The Washington Post - 05.09.2019

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THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 5 , 2019. WASHINGTONPOST.COM/REGIONAL EZ RE K B

JOHN KELLY’S WASHINGTON

Musical instruments seem

particularly prone to error

when used in TV shows

and movies. B3

THE DISTRICT

The suspect in the slaying

of an 11-year-old boy fired

in anger after a dispute,

prosecutors allege. B4

OBITUARIES

Angelo Grubisic, 38,

was a daredevil rocket

scientist and a champion

72 ° 75 ° 77 ° 74 ° wingsuit flier. B6

8 a.m. Noon 4 p.m. 8 p.m.

High today at

approx. 12 a.m.

78

°

Precip: 0%

Wind: NE

8-16 mph

BY OVETTA WIGGINS

AND ERIN COX

Two top Maryland officials on

Wednesday pledged action to

compensate five wrongly convict-

ed men who were jailed for dec-

ades, but Gov. Larry Hogan said

the state does not have the right

system to determine the amount

of such payments, which could

exceed $12 million.

Hogan (R) said the state Board

of Public Works “is not the appro-

priate venue” to address compen-

sation petitions, rejecting calls

from nearly 50 Maryland law-

makers for the panel to take ac-

tion on behalf of the five exonere-

es.

Treasurer Nancy K. Kopp (D)

and Comptroller Peter Franchot

(D), who sit on the board with

Hogan, said the panel should act

to compensate Lamar Johnson,

Jerome Johnson, Walter Lomax,

SEE COMPENSATION ON B3

BY KATHERINE SHAVER

Montgomery County officials

are trying to figure out why glass

panels on relatively new mid- and

high-rise buildings in downtown

Bethesda are spontaneously shat-

tering, raining glass onto side-

walks below.

County building officials say

they are investigating whether

there are any connections be-

tween windows and large glass

panels that have fallen over the

past two years from three build-

ings, all built since 2014, within a

half-mile radius of the Bethesda

Metro station. Two of the building

owners say their engineering con-

sultants have found that the

failed glass had manufacturing

flaws.

In an Aug. 22 incident, a 12-

year-old girl standing outside the

SEE GLASS ON B4

BY MICHAEL E. RUANE

A blood-oxygen monitor is clipped to the

animal’s large pink tongue. An endoscope has

been fed down his throat to examine his small

intestine. And technician Jayne Hutcheson is

swabbing his paws with blue paint for

keepsake paw prints.

Beneath the surgical lights, the National

Zoo’s giant panda Bei Bei is on his back on the

operating table. He has a catheter in his

jugular vein held in place with staples, and a

blood pressure cuff on one leg.

His tiny black eyes are open, and bits of

dust rise from his thick fur. But he has been

anesthetized and does not react to the experts

preparing him for his new adventure and,

perhaps, the end of an era at the zoo.

Bei Bei, the youngest of the zoo’s three

giant pandas, is headed to China, probably

this fall. And before he goes, veterinarians

and technicians Wednesday gave him a

thorough checkup at the zoo’s hospital.

Over several hours, as the monitors beeped

and technicians took notes, he was X-rayed

and scoped. His abdomen was examined with

ultrasound and his muscles were prodded by

a nutritionist.

Blood, photos and at least one selfie were

taken.

Near the end, visiting veterinarian J.D.

Foster, from Washington’s Friendship Hospi-

tal for Animals, said: “This looks pretty darn

good.”

National Zoo veterinarian James Steeil

replied: “I’ll take pretty darn good.”

The zoo is entering a time of transition in

its almost 50-year experience with giant

pandas.

After Bei Bei, 4, goes, the zoo will be down

to its two adult pandas: Mei Xiang, 21, a

SEE PANDAS ON B2

Board is

divided

on paying

5 inmates

Shattered

panels in

Bethesda

are probed

Glass pellets have fallen

from three buildings,

resulting in one injury

The cleats that mock this D.C.-area mom

The orange and

black stripes

caught my son’s

eye. Before I

could say

anything, he was

sitting on the

floor of a store,

yanking off one of

his old tennis shoes and slipping

on a tiger-colored cleat.

It fit slightly loose, but it

didn’t matter. It also didn’t

matter that, at 6, he had never

played a real game of soccer.

He begged, and then he

reasoned. Knowing that I rarely

pay full price for any of our

clothes anymore (most of what I

wear now is secondhand, but

that’s a column for another day),

he pointed out the price tag. It

listed the shoes for $19.99,

instead of the original $40.

I surrendered. The cleats got

tossed into our cart and later

placed on top of a shoe rack in

our garage.

Why am I telling you this?

Because those size-1 cleats have

come to symbolize for me the

type of guilt that many parents

in the Washington region carry

in one form or another.

Many months later, the tag is

still on them. Every time I pass

them, they mock me with their

immaculateness and remind me

how hard it is to parent in the

DMV, where you can’t simply

sign your kid up for activities,

you have to presign them up

and then be quick on the day

when the real sign-up occurs.

