The saga of the 2002 Pershing Park mass arrests goes on! Former D.C. police chief Charles Ramsey had little to say about the incident when he took the stand last week. (“I didn’t order anybody to destroy anything,” testified Ramsey last Thursday. Oh, really?) But Ron Harris, an attorney for the police during an investigation by the D.C. Council into the arrests, did have something interesting to confess: according to Fox 5, Harris admitted on…

If you haven’t been following the step-by-step progress of the ongoing Pershing Park case (that’s the 2002 mass arrests of some 400 protesters by D.C. police, still playing out in endless legal wrangling), you might have missed the big development that surfaced Wednesday. City Paper’s Jason Cherkis has been all over this story for … forever, and yesterday he reported that a new affidavit from veteran D.C. Police Det. Paul Hustler points the finger…

Charles Ramsey can’t be too jealous of his former protégé and now D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier. After all, he’s got good numbers; she doesn’t. In his first year as Philadelphia’s Police Commissioner, the District’s former top cop saw a 15 percent decline in homicides, handing Mayor Michael Nutter a substantial victory in his pledge to reduce citywide crime. Lanier, on the other hand, had to deal with a second straight year of increases in…

>> Oh noes! The Ron Paul blimp launch was delayed, and rescheduled for its D.C. appearance on Wednesday at 3 p.m. [via Wonkette] >> D.C.’s Beacon House Falcons of Edgewood Terrace won Pop Warner Football’s Pee Wee Division I Super Bowl championship on Saturday. [Notions Capital] >> Former D.C. Police Chief Charles Ramsey no longer thinks handgun bans are such a good idea now that he works for a city that doesn’t have one….

Former D.C. Police Chief Charles Ramsey has been named police commissioner of Philadelphia by Mayor-elect Michael Nutter, reports the Associated Press. Ramsey came to D.C. in 1998 after serving for 31 years in his hometown of Chicago, and became Washington’s longest-serving police chief in more than three decades, serving as top cop in the District until the end of 2006, when he was replaced by incoming Mayor Adrian Fenty. Since we’ve had a little bit…

Good morning, Washington. Have you recovered from yesterday’s local sports emotional rollercoaster yet? The Nationals bid farewell to RFK, and managed to close out their time there with a 5-3 victory over the Phillies. The Redskins, on the other hand, well … we might still not be ready to talk about that last drive. Yet despite the despondent football fans across the region this morning, we get the sense that no one is sadder than…

Good morning, Washington. Yesterday we started the Morning Roundup by noting the early stages of what seems likely to be the end of Sen. Larry Craig’s political career. Today we have cheerier news: the resumption of another senator’s work. Sen. Tim Johnson is back on the job after suffering a brain hemorrhage eight months ago. D.C. Has A Budget Surplus: NBC4 has the goods. Apparently the city collected about $100 million more in tax…

Summer is fast approaching, and that means public pools, barbeques and the inevitable jump in crime. But unlike in years past, city officials are handling this one differently. In an announcement earlier today, Mayor Adrian Fenty and Police Chief Cathy Lanier announced that all 3,300 of the department’s officers would work this weekend, part of a larger plan called the All Hands on Deck Summer Crime Initiative aimed at more effectively deploying resources to prevent…

>> Yeah, you. You need to stay late tonight to make up for the crazy amount of time you’re about to have off. That’s right, those of us who do not work for the Federal Government are currently glaring up a storm at those of you who do, because the word from on high is now official: President Bush has declared January 2 as the official day of mourning for President Ford, which means Federal…

With 2006 fast coming to a close, the District on Friday reported what is surely cause for celebration — the city’s homocide tally, once one of the highest in the nation, is down, and dramatically so. According to current statistics, the District has suffered 156 homicides this year, 18.3 percent less than the same time in 2005 and 35 short of last year’s total of 191. Short of a citywide killing spree in the next…