The Washington Post - USA (2020-07-27)

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METRO

monday, july 27 , 2020. washingtonpost.com/regional eZ sU B

JOHN KELLY’S WASHINGTON

the tragic true story

of me, my golf clubs and

My Lovely Wife’s Mini

cooper. B3

THE DISTRICT

rep. John Lewis’s body

will be brought past D.c.

civil rights sites before

viewing at the capitol. B4

OBITUARIES

María Lugones, 76 ,

a feminist philosopher,

studied the legacy of

81 ° 92 ° 96 ° 90 ° colonialism. B5

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

High today at

approx. 3 p.m.

97

°

Precip: 0%

Wind: W

7-14 mph

Unfortunately, the institution

that would normally manage a

common approach — the federal

government — has forsaken the

task in what history surely will

record as a mind-boggling

abdication of responsibility.

so, in the current crisis, it is

up to the nation’s governors to

set aside political differences

and forge a collective response.

They should work together, and

see MEMO oN B5

To o much of the

country failed to

listen when public

health experts

warned that we

needed a

coordinated, national strategy to

contain the novel coronavirus.

Now the upsurge in cases and

deaths has proved that doctors

and scientists were correct: We

shouldn’t let each state go its

own way.

Governors must respond

with unity on virus threat

Regional

Memo

robert

MCCartney

New cases in region

through 5 p.m. sunday, 1,715 new

coronavirus cases were reported i n

the District, Maryland and Virginia,

bringing the total cases to

180 ,095.

D.c. MD.Va.

+63 +694 +958

11, 7808 3,74 88 4,567

Coronavirus-related deaths

as of 5 p.m. sunday:

D.c. MD.* Va.

+0 +7 +3

581 3,440 2,07 8

* Includes probable covid-19 deaths

BiLL o'LearY/tHe WasHington Post

Branislav pavic, who owns the from scratch food truck, hands an

order to a customer thursday on Wisconsin Avenue NW.

BY DAN ROSENZWEIG-ZIFF

In m id-March, as the pandemic

was just beginning, Red Hook

Lobster Pound owner Doug Pov-

ich spent $1,000 to service one of

his food trucks.

He thought he’d be able to

recoup the expense quickly, rely-

ing on brisk spring and summer

sales of Maine lobster rolls out of

his two trucks and sidewalk cart.

But four days later, Povich

learned the District would be

more or less shutting down due to

the novel coronavirus. He paused

his operations indefinitely. Mean-

while, the $1,000 in food truck

repairs was added to more than

$100,000 in loans he routinely

takes out to allow his business to

survive every winter, when sales

are low.

He didn’t consider taking out

small-business loans under the

federal Paycheck Protection Pro-

gram — they would be forgiven

only if he spent 60 percent of the

money on employment costs.

With only five full-time staffers,

most of his budget went to food

and overhead.

By April, Povich came to a

difficult conclusion: He decided

to sell the business he had spent

more than a decade building.

“For us, the timing was as bad

as it could have been,” Povich said

of the pandemic shutdown. “If it

had happened in september, it

would have been no problem.”

Red Hook Lobster Pound’s

closing has shaken much of the

region’s food truck industry,

which sees Povich as one of its

founding fathers. He h elped orga-

nize the DMV Food Truck Associ-

ation 10 years ago, as one of D.C.’s

see fOOd tRUcks oN B4

For food trucks, a struggle to survive

Owners, facing lost

revenue, opt to switch

gears — or close up shop

blessed by its fruit,” the chaplain

said.

It was 115 feet tall and 12 feet

around, and Wednesday morning

a requiem was held before it was

consigned to the sawyers.

Cicadas droned and sunlight

shone through the foliage, as

Navy Lt. Brandy Brown quoted

from the Book of Job: “For there

is hope for a tree if it be cut down,

that it will sprout again and that

its shoots will not cease.”

After the prayer, Dean Norton,

Mount Vernon’s director of horti-

culture, said: “ When you take a

tree of this historic nature and...

do some real special ceremonies

... it honors the tree. I think it’s
wonderful.”
see REtROpOlIs oN B3

BY MICHAEL E. RUANE

Two fifers played the national

anthem. A Navy chaplain read

lines from the Bible about a tree

that reached to heaven. And an

Army howitzer fired a salute that

filled the woods with smoke.

