’” explained Hamlin.

While a lot of business owners choose not to share their security measures, Singh wants everyone who shops in his store to know AI has an eye on them.

“We don’t need any trouble if you just don’t steal,” he said. “As long as customers know there’s somebody watching over them, they would never steal.”

Singh said since installing the technology, he’s confronted a number of shoplifters and was shocked to see some of them were his regulars.

“They were very surprised that they’ve been coming here for so long and nothing had really happened because we never bothered to look at them because they were regulars,” he said.

Reported by Susan Hogan, produced by Rick Yarborough, shot by Steve Jones and edited by Lance Ing.

On a hot September day, the News4 I-Team spotted Simon Reed, a Northeast D.C. resident, in his wheelchair along Stuart Lane in Clinton, Maryland, a suburb in Prince George’s County. He was panhandling outside a McDonald’s. 

He said he’s been living in the Clinton Healthcare Center for three years — longer than he ever expected. He said he was sent to Clinton after a medical emergency.

“I got my triple bypass, my heart surgery,” Reed said.

He told the I-Team a nonprofit that provides medical care to people experiencing homelessness in D.C. sent him to the Maryland nursing home.

Reed was one of many residents the I-Team observed over several weeks taking an almost daily dangerous trek along busy roadways in their wheelchairs and walkers.

It was that dangerous circumstance that first prompted viewer Melinda Williamson to contact the I-Team. She said she was concerned about safety for the nursing home patients.

“As you can look behind us, the residents are rolling up the hill in wheelchairs and many of them do not have motorized wheelchairs,” she said.

Williamson — a registered nurse who lives nearby — was so worried about what she saw she started talking with some of the nursing home residents to find out what was going on.

“A lot of it has to do with that there’s no place for them to go is what many of them have shared with me,” she said.  

The I-Team found Simon isn’t the only D.C. resident there.

DC lost 439 nursing facility beds in a decade

According to D.C.’s Department of Health Care Finance, 180 Medicaid beneficiaries had paid claims at the facility last year. The I-Team’s investigation found that this nursing home is part of a larger trend. 

Legal Counsel for Elderly Long-term Care Ombudsman Director Mark Miller said there’s a reason more local people — especially the city’s Medicaid patients — are being sent across the Maryland line.

“Right now, we believe there’s probably close to 500 District residents that are in Maryland facilities, and D.C. Medicaid is paying millions of dollars for these people that are not in their own community,” he said.

According to a 2021 long-term care study from D.C.’s Department of Health reviewed by the I-Team, the District lost 439 nursing facility beds in the past decade. Most of them were converted to other types of housing.

And when it comes to the D.C. Medicaid program, most nursing facilities enrolled — 31 out of 53 — were in Maryland. Three were in Virginia, though there were no D.C. residents in Virginia. 

“D.C. currently is under bedded in terms of nursing homes,” Miller said. “There’s just not the capacity to meet the current need.”

Miller called that more than an inconvenience, saying it’s also isolating for many of those residents. 

The I-Team found that it’s also potentially dangerous for some residents who find themselves in a new area. 

In August, Clinton Healthcare Center resident David Cunningham, who also uses a manual wheelchair, told the I-Team he was rushed to the hospital after being hit by a car — sustaining injuries that he said included a broken hip.

“I came across the street from the gas station, and the car hit me. And when it hit me, I blacked out,” Cunningham said.

DC’s ability to look out for patients is limited when they are moved out of the District

Another patient died after being struck by a vehicle in 2016. After that incident, some of the nursing home residents told News4 the nursing home started providing reflective vests for those who leave the facility.

The I-Team took the neighborhood concerns involving some D.C. residents putting themselves at risk in traffic to Wayne Turnage, who serves as D.C.’s deputy mayor for Health and Human Services and the director of the Department of Health Care Finance.

“If that were to happen in D.C., the provider would find DC Health on their doorstep probably the next day,” Turnage said.

Turnage said the city’s ability to advocate for its residents is limited when they cross state lines. While the city could pull the money it sends to facilities to care for its residents, that would possibly present a new set of challenges since there may not be anywhere else to put them.  