You have to predict what

they’ll want before they want it

— and then be prepared to click

and refresh, click and refresh.

You have to be a parenting

ninja.

I, of course, knew nothing

about this bizarre side of

Washington until I had my own

kids, two boys who just entered

kindergarten and second grade.

For years, I lived in blissful,

stress-free ignorance of what my

co-workers and neighbors were

going through to sign up for

child care and backup child care

and camps and beyond-school

activities in this high-achieving

region where available spots,

especially for programs with

strong reviews, can’t often meet

SEE VARGAS ON B2

Theresa

Vargas

Before China, a checkup

Bei Bei readies to depart

as National Zoo ponders

future of panda program

JONATHAN NEWTON/THE WASHINGTON POST

Jayne Hutcheson, a veterinary

technician, left, works on an IV

line as Elyshia Hankin, a

veterinary radiologist from

Friendship Hospital for

Animals, performs an

ultrasound on Bei Bei on

Wednesday.

BY PETER JAMISON

AND PETER HERMANN

D.C. public s afety agencies will

adopt policies to ensure that

life-threatening building code vi-

olations are promptly addressed,

an effort to prevent the kind of

missteps that preceded a deadly

fire last month in Brightwood

Park, officials said Wednesday.

The policies dictate that Dis-

trict police officers report poten-

tial fire code violations to a

supervisor, who will relay the

complaint to the Fire and Emer-

gency Medical Services Depart-

ment through the District’s dis-

patch center. A fire battalion

chief will immediately respond

to the site to perform an inspec-

tion, Fire Chief Gregory M. Dean

said.

“The goal is that we would try

to get there within 30 minutes,”

Dean said in an interview. “The

idea behind this is that the

[police] officer may not know if

it’s a building or a fire-code

violation. It’s much easier for the

fire department go out there.”

Dean said he hopes to imple-

ment the new policy this week.

Police Chief Peter Newsham on

Tuesday signed an executive or-

der establishing the procedures

for the city’s police force.

The rapid-response protocols

stand in contrast to the handling

of a police officer’s r eport about a

rowhouse on Kennedy Street

NW, which received a much-criti-

cized response from city housing

code inspectors. An investigator

from the Department of Con-

sumer and Regulatory Affairs

visited the property multiple

times b ut closed the case w ithout

action when he could not get

inside rowhouse, DCRA Director

Ernest Chrappah said.

Police say that conditions in-

side that house “contributed to

the deaths” of 9-year-old Yafet

Solomon and 40-year-old Fitsum

Kebede in a fire on Aug. 18.

The tenants, mostly Ethiopian

immigrants, described a warren

of rooms, each no bigger than a

queen-size bed. An application

for a search w arrant after t he fire

also identified a metal gate that

could not be opened from the

inside, as well as an electrical

SEE FIRE ON B4

D.C. tightens policies on code violations after deaths in fire

BY JUSTIN JOUVENAL

Zhane Moussa, 18, told a Fair-

fax County judge Wednesday that

she had a message for the man

who killed her sister, Jholie. The

identical twins never spent more

than 12 hours apart, before the

man sitting feet from her stran-

gled Jholie last year.

Zhane had already explained

at the sentencing hearing how

Jholie, 16, had been in love with

her first boyfriend, Nebiyu Ebra-

him, then 17, before he grew

abusive. It culminated on Jan. 12,

2018, when he choked her until

she grew limp, then choked her

twice more. He hid her body in a

park.

Zhane began reading from her

cellphone, compressing her an-

ger, grief and loss into a handful

of lines. She used her final words

to wrest back control of the trag-

edy from her sister’s killer, who

pleaded guilty to first-degree

murder in June.

“A t one point, I felt like you

ruined my life, but I’m not giving

you the power anymore,” Zhane

read calmly. “’Cause no one in this

situation has to suffer but you.

You think you won by ending my

sister’s life, but you are in for a

rude awakening.”

That moment probably came

sooner than anyone anticipated

as Circuit Court Judge Randy I.

Bellows issued a rare life sentence

for a juvenile offender, imposing

the maximum sentence on Ebra-

him, now 19. Jholie’s f amily mem-

bers, many of whom wore

“#justice4Jholie” T-shirts, burst

into applause in the courtroom.

Syreeta Steward, Jholie’s

mother, said afterward that the

sentence was as “good as it’s

going to get” but that it did not

erase the loss she had said in

earlier testimony “rocked our

family to the core.”

Jholie was braiding her sister’s

hair on the afternoon of Jan. 12,

2018, when she suddenly told

Zhane she needed to leave their

SEE SENTENCING ON B2

Twin’s killer confronted in Va. court

Woman tells man who

strangled her sister: ‘I’m

not giving you the power’

EXONEREES SEEK

MILLIONS FROM MD.

Hogan, chair of panel,

rejects calls for action