C6 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.SUNDAY, AUGUST 2 , 2020
his sister, Demetria Gassaway.
Nine days later, on July 19,
Rayfone was shot to death on
Stanton Road in the Douglass
neighborhood of Southeast Wash-
ington, where he had grown up, a
neighborhood from which his
family had fled.
Police said Rayfone was shot
once in the head and once in the
chest, an indication he had been
targeted.
He was killed four days before
his father’s funeral.
His family buried the patriarch
while mourning the loss of the
son.
Rayfone’s 41-year-old sister
said they have no idea what led to
the fatal shooting. She said her
brother liked to cruise around but
rarely stopped places, and he al-
ways returned to her residence in
Alexandria.
Demetria Gassaway described
her brother as a “loving, giving
person,” a “little quiet boy” who
loved fixing cars. “If your car was
making noise, he could tell you
what it was,” she said.
She s aid her brother and their
father were close, and his father’s
sudden death of cancer “de-
stroyed him mentally, physically
and emotionally.”
Rayfone’s 70-year-old mother,
Miriam Cheek-Gassaway, remem-
bers her son as the person who
saved her life 13 years ago, after
she suffered the first of two heart
attacks in a single month.
She was in bed, and Rayfone
came in looking for a cigarette.
She told him she couldn’t breathe.
He called an ambulance that “ar-
rived in the nick of time.”
“I always told him, ‘I wouldn’t’
be here talking to you if you
hadn’t been there,’ ” Cheek-Gas-
saway said. “I will never forget
that to this day.”
Now the family is planning its
second funeral in a matter of
weeks. Rayfone Gassaway will be
buried next to his father at Heri-
tage Memorial Cemetery in Wal-
dorf.
[email protected]Eddy Palanzo contributed to this
report.ple who are doing these murders,
there is no consequences for their
crimes. They keep doing them.”
Kamonie Edwards’s family re-
calls a child who always smiled
and always helped others. Her
brother Darius recalled a time
when Kamonie returned two
hours after collecting her allow-
ance, asking for more money.
“We thought she didn’t have a
sense of how money works,” Dari-
us Edwards said. The family then
learned that Kamonie had bought
food for her less-fortunate
friends. “She wanted to make sure
everybody got something.”A second funeral
Rayfone Gassaway had his
share of troubles but seemed to be
off to a new start with a job as a
dishwasher at a hotel. The 37-
year-old had two daughters, ages
15 and 17, and he wanted to pro-
vide for them.
On July 10, his 61-year-old fa-
ther, Ray Gassaway, a chef at
American University, died of can-
cer. He’d always told Rayfone that
it would be his job to take care of
the family, and the son felt the
weight of that responsibility, saidKamonie died at 2:05 a.m. of a
bullet wound to the head. Police
said she was struck by one of 46
bullets fired between two groups
shooting at each other across
W Street SE. They do not think
Edwards was targeted. No one
has been arrested.
That section of W Street SE is
home to a gang called Choppa
City, which police said has been
battling the Young Original Gang-
sters, a group that includes two
crews, one of them called the
Crashout Gang, which operates
on Cedar Street SE.
Cedar Street is where 11-year-
old Davon McNeal was killed dur-
ing the Fourth of July cookout in a
shooting that police blame on the
gang dispute. Police said one .45-