Turnage said he does not believe D.C. is building any new nursing homes right now. He said while the number of nursing homes has dwindled from 17 to 14, there is still space in some facilities. But he added not all nursing homes automatically accept every patient, especially those with more severe conditions.

“I can see situations where a person who was unhoused might have a difficulty finding a nursing home, especially if they don’t meet the nursing home level of care criteria,” Turnage said.   

Turnage told the I-Team his agency is looking at incentives for nursing homes that might have turned away certain patients in the past.

“We are evaluating our reimbursement methodology for nursing homes to see if there are things that we need to do differently to reduce the financial disincentive for taking patients who have these special needs.” Turnage explained.

A spokesperson for Clinton Healthcare Center emailed a statement, saying, “Ensuring the well-being of our residents is a top priority for the facility, and so is our focus and commitment to the safety of the surrounding community. The facility provides reflective vests and flags for residents’ wheelchairs. We have monthly resident council meetings educating the residents on safety precautions and do quarterly assessments to ensure they have the cognitive ability to make decisions. We take these responsibilities seriously and are an integral part of improving the broader neighborhood and being good community stewards.”   

The county is also doing something that could make things safer for residents. The Prince George’s County Department of Public Works and Transportation told the I-Team it’s in the design phase for building new continuous sidewalks along Stuart Lane along with striping for a new crosswalk and streetlights. They estimate starting construction in 2025.

As for Simon Reed, he said he wants to get back to D.C. now, closer to his family.

“I go to visit them on the weekend,” he said. “Every other weekend I go to my sister’s house.”

Reported by Tracee Wilkins; produced by Rick Yarborough; shot by Steve Jones, Jeff Piper and Carlos Olazagasti; and edited by Steve Jones.

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“From age 15 until I was 40 … I used alcohol to cope with the pain, but all that did was turn me into an alcoholic,” said the man identified in court filings under the pseudonym “Richard Roe.”

Roe is one of three men named in the filing, which asserts the archdiocese did little to prevent and protect them from abuse when they were children in the church.

He sat down with the News4 I-Team after the Archdiocese of Washington filed a legal challenge last month to the Child Victims Act – the Maryland law allowing child abuse survivors like him to bring forward civil claims regardless of when the abuse happened – in response to Roe’s class action lawsuit. The men filed the suit in Prince George’s County, where the archdiocese is headquartered.

In the filing, Roe said he was assaulted by an unnamed priest at St. Jerome Parish in Hyattsville in the 1960s. In the complaint, Roe alleges that, around age 10, he was lured to the priest’s bedroom and molested.

“I couldn’t tell nobody. My mother was a devout Catholic. Who was she going to believe? Who was anybody going to believe?” Roe said through tears.

The other two men in the complaint describe ongoing sexual assaults and rape at the hands of priests in Montgomery County, Maryland, in the 1960s and 1990s. One of the priests accused in the filing, named Robert J. Petrella, was later convicted of sexually abusing multiple children.

“We have to right this wrong,” said Baltimore attorney Jonathan Schochor, who represents the men.

In the complaint, Schochor laid out the Catholic Church’s long history of admonishing priests for abuse of children — an indication, he said, the church has known of the problem for hundreds of years.

“Once people gain that perspective and they understand the course of conduct by the priesthood and the archdiocese, they can better understand how important it is to back Mr. Roe and his fellow survivors to get what they deserve,” he said.

Schochor accuses the Washington Archdiocese of aiding and abetting abusers.

“They hid it. They concealed it. And then they would move” the offenders, he said. “They played a shell game.”

Schochor said it’s not lost on the survivors he represents that the Baltimore Archdiocese filed for bankruptcy in September in anticipation of civil suits expected under the Child Victims Act, only for the Washington Archdiocese to now try to overturn the law.

“Their goals are twofold. One, shield their assets and not compensate these folks for admitted sexual abuse. And two, somehow circumvent the law,” Schochor said.

