Good morning, D.C. The big regional news from over the weekend is the mysterious death of Ronnie White. White, 19, died only about 36 hours after he was taken into custody by Prince George’s County police for Friday’s death of police officer Richard Findley. Police said White was the driver who struck and killed Findley with a stolen pick-up truck. White was found dead at about 10:30 a.m. yesterday in his cell. No signs of trauma to his body have been reported, and an investigation of his death is underway. The Post points out that the county didn’t follow standard protocol of moving White to a jail outside Prince George’s since his alleged crime involved county law enforcement officers.

D.C. Hires Auditor to Collect Taxes: It may be a very long time before we can pass over any story to do with how the District Office of Tax and Revenue is conducting its business and not raise a wary eyebrow. This one in the Examiner, however, isn’t so bad. It details a new contract the city has made with auditor ACS State and Local Solutions to help it collect taxes owed by multistate corporations. The city estimates corporations doing business in the District may have short changed the city by as much as $60 million, and ACS is apparently being paid depending on how much of that money it’s able to bring in. Sounds like a good plan to us.

Disabled Services Providers Leaving Town: In Sunday’s Post there was a troubling story about how the city appears not to be paying going rates to its developmentally disabled services providers, prompting them to shut down their facilities and forcing dozens of patients with severe mental disabilities to be moved. Representatives of the industry are quoted in the story saying the District isn’t paying enough to keep quality providers in the city. But how much are we paying, and how much are other states paying? Questions we’d like to see the D.C. Council address.

Briefly Noted: Man injured in Metrobus shooting in Southeast … SUV crashes into Southeast apartment, injuring driver … Virginia to crack down on chronic Dulles Toll Road violators … Puppy survives 20-foot fall in Alexandria … 2 wounded in Silver Spring shooting.

Photo by Iki inekler