The Washington Post - 01.08.2019

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THURSDAY, AUGUST 1 , 2019. WASHINGTONPOST.COM/REGIONAL EZ SU B

JOHN KELLY’S WASHINGTON

A collage of old movie

posters honors the

memory of a Georgetown

theater. B3

VIRGINIA

A grant will help the

College of William & Mary

explore the legacy of

slavery at the school. B4

OBITUARIES

Musical theater producer

and director Harold S.

Prince had a massive

76 ° 84 ° 86 ° 80 ° Broadway portfolio. B5

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

High today at

approx. 2 p.m.

88

°

Precip: 40%

Wind: NE

4-8 mph

BY OVETTA WIGGINS

baltimore — Housing and Ur-

ban Development Secretary Ben

Carson came here Wednesday to

defend President Trump’s harsh

depiction of the city, saying, “There

are problems in Baltimore, and you

can’t sweep them under the rug.”

Carson, a pediatric neurosur-

geon who built his career at Johns

Hopkins Hospital, said the city

has to be “willing to address” the

problems it faces.

“It’s sort of like a patient who

has cancer: You can dress them up

and put a nice suit on and try to

ignore it, but that cancer is going

to have a devastating effect,” he

said while standing outside Hol-

lins House, a federally funded

housing complex for senior citi-

zens in the congressional district

of Rep. Elijah E. Cummings

(D-Md.). “You have to be willing to

address that issue if you are ever

going to solve it.”

Trump has been at the center of

a firestorm since Saturday over

repeated attacks on Cummings,

who chairs the House Oversight

and Reform Committee, and his

majority-black legislative district,

SEE CARSON ON B2

BY LYNH BUI

Prosecutors will have access to

jail records detailing mental and

psychological evaluations of Jar-

rod Ramos, the Maryland man

accused of killing five people after

blasting his way through the offic-

es of the Capital Gazette news-

room with a shotgun.

A judge ruled at a hearing

Wednesday that prosecutors were

entitled to review the records

along with certain portions of

Ramos’s jail file — part of the

ongoing fight over what docu-

ments can be used to help deter-

mine whether he was competent

at the time of the shooting.

Ramos has pleaded not crimi-

nally responsible in the June 2018

attack, and both sides have

sought information to prove or

rebut the notion that he was not

mentally competent at the time.

Ramos, 39, of Laurel has been

charged with five counts of mur-

der and several related offenses in

the shooting that left five dead:

editorial page editor Gerald Fis-

chman, 61; assistant editor Rob

Hiaasen, 59; sportswriter, report-

er and editor John McNamara, 56;

sales assistant Rebecca Smith, 34;

and reporter Wendi Winters, 65.

Ramos held a grudge against

the Annapolis-area newspaper af-

ter one of its columnists wrote a

story about his conviction in a

stalking case involving a former

high school classmate, police

said.

Ramos filed a defamation suit

against the newspaper, which he

SEE RECORDS ON B4

Prosecutors

gain access

to suspect’s

evaluations

BY GREGORY S. SCHNEIDER

richmond — One act of defiance

against President Trump

launched Virginia Republicans

and Democrats into a frenzy of

accusations and fundraising this

week.

The Republican Party of Vir-

ginia warned donors that “Demo-

crats hate America.” State GOP

leaders crowed that Democrats

are in disarray. Democrats shot

back that Republicans are duck-

ing responsibility for their lead-

er’s divisive comments.

The catalyst for it all was Del.

Ibraheem S. Samirah (D-Fairfax),

who interrupted Trump’s speech

Tuesday at a historical commem-

oration in Jamestown by shout-

ing, “Virginia is our home! You

can’t send me back!” He was es-

corted out by police, then quickly

boasted of his protest on social

media.

The actions by Samirah, a den-

tist who has been in office for only

five months, sparked internal dis-

sent among Democrats and put

party leaders in an uncomfortable

spot. The protest grabbed atten-

tion away from more elaborate

efforts by members of the Virginia

Legislative Black Caucus to boy-

cott Trump’s speech and stage a

SEE VIRGINIA ON B5

Jamestown

protest acts

as political

catalyst

BY MICHAEL E. RUANE

On March 18, 1945, Lt. j.g. Da-

vid L. Mandt took off from Mary-

land’s Patuxent River Naval Air

Station to test out the guns on an

experimental fighter plane, the

XF8F-1 Bearcat.