The archdiocese declined an interview request with the I-Team but, in a statement, it defended its challenge to the Child Victims Act, saying, “The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington is asserting its legal defenses in the cases filed against it.”

It continued that it remains “committed, however. .. to our longstanding efforts to bring healing to survivors through pastoral care and other forms of assistance…”

The I-Team reached out to St. Jerome’s Parish for this story but did not receive a response.

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In a statement, Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown’s office said it’s prepared to defend any challenges to the Child Victims Act. Earlier this year, the AG’s office announced it’s investigating claims of abuse against priests who worked for the Washington Archdiocese, just as it did in the Baltimore Archdiocese. According to a spokeswoman, the investigation is ongoing.

Under Maryland’s Child Victims Act, survivors are eligible to receive up to $1.5 million in damages in cases against private institutions like the church. Roe said he’s also looking for an apology.

“Give me that bit of closure. Accept responsibility. You all knew about it,” he said. “That’s what I want. I want that apology.”

This story was reported by Tracee Wilkins, produced by Katie Leslie and edited by Jeff Piper.

The report from the Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) speaks volumes about just how far D.C. has to go when it comes to getting kids back in school full time.

Almost 90% of the students at Ballou High School were chronically truant last school year, according to the report. That’s the highest rate in all of D.C. — but not the only school with a problem. According to the report, 75 campuses — almost a third — have half their kids who are chronically truant.

D.C. Public Schools has struggled for years with getting and keeping kids in school, especially during the pandemic.

The OSSE report shows only minor improvements for the 2022-2023 school year.

Chronic truancy, defined as having 10 or more unexcused absences, dropped from 42% in the 2021-2022 school year to 37% last school year.

In D.C. high schools, the number is far worse, with 47% of school students considered chronically truant.

The report also found Black students were nearly 10 times as likely to be chronically truant as their white peers.

“If we expect them to show up every day and commit themselves to the work of their K-12 education, we have to have school environments that are welcoming and supportive for those students,” said Danielle Robinette, a policy attorney with D.C.’s Children’s Law Center.

That means scaling up the ongoing efforts at DCPS to meet students’ needs, she said, whether it’s transportation help or other issues facing their family.

Jahnia Franklin, a Ballou senior who told the News4 I-Team she just made the honor roll, said she’s missed eight days of school this semester.

“Eight’s not a lot, though,” she said.

She said she’s dealing with a lot outside of class.

“Everybody knows D.C. is dangerous sometimes,” Ballou senior Montez Hardy said.

He said some of his friends don’t always feel safe getting to and from school.

The OSSE report shows truancy hits hardest among economically disadvantaged families already facing significant challenges.

“You need this collaborative kind of multidisciplinary response to find out what needs of that particular child aren’t being met,” Robinette said.

The report clearly shows more attendance equates to better assessment scores.

In a statement, an OSSE spokesman said they are working on improving school culture and mental health resources. They also have programs which help individual families, though experts like Robinette say they’re not enough.

There’s also the legal side of this. Under D.C. law, a school must refer a teenager who has more than 15 unexcused absences to court social services and potentially the attorney general. More than 7,700 kids fit that bill last year. According to the AG’s office, the court social services ultimately sent them about 300 referrals. Neither DCPS nor OSSE wanted to answer questions on camera Friday.

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Katie Leslie, and shot and edited by Jeff Piper. Steve Jones contributed to this story.

Glock switches, sometimes called “giggle switches” in D.C., are coin-sized accessories typically added to Glock-style handguns. They turn a semiautomatic handgun into a machine gun. Without them, a single bullet is fired with every trigger pull as the gun was designed. With the addition of the switch, the gun fires bullets until the magazine is empty.

On a recent trip to a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives range in D.C., the I-Team witnessed an ATF firearms expert fire five bullets in less than a second with a Glock switch-equipped handgun.

The danger is not just from the number of bullets, but what it does to the accuracy of a shooter. Even with years of experience working for the ATF, Firearms Enforcement Officer Wayne Moser could not hit what he was aiming at nearby.