The 5,000-pound decedent

rested on a metal pallet, moss still

on its bark, while workers waited

at a portable mill saw, with axes,

hatchets and crowbars.

The majestic white oak had

stood at George Washington’s

Mount Vernon for about 240

years until it fell on a windless

night last November. It had wit-

nessed the passing of history, as

Civil War soldiers carved in its

bark, and “all living things were

RETROPOLIS

Solemn honors for a fallen tree

240-year-old white oak planted by Washington at Mount Vernon is saluted before facing the sawmill

PHotos BY Matt MccLain/tHe WasHington Post

tOp: Members of the U.s. Army 3rd Infantry Regiment and others fire a cannon during a cutting ceremony for a 2 40-year-old fallen tree

last week at Mount Vernon. ABOVE: shawn stanko of Black horse forge uses a saw to cut p art of the tree planted by the first president.

BY PETER HERMANN

The mug shots of three men

suspected in the fatal shooting of

11-year-old Davon McNeal flashed

on a screen behind the District’s

mayor and police chief.

All three, D.C.’s t op officer said

at a news conference earlier this

month, had prior criminal cases

involving firearms. Police Chief

Peter Newsham questioned

whether any of them should have

been on the street the day Davon

was shot.

“They have a history of picking

up firearms and using them,”

Newsham told reporters, remarks

that later drew criticism from two

defense attorneys. “A s we have

warned, there needs to be conse-

quences for illegal firearms, and

now they have taken the life of an

11-year-old boy.”

After another shooting two

weeks later killed one man and

wounded eight others in Colum-

bia Heights, Newsham said half of

“the people that are involved in

homicides in our city had been

previously arrested with a fire-

arm.” He added, “If we could have

held [them] accountable the first

time, maybe this stuff wouldn’t

keep happening.”

Newsham has argued for years

that gun offenders his officers

arrest time after time skip

through the judicial system with

little consequence and are driving

the District’s rising homicide

count. He s ays gun offenders have

a high rate of recidivism.

An examination of the prior

arrests of the suspects highlight-

ed by the chief show the complexi-

ties that drive decisions in such

criminal cases. Prosecutors dis-

missed a gun case against one of

the men after a judge ruled key

evidence inadmissible because of

questions over the legality of the

police stop. The two other men

were sent home as they awaited

trial on gun possession charges,

one after his attorney cited con-

cerns about being jailed during

the coronavirus pandemic.

Arun G. Rao, a former assistant

U.s. attorney for Maryland, said

that he gets why it exasperates

police to rearrest the same people

but that prosecutors and judges

must consider many issues.

“The chief’s frustration is un-

derstandable, and I think a lot of

that frustration is justified,” said

Rao, who was chief of the south-

ern Division of the federal prose-

cutor’s office in Greenbelt. “The

circumstances on the ground are

consistent with what the chief has

identified as a problem — people

are having repeated encounters

with the system, and yet they are

still on the street.”

But Rao said “there are other

factors that also come into play,”

such as the circumstances of an

arrest and a defendant’s criminal

history, along with prior assess-

ments of a defendant’s risk of

flight and potential danger to the

community.

see sUspEcts oN B4

Past arrests

of suspects

scrutinized

after killing

D.C. police chief wants

more consequences for

repeat firearm offenders

BY PERRY STEIN

Valerie Kindt wants to return

to work full time. Kindt, the

mother of a rising third-grade

son, scaled back her hours to part

time at an international nonprof-

it organization in April so she

could guide her son through his

daily four hours of remote-learn-

ing lessons at his D.C. public

school. But she thinks this is a

pivotal time in her career and

fears what being a part-time em-

ployee will mean for her profes-

sionally.

so she is taking a gamble for

the fall: she is pulling her son out

of their beloved public elementa-

ry school and putting him in a

private school that, for now, says

its campus buildings will be open

full time for in-person learning in

september.

K indt says she realizes that

she’s making a bet a nd that she

may end up in the same situation

as she was at the public school:

All virtual learning from home.

But she said she expects that

private schools will eventually be

able to switch to in-person learn-

ing quicker than public schools,

making it a worthwhile gamble

for her.

“If they do close I am back to

square one,” Kindt said. “It again

means I will not be able to go

see schOOls oN B3

O n-site class in private schools’ mix

PARENTS SEE A WAY

TO RETURN TO WORK

Public systems’ call to go

all virtual drives interest