KLMNO
METRO
FRIDAY, JULY 31 , 2020. WASHINGTONPOST.COM/REGIONAL EZ M2 B
THE DISTRICT
Kramerbooks will stay in
its Dupont Circle location
for at least three years,
the store’s owner says. B5VIRGINIA
Rep. Denver Riggleman,
ousted by the GOP in his
reelection bid, is weighing
a run for governor. B4OBITUARIES
Herman Cain launched an
unlikely run for president in
2012 that briefly landed him76 ° 76 ° 80 ° 77 ° atop the GOP polls. B6
8 a.m. Noon 4 p.m. 8 p.m.High today at
approx. 4 p.m.80
°
Precip: 75 %
Wind: WSW
4-8 mphNew cases in region
Through 5 p.m. Thursday, 1,861
new coronavirus cases were
reported in the District, Maryland
and Virginia, bringing the total
cases to 188,138.
D.C. MD.VA.
+58 +892 +9 11
12,057 87,177 88,904Coronavirus-related deaths
As of 5 p.m. Thursday:
D.C. MD.* VA.
+0 +10+ 16
584 3,488 2,141* Includes probable covid-19 deathsEverywhere, cities are ghost
towns and college campuses look
abandoned. With boarded-up
buildings and dark storefronts,
empty benches and quiet quads,
every place was a blank canvas
where we wouldn’t be soaking
up a vibe, but rather imagining
life.
This meant that any kind of
touring is a gamble. Will it be
inspirational? Or even more
depressing?
“No, I don’t care, Mom,” my
kid said when I warned him that
he’s not going to get a real feeling
for any campus under these
circumstances. “I just need to get
away from my room. I need to
know I’m not always going to be
in that rooooooom.” Okay, then.
SEE DVORAK ON B3boston — “This
is where students
would relax and
study in between
classes,” I tell my
son, sweeping my
arm toward the
great, green and
totally vacant
expanse of Harvard Yard.
“Imagine all the students in
there, in a robotics lab or the AI
lab,” I tell him, outside the dark
and locked-down computer
sciences building at
Northeastern University.
And on we went, trying to
make some educational,
forward-thinking impact on the
teen’s already-lost summer.
But it wasn’t a campus visit as
much as it was a canvas visit.College tours a barren
ritual in covid-19 era
Petula
DvorakBY PETER HERMANN
AND SAMANTHA SCHMIDTF
or nearly two decades, the family
and friends of Ukea Davis and Steph-
anie Thomas agonized over who fa-
tally shot the transgender teenagers
in Southeast Washington.
The years ticked by with no arrest.
Thomas’s mother, Queen Washington,
feared the killings in 2002 were driven by hate,
or perhaps jealousy, by someone who knew
her daughter but didn’t want to accept who
she was.
On Thursday, D.C. police announced they
had identified the suspected assailant, and
that he had been killed in a shooting three
years ago.
In closing the case, D.C. Police Chief Peter
Newsham said the killings of the two best
friends were “clearly a hate crime.” He said the
suspect had been with the teenagers in the
overnight hours of Aug. 12, 2002, and that two
newly found witnesses told a detective that“when he realized they were not women, he
killed them.”
Washington, 75, disagrees with t he witness
accounts that her daughter was killed because
a person did not initially know she was trans-
gender. “Everybody in this neighborhood
knew that Stephanie was transgender,” she
said. “That’s not no motive, and that’s not
true.”
She added, “One thing I always taught
Stephanie was always let someone know who
you are.”
The slayings of Davis and Thomas were
among a series of mostly unsolved killings of
transgender women in the District in 2001
and 2002, alarming members of that commu-
nity and sparking an outpouring of grief.
Then-D.C. Mayor Anthony A. Williams spoke
at a vigil for the two teens, who were buried
next to each other.
Earline Budd, a longtime transgender ad-
vocate in the District, said she has been giving
information to police from the community
SEE SLAYINGS ON B2‘Why would you take their lives?’
Police identify assailant, now dead, who they say killed two D.C. transgender teens in 2002
R ICKY CARIOTI/WASHINGTON POST
Queen Washington stands near the intersection of 50th and C Streets SE in 2012. The killings of her transgender daughter, Stephanie
Thomas, and her daughter’s friend Ukea Davis were among several slayings of transgender women in the District in 2001 and 2002.FAMILY PHOTO
A D.C. police detective earlier this year
found two new witnesses who identified
the killer of Ukea D avis, 18, left, and
Stephanie Thomas, 19.BY ANN E. MARIMOWThe Maryland woman had just
wrapped up a virtual happy hour
on Facebook, drinking a couple
of beers on the porch while her
infant daughter and 4-year-old
slept. She changed the baby’s
diaper, pumped breastmilk, took
out the trash and locked the
doors before climbing into bed
next to her baby girl.
By morning, Muriel Morri-
son’s daughter was listless, herlips blue. Morrison was charged
and convicted by a jury in the
co-sleeping death of her infant,
who suffocated while she slept
beside her mother.
Maryland’s highest court this
week threw out Morrison’s 2013
conviction and 20-year sentence.