“I was aiming dead center of the neck,” Moser said as the I-Team examined his target spotted with bullet holes far from his intended aim. “Definitely shot a couple of different spots.”

And he is a former Marine. Few shooters in D.C. have that level of proficiency.

“It’s an incredibly serious problem right now,” U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Matthew Graves said. “It’s something that’s relatively new that has exploded.”

While they have been found in D.C. for years, police and ATF agents say they have found 167 of the devices in 2023. That is 40 more than in all of 2022, a more than 30% increase, with more than a month to go this year.

Craig Kailimai, the special agent in charge of the ATF’s Washington Field Division, told the I-Team he is “absolutely” scared it is going to get worse for his agents and for D.C. residents, too.

“You don’t have to aim (with a Glock switch). You don’t have to be precise,” he said. “You’re sending 10 rounds at your target, whereas normally you would have been firing one round.”

The ATF knows it, but so do people in D.C.’s neighborhoods.

‘It’s dangerous out here everywhere you go’

The I-Team visited three D.C. communities where federal court records show people have recently been arrested for using switches. It is not easy to get people to speak about the problem for fear of becoming a target. One mother said she homeschools her 11-year-old daughter for fear she would get caught in crossfire. Another man, who recently lost a nephew to a shooting involving a switch, said his nephew had been shot 19 times.

“It’s very dangerous,” said one mother, who did not want to be identified.

She knows what a Glock switch sounds like fired outside her home and knows the devastation gun violence is creating. Just a year ago she said she lost a son shot multiple times.

“It’s dangerous out here everywhere you go these days,” she said.

The I-Team spoke with her a block from where court records show a man was arrested after 19 quick shots were detected by ShotSpotter, the gunfire detection technology used in cities across the country that senses the sound of any gunfire and can zero in on automatic fire in seconds.

As Glock switches have grown in popularity, the details of how brazenly they are shown off is chilling.

Federal court records show the work D.C. police do to track Glock switches and the people who have them. The I-Team reviewed cases in which defendants were seen on Instagram Live showing off switches. Another was found on Instagram after posting “Switch it up” over photos of switch-equipped guns. The Instagram photos are included in court records.

Others were found in music videos bragging about their switches.

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Under federal law, the switches are illegal and punishable with serious prison time, but the federal courts do not take every case. That leaves many to be prosecuted under local D.C. laws, which defines these switches as machine guns but punishes them the same as a switchblade or brass knuckles. Under a law first passed in 1932, people caught with switches are eligible for a fine of no more than $2,500 and a year in jail.

Those penalties for possession of what could be an incredibly dangerous weapon are part of the reason U.S. Attorney Graves says District law does not treat machine gun possession seriously enough.

“There’s this view that if a person is caught with a firearm but not quite using the firearm, it’s some kind of possession offense and maybe it’s not really that serious,” he said. “We think that that is dead wrong in all circumstances, but it is particularly wrong with these conversion devices.”

Bill would toughen penalties for Glock switches

Graves is backing a bill from Councilmember Brooke Pinto to change that. That council legislation that would toughen penalties for possessing switches is still waiting on a vote. (Read Pinto’s “Addressing Crime through Targeted Interventions and Violence Enforcement (“ACTIVE”) Amendment Act of 2023” here. The changes involving gun charges are on pages 1 and 10.)

There is proof this is not just an issue of possession. The switches are being used. According to the ATF, 45% of the switches found in D.C. are attached to guns that can be traced to use in previous crimes.

“Not since prohibition have we seen so many machine guns being used to commit violent crimes,” said Tom Chittum, who used to be associate deputy director at ATF.

He now works for the company that makes ShotSpotter.

The technology detected 400 automatic fire alerts nationwide in 2019. In 2022, there were more than 9,000 ShotSpotter automatic gun fire alerts nationwide. They predict even more this year. Across the country, ShotSpotter data shows that what D.C. is seeing is what communities all over America are seeing.

“The danger here, I think, is obvious,” Chittum told the I-Team. “The number of rounds, the rate of fire, the difficulty of controlling them and trying to hit what you’re actually aiming at poses an incredible public safety risk.”