Mandt was a veteran aircraft

carrier pilot who had flown in

battle off the deck of the USS

Bunker Hill in the Pacific. He had

shot down Japanese planes. He

had been on numerous raids on

enemy forces. His plane had been

riddled in combat.

With World War II turning

against Japan, he was back state-

side trying out the Navy’s latest

fighter. It was the first of its

kind, a propeller-driven hot rod

with a 2,100-horsepower engine.

In photographs, it appeared

with the word “TEST” embla-

zoned on its side.

Mandt, 23, a native of Detroit,

took off at 2:15 p.m. and flew out

over the glassy surface of the bay.

His plane never returned.

‘A really good view’

The water was unusually clear

in the Chesapeake Bay the day

diver Dan Lynberg first descend-

ed to the bottom to examine the

object that had turned up on his

sonar survey.

A member of the Institute of

Maritime History, a volunteer

group of underwater archaeolo-

gists, he had gotten the sonar “hit”

at a spot east of the air station

during a routine survey, he said. He

was now going 80 feet down from a

dive boat to investigate.

Skilled in “blackwater” diving,

where visibility is poor to zero, he

was amazed at the day’s clarity.

“Got a really good view” of the

object, he said.

It was covered in sea growth,

fishing debris and a layer of silt,

and it seemed to almost be part of

SEE RETROPOLIS ON B4

RETROPOLIS

Long-lost plane may have been found

NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION

A sonar image shows a reading of an aircraft in the Chesapeake

Bay. The Navy is investigating whether the plane is an XF8F-1

Bearcat that disappeared with its pilot in 1945.

BY PAUL SCHWARTZMAN

baltimore — At the Lexington

Market, a gastronomic landmark in

the congressional district of Rep.

Elijah E. Cummings, Willie Cox

greeted friends and familiar faces

the other day as he picked up an

order of fried chicken.

The 237-year-old market is a sta-

ple of Cox’s life, a place where he

revels in the diversity and hustle of

his Baltimore, one that he says does

not resemble President Trump’s dys-

topian rendition — a filthy “hell”

where “No human being would

want to live.”

“That’s not my Baltimore,” said

Cox, 75, a retired sanitation work-

er who has lived in the city his

entire life. “They got rats in the

White House. Before you talk

about Baltimore, go clean up your

own damn house.”

Trump disparaged the city while

belittling Cummings as an ineffectu-

al leader of the 7th District, which

includes impoverished neighbor-

hoods that were the focus of nation-

al attention during 2015 rioting that

erupted after Freddie Gray suffered

fatal injuries in police custody.

Yet the district — 700,000 resi-

dents spread across nearly 300

square miles of city and suburbs —

also includes tourist attractions

such as the Inner Harbor, elegant

neighborhoods such as Mount Ver-

non and institutions such as the

world-renowned Johns Hopkins

Hospital in East Baltimore.

Beyond the city, Cummings

(D-Md.) represents portions of Balti-

more and Howard counties and

communities such as Ellicott City,

which began as a 19th-century mill

town and is listed on the National

Register of Historic Places.

While nearly 55 percent of Cum-

mings’s constituents are black, more

than 35 percent are white, according

to census figures. Cummings, who

first won his seat in 1996, has

typically been reelected with more

than 75 percent of the vote.

“Trump’s portrayal of Cum-

mings’s district is a caricature,” said

SEE BALTIMORE ON B2

MARVIN JOSEPH/THE WASHINGTON POST

‘That’s not my Baltimore’

Carson defends Trump’s harsh words for city

Theresa

Vargas

She is away. Her

column will resume

when she returns.

DEFENSE FOUGHT

RECORDS’ RELEASE

Competence is key issue

in Capital Gazette case

Pedestrians walk beneath murals at the busy intersection of Pennsylvania

and North avenues in Baltimore, located within Rep. Elijah E.

Cummings’s 7th Congressional District.

‘Have We No Decency?’

Washington National Cathedral

leaders issue rebuke of Trump. B2

HUD secretary cites

problems, as well as

‘a lot of good things’

JULIO CORTEZ/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson said people

must “learn to work together” on behalf of Baltimore.

In district Trump attacked,

residents paint picture that

differs from his ‘caricature’