Man Stops Traffic at 17th and K to Demand $200 Million
Morning Roundup: Goodbye, Abe Edition
Judge Throws Out WTU Suit Over Teacher Layoffs
Vegetate to Close at the End of the Month
Today in Crime Trend Stories
Good morning, Washington. How many of you stayed in to watch the big HBO premiere of The Nine Lives of Marion Barry last night? Barry gave an interview to WUSA9's Bruce Johnson in advance of the 9 p.m. airing, during which he "refused to accept responsibility for his arrest for smoking 'crack' at the Vista hotel in 1990," instead continuing to blame federal prosecutors and the FBI for "entrapping" him. Nice to see the current Ward 8 D.C. Council member remains consistent on that score after almost 20 years of reflection. City Desk also found that Barry's office wanted everyone to focus on the Mayor for Life's legacy yesterday, instead of dealing with his most recent scandal.
Metro Employee Tests Positive for Drugs After 10-Car Train Investigation: Yet another blemish on Metro's safety record today, courtesy the Examiner. On July 31, a Green Line train managed to pass through five stations on its way south from Greenbelt before a passenger alerted the operator that the train was in fact carrying two additional cars behind it, for a total of ten rail cars. The Metrorail system is designed to, at a maximum, operate eight-car trains. Metro launched an investigation into the incident, including routine drug and alcohol testing of the employees who are responsible for checking the number of cars on each train before they depart, and one of those employees tested positive for drugs, the Examiner reports. The employee has since entered a rehab facility is no longer on the payroll, according to Metro. Nice quote from Greater Greater Washington's David Alpert at the end of the story.
Metro Orders Safety Training After Employee Death: We now know the identity of the Metro employee who died on Sunday after being struck by a piece of maintenance equipment. Michael Nash, 63, of Silver Spring, had worked for Metro as a track repairman since 1990. The tragedy has led Metro to order mandatory safety training for field workers and suspend some planned maintenance work, the Washington Post reports. Metro will also increase inspections at work sites across the system, and is investigating Sunday's accident.
Briefly Noted: Critics say safety improvements still needed for Bay Bridge ... Southeast D.C. woman fatally shoots husband at the tattoo parlor they owned together ... Silver Spring man fatally stabs wife during argument ... Two men arrested after shooting near Chuck E. Cheese ... Some city statues getting a facelift.
This Day in DCist: In 2008, we got ready to enjoy the peak of the Perseid meteor shower, and in 2006, we interviewed D.C. crime author extraordinaire George Pelecanos.
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Oh come on! No mention of Martin's appearance in WaPo?
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/reliable-source/2009/08/rs-vote11.html
He looks dashing in that cover photo. And I had no clue that he was Swiss. That may explain the gun thing!
Naw, the swiss as a whole have been pretty cool about guns.
I think the whole poster thing might have been a planned stunt, but not sure it worked for them. Looks like an f-up.
"Looks like an f-up."
Yup. Any whiff of dishonesty can/will be exploited.
is it just me or does Martin look like a Vizsla (aka Molly)?
keep fighting the fight sir, but please do us all a favor and get a new haircut.
WAIT JUST A MINUTE. Martin is SWISS???????
Query, Herr Austermuhle:
1) As a Swiss citizen, is one required by law to keep a militia-type rifle or pistol in the home including a requisite amount of ammunition on hand?
2) Assuming 1 is "True" would you classify gun crime in Switzerland as low or high?
METRO!
MARION BARRY!
Only a two-fer today?
Really. Do we really need all this metro news?
Morning Roundup before 9am?! I had to look twice to see who posted this one. Good job Sommer, keep it up!
It looks like the positive drug test will allow Metro to sweep this incident under the rug. While it isn't that big of a deal, the fact that it was allowed to go on for so long cannot be excused by one failed drug test.
This also raises the issues of off-duty drug use.
Employers (and the Federal Government who requires these tests) do drug testing but rairly look at the broader picture.
One can argue trace amounts of drugs (perhaps taken days ago) may have no affect on job performance.
I'm sure Marion Barry would agree with you.
Southeast D.C. woman fatally shoots husband at the tattoo parlor they owned together ...
Unfortunately, I left the Channel 4 news at 11 on last night and Wendy Rieger was treating this as if it were a silly "human interest" story. She thought the parlor's name was silly sounding, I guess. Using her "look at that cat stuck in the tree" voice.
A man was murdered, you stupid f*cking bimbo!
Geez, that is my hood.
An interesting update on that Metro bus driver caught talking on the phone. Maybe she wasn't.
If you watch the full video of the FBI bust at the Vista hotel, you'll see Barry trying to just get laid; he didn't go in there intending to smoke crack.
He tried to get the woman to sleep with him several times, she protested, letting him know that she'd do it if he smoked some crack. That why, after the FBI busted in, he exclaimed the famous "goddam bitch set me up" line.
Sommer, you might want to put on some more clothes; your bias is showing.
I'm not sure "Will smoke crack for sex" is a better motto than "the bitch set me up". What do you think?
Lest people think that the photo was taken because I hate Metro, I've added the following text below the photo on flickr:
Seriously, though: Don't panic about Metro!
WMATA is a huge organization. It has many trains, many buses, and many employees. Trains and buses are bound to break sometimes; people are bound to make mistakes.
Riding Metro is still massively safer than driving.
And don't take all of those "my driver was on the phone/reading/tap dancing while driving!" stories too seriously. This post does a good job explaining why newspapers (like, say, the Washington Post) should do fact checking before running with a story: maryland-politics.blogspot.com/2009/08/is-wmata-managemen...
And if you have a particularly good experience with an operator or station manager or any other WMATA employee, go here to write a commendation: www.wmata.com/about_metro/contact_us/ridercomment.cfm
I'm sure it's rather demoralizing to be Metro employee right now. I'm sure the people who are doing good work would appreciate some praise.
Did their lawyers write you or something?
Look, I'm not gonna defend everything the Post publishes, but what part of the story did they get wrong? The headline says "Metro Probes Allegation of Bus Driver Talking on Cell Phone"
The story did not state anything as an absolute definitive fact. The story said someone complained, Metro took it seriously enough to open an investigation and that if proven the driver could be fired. That's all the story said.
If the invsetigation does indeed clear the driver, as the blog you and I both linked to claims (based on those pesky anonymous sources everyone hates the Post for using. Oh the irony), then I would expect the Post to run a follow up. If they don't, that's a mistake on their part.
I think the issue is that the Post was jumping on the bandwagon of hysterical "WMATA is a death trap" stories. If they have nothing but a single version of the story and don't even try to fact check, that's irresponsible reporting. There's plenty of newsworthy things Metro has screwed up to write about - no point writing an entire story about a driver who was potentially on the phone. In fact, if they had fact checked the story, they could have written an interesting/useful story about how poorly WMATA's bus radios work.
And no, Metro's lawyers didn't contact me. I just wanted to put things into perspective a bit (and I'm generally overprotective of public transit).
Don't worry, they're compensated fairly well.
Seriously. Where's the effing Swiss coverage!
Oh. Never mind.
First of all, I agree with one of the former comments in that neither the Post nor the blog from which the story originated said anything was a fact. "Allegation" is such a great word and plays such a key role in jarring loose stories. You don't have to like it, but it's a fact of life.
Metro, on the other hand, pretty much left no more room for debate: "We did receive Brian’s email and immediately began investigating. We are confident we have enough information to identify the operator, who will be terminated."
Pretty declarative!
Finally, the writer of the post to which you refer, Adam Pagnucco, is "Assistant to the General President at United Brotherhood of Carpenters." He's hardly someone who's going to come down on a fellow union "brother." Check it out. He's made a career out of advising unions for a long time! http://www.linkedin.com/pub/adam-pagnucco/6/669/559
I'd take what he said with the grain of salt you didn't use when reading the Post.
to view a partial list of crimes committed by FBI agents over 1500 pages long see
http://www.forums.signonsandiego.com/showthread.php?t=59139
to view a partial list of FBI agents arrested for pedophilia see
http://www.dallasnews.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3574
People are still going to Chuck E. Cheese? Don't they know that place is like the motherfuckin' OK Corral?