D.C. police refused to share their ShotSpotter data with the I-Team, even denying a Freedom of Information Act request. D.C. police initially told the I-Team they did not have the data but later revised that, saying it was not available to the public.

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Rick Yarborough, shot by Jeff Piper and Carlos Olazagasti, and edited by Jeff Piper.

Four years ago, Virginia businessman Fredric Gumbinner paid thousands of dollars to become a Culpeper County auxiliary sheriff’s deputy.

According to an assistant U.S. attorney in court and the indictment against him, Gumbinner gave $20,000 to Rick Rahim, another auxiliary deputy, on Oct. 1, 2019, with intent to influence and reward Sheriff Scott Jenkins.

Gumbinner’s attorney admitted the sheriff got at least some of that money as a quid pro quo bribe to make Gumbinner an auxiliary deputy.

According to the indictment, Jenkins never reported a campaign contribution from Gumbinner. The I-Team confirmed that after reviewing campaign filings for the sheriff.

In court Monday, Gumbinner responded to the judge in one- or two-word answers, including pleading “guilty” to the bribery charge.

Gumbinner’s is just one of the bribes Jenkins is accused of accepting. As part of his plea deal, other counts against Gumbinner were dropped. He could face years in prison and won’t be back in court for sentencing until July.

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Gumbinner didn’t talk to the News4 I-Team as he walked in and out of court Monday.

Jenkins, who just lost his reelection bid this month, is scheduled to go on trial in May. According to Gumbinner’s plea agreement, he is obligated to testify.

Both Jenkins and Rahim have pleaded not guilty. Their attorneys had no comment about Monday’s development.

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Rick Yarborough, and shot and edited by Jeff Piper.

Mark Williams is the former head of the acclaimed art school’s Literary Media and Communications Department. In 2022, the I-Team reported two women — who had never previously shared their stories publicly and who did not know each other – said they were abused by Williams while students at the school.

The I-Team found complaints about the teacher were made to the school, the school district and police in 2004 and 2018, but Williams didn’t face charges at the time. Following the I-Team’s reporting, D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department assigned a new detective to investigate the allegations.

Maryland district court records show Williams was arrested Sunday at the Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, listed as a fugitive from justice from Washington.

Multiple sources familiar with Williams said he’s been living overseas for several years, which is why police have been unable to track him down until now. D.C. police learned Thursday Williams was back in the country and issued an arrest warrant for him Friday. He was attempting to leave the country again when he was arrested, police said.

He’s now in custody in Anne Arundel County and will be extradited to D.C.

According to warrant information obtained by the I-Team, he’s been charged with first-degree sex abuse of a secondary education student in January 2014.

The I-Team previously told the story of a woman who graduated from Duke Ellington in 2014 and said she was abused by Williams. The woman never came forward with her story until the I-Team approached her in 2021.

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“There’s like a certain level of shame that will keep silence going on for a very long time,” the woman told the I-Team at the time.

Attorney Dawn Jackson represented another woman in a civil case against Williams. That was dismissed due to the statute of limitations, but Jackson said she hopes he will now face justice.

“Mark was one of the people that took advantage of young women who entrusted him as a teacher,” she said. “He stole their innocence. And this is an opportunity for him to be brought to justice.”

Williams resigned in January 2019 while under investigation. He could not be reached for comment Monday.

A court clerk said he was represented by a public defender in a bond hearing Monday. He was ordered held for 30 days, pending extradition. The Anne Arundel County Public Defender’s office declined comment.

In a statement to News4, a spokesperson for the Duke Ellington School of the Arts Project said, “Duke Ellington School has fully cooperated with law enforcement’s investigation of former teacher, Mark Williams.”

Stay with News4 for more on this developing story.

Almost 100 juveniles have been shot in Washington, D.C., so far this year.

Gun violence is now the leading cause of death for children in America, and on Monday, Nov. 13, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser declared a public emergency on juvenile crimes.

The News4 I-Team put all of its resources together to look at why youth gun violence is happening, how it impacts youth and their families, and what can change.

Our series explores how gunshots change the victims and their families, how social media can fuel gun violence, the obstacles families face getting away from violent communities, and the impact it has on young people living in those communities.

Previous coverage by the News4 I-Team:

On her first day of school in third grade, she recalled, a man was shot in front of her and her family as they exited a bus.

“All I knew was to just run; didn’t stand there in fear. I knew what to do,” she said. “It’s a shame that I know what to do when I hear those bullets and I see that gun come out.”

Years later, she said, little has changed in her community, where she said the sounds of guns are a regular occurrence – so much so the teen said she only feels safe in one place in her home: her family’s bathroom.

There, she explained, “I know a bullet can’t come through the wall.”

Jasmine and her sister, Jessica, are among a half dozen D.C. teenagers — including siblings Nya and Arin, Giovanni and Jordan  — who sat down with the News4 I-Team to discuss the impact of gun violence on their daily lives. They’re all part of the Deanwood Radio Broadcast Youth Journalism Program, a safe space where kids learn about mass media and dream of their future.

The teens live in different neighborhoods and go to different schools in the District, but many of them tell a similar story about what and whom they’ve lost to gun violence.

“I will say that gun violence has definitely deprived me of my youth,” Jessica said.

“It makes you anxious all the time because, you know, you never know what can happen,” Jordan added.

Several of the teens said they have had a classmate or friend killed by guns in recent years. A young man killed outside a convenience store. Another outside his home.

“When it hits so close to home, it just leaves like a sense of fear over everyone,” Nya said. “You shouldn’t have to feel that way as a teenager in D.C.”

Many of these students live in wards 7 and 8, where data show violent crimes with guns have risen the most in the past year.

The teens are all focused on their studies and planning where they want to go to college, but they’re doing so despite a near constant fear for their safety.

“Everything from the outside comes in … There’s people with bullets going through their windows and that’s literally our last resort for safety,” Jessica said of the threat of violence piercing her Anacostia home’s walls.

Asked if they feel safe at home, only a handful of the teens raised their hands. None raised their hands when asked if they feel safe in their schools or communities.

“School should feel like a safe place, but in school you still have to stay paranoid because when we get out of school at 3:30, you don’t know if a gunshot is gonna go off because people are beefing,” Giovanni said.

Earlier this year, the teens sat down with some city leaders to tell their stories and share ideas for what they say could help, like more programs for kids through recreation centers and opportunities for employment.

“We just need more programs for young Black males,” Arin said. “…A lot of young Black males don’t have that luxury of going to a Boy & Girls Club and having that one counselor, one teacher that they’re close with. I felt like that’s something that the young Black males need right now.”

While the teens said they believe the District could offer more paid opportunities for teens, they were divided on whether they felt failed by city leaders.

“In D.C., you make it how you want to make your life,” Giovanni said. “If you hang around the people who are going to push you to do the things that you want to do, then you could be successful.”

But Jessica said too many young people are lost to gun violence simply while living their lives – as bystanders to the surrounding violence in communities like hers.

“They’re losing their lives doing what they’re supposed to do, coming home from work; their extracurriculars,” she said, adding, “The things that are out of our control and in [city leaders’] hands have not been managed well.”

This story was reported by Tracee Wilkins, produced by Katie Leslie, shot by Jeff Piper and Steve Jones, and edited by Steve Jones.

Previous News4 I-Team coverage:

“What we’re seeing now is a community that is deteriorating from its core,” said Houseal.

In July, the Houseals’ security cameras captured a gunfight outside their home. The family sheltered inside as the shooters fired at each other through the family’s front yard.

“You could see the bullet, the fire from the bullet, from the gun,” Houseal told the News4 I-Team.

“That was the last straw for us,” she said.

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‘People want out. They want to feel safe’

Houseal and her husband have started looking for a new home in a different neighborhood. They’re considering leaving the District for Maryland or Virginia.

But the move isn’t one Houseal takes lightly, she said, since she’s the voice of the community, serving as the advisory neighborhood commissioner for Ward 7.

She said many of her constituents echo her concerns about crime.

“People want out. They want to feel safe,” she said.

But escaping the gunfire and random acts of violence isn’t that simple for Houseal or many of her neighbors. Though she owns her home and could sell, the average rate on a 30-year mortgage is hovering near 8%.

Other families in the District told the I-Team they’re held back by a different set of obstacles, especially those living in D.C.’s public housing.

Ebonee Hill said all she wants is for her kids to feel safe doing simple things: “Taking the trash out; getting the groceries out of the car.”

News4 first interviewed Hill in 2019 after an unimaginable pattern of events. Her two sons — then only 12 and 13 years old — were shot within months of each other near Kenilworth Avenue NE. They both survived, but her 13-year-old, Roy’Nal, was paralyzed from the waist down.

After the shootings, she said she pleaded with the D.C. Housing Authority to relocate her family. The Housing Authority eventually did — but the Lincoln Heights house was not wheelchair accessible for her son, Hill says. And her family doesn’t feel any safer. They live within a few blocks from where 10-year-old Makiyah Wilson was shot and killed by gang members in 2018 while sitting on her front stoop.   

“I need a bigger unit that is handicap accessible, but they’re claiming they don’t have that,” Hill said.

She feels her options are limited, because she can’t afford market-rate rent while also paying utilities and other bills families face. She has applied for federal relief through the Housing Choice Voucher Program, which could allow her to rent anywhere in the city, but she said she’s been on that list almost 20 years.

“I’m stuck here in D.C. trying to make an honest living to provide for my children, trying to keep them safe, but it’s so dangerous out here,” she said.

D.C. Housing Authority’s waitlist to access housing vouchers and public housing has been closed since 2013, and there is no scheduled time to reopen it. 

“Everyone can’t afford to buy houses and live in a nice area,” she told News4 back in 2019, after her sons were shot.

We wanted to ask the Housing Authority about the waitlist and some of the challenges it’s up against when trying to relocate families. The authority’s police chief, Joel Maupin, couldn’t talk to those larger issues but acknowledged residents’ concerns.

“The residents are very concerned — especially if you were a victim of crime — then certainly you feel you are in crisis,” said Maupin.

However, he said he feels hopeful about D.C. improving safety for residents.

“I think with a good enforcement effort, with enough police, we can turn this corner,” he said.

Yesim Sayin, the executive director of the D.C. Policy Center, said the issue in part is the lack of affordable housing units and where they’re being built.

The D.C. Policy Center, a nonprofit think tank, has helped decision makers in D.C. get fact-based research to aid them with policy proposals regarding housing issues.

“It’s cheaper to build these units in less-resourced parts of town,” Sayin told us. “So, these units come out in probably neighborhoods with the highest poverty rates, and that creates more economic segregation for the city and for the families.”

Maupin said the city is trying to do more mixed development and hopes Mayor Muriel Bowser’s programs help.

“And in those, each of those areas, you see more of the of the amenities being placed in those areas,” Maupin said.

As for Houseal and her family, they haven’t found a new home yet but have started packing anyway. They hope the new city initiatives eventually will make a difference.

“We’re hoping that there are, with some of the new initiatives coming down the pike, that the communities will begin to be safer,” said Houseal.

She’s referring to some of the new legislation introduced by Bowser, including the Crime Trends Now Act, and the Secure DC Plan: two initiatives aimed at improving public safety by providing law enforcement more tools to keep neighborhoods like Houseal’s and Hill’s safer.

There are several resources for which D.C. residents can apply, including HPAP and EAHP programs that can help them become homeowners. The National Low Income Housing Coalition has more information on housing policy.

More resources:

• Bread for the City
• D.C. Department of Human Services
• D.C.’s Children’s Law Center
• Empower DC
• Legal Aid DC
• Legal Counsel for the Elderly

Reported by Susan Hogan, produced by Ambar Rodriguez, and shot and edited by Lance Ing.

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