The decision divided the Mary-
land Court of Appeals along
gender lines, with the all-female
majority ruling that there was
not enough evidence to find that
Morrison was “grossly negli-
gent.” The judges were not pre-
pared to criminalize co-sleeping
in the same bed as an infant.
“Co-sleeping with a four-
month old after consuming beer
does not necessarily pose such an
inherent risk of death or serious
SEE RULING ON B2Md. mother’s conviction
in baby’s death is tossed
Appeals court won’t
criminalize sleeping
in same bed as infantBY DAN MORSERebecca Lattimore, police said,
approached other women on so-
cial media and dating apps. After
some online conversations, she’d
slowly coax them to send nude
photos and videos before spring-
ing open the truth.
“I’m actually a dude,” Lattimore
wrote to one woman, detectives
said in court filings.
It turns out, according to police,
that “Rebecca Lattimore” was ac-tually Michael Cooper, 2 2, of Ger-
mantown, w ho authorities accuse
of being a serial sextortionist. Po-
lice said he demanded the women
he targeted meet him and perform
sex acts on him, threatening to
send the compromising images to
porn sites and directly to the wom-
en’s family, friends and co-workers
if they refused.
“ That’s an image that will never
really leave a father or mother’s
mind. Or a cousin’s, a friend’s, etc... .” police said he wrote in one
such warning to a woman who
works in corporate sales training.
“Imagine if every person you give a
presentation to had already seen u
naked.”
Investigators in Montgomery
County charged Cooper this week
SEE CHARGES ON B4
Man, 22, c harged in
sexual extortion scam
He posed as woman on
social media to collect
nude photos, police sayBY PERRY STEIN,
JULIE ZAUZMER
AND JUSTIN GEORGED.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser
(D) announced Thursday that
schools in the nation’s capital
would start the 2020-2021 aca-
demic year all-virtual, a scenario
that the city’s leaders had been
trying to avoid.
The decision isn’t a surprise.
Coronavirus infection numbers
are on the rise in the D.C. region,
and neighboring school districts
in Maryland and Northern Vir-ginia have already canceled plans
for in-person classes in the fall,
saying they will begin with dis-
tance learning.
But still, in a school district
where most students qualify for
free and reduced lunch and nearly
half of the students are consid-ered at-risk for academic failure,
it wasn’t an easy decision. D.C.
education leaders have stressed
that there is no substitute for
in-person learning and had been
attempting to get students into
classrooms for at least a few days a
week. Two weeks ago, Bowser
nearly unveiled a plan to bring
students back to classrooms for a
few days a week in the fall, but at
the last minute she decided to
delay the announcement.
“We are moving forward with
an all-virtual start to the school
year for students in pre-K throughthe 12th grade from Term 1 until
November 6th,” said Deputy May-
or for Education Paul Kihn. “We
will continue to plan for in-person
options for Term 2.”
The announcement comes as
the Washington Teachers’ Union
caps a week of protests, calling on
the city to begin the school year
with all-remote learning. On
Monday, teachers delivered body
bags to the school system’s head-
quarters to warn of the deaths
they believe could occur if schools
reopened. They also protested on
the streets and in front of thehome of Lewis D. Ferebee, chan-
cellor of the D.C. public school
system.
Many families — particularly
from the city’s wards hit hardest
by the virus — have said they did
not want to return to school build-
ings in the fall. But other families
have said that their children are
falling behind and that they want
the city to think of creative solu-
tions to get students back in class-
rooms.
School leaders acknowledged
that students still need adequate
SEE SCHOOLS ON B4D.C. s chools t o start the academic year w ith all-virtual learning
All grades to be out of
classrooms until at least
Nov. 6, officials sayBY RACHEL CHASON
AND DANA HEDGPETHPrince George’s County is tar-
geting large parties at private
homes and considering rolling
back permitted activities after a
recent rise in cases of the novel
coronavirus.
County Executive Angela D. Al-
sobrooks (D) said Thursday that
new cases in the county began to
rise after the July 4 holiday week-
end, driven in large part by family
gatherings and parties. Leaders
across the Washington region
have taken actions in recent days
to slow an increase in infections
that started earlier this month.
Prince George’s recorded 909
new cases the week of July 12 to
July 18, compared with 581 new
cases the week of June 28 to July
4, according to county data. Hos-
pitalizations have also increased,
as has the test positivity rate,
which is 5.8 percent.
“Covid is still in our communi-
ty, and it is still spreading,” Also-
brooks said in a news conference.
“We have to be very, very vigilant.
We are still very much on the line.”
Echoing numbers Maryland
Gov. Larry Hogan (R) cited a day
earlier, Alsobrooks said contact
tracing statewide shows 44 per-
cent of new infections are among
people who have been at family
gatherings and 23 percent report
having been at a house party.
She said she is working with
county health officer Ernest L.
Carter to determine whether re-
strictions need to be rolled back,
but said she does not believe such
actions are necessary. But she
SEE REGION ON B4County
considers
quelling
activities
PR. GEORGE’S K EYS
ON L ARGE PARTIESVirus hospitalizations at
highest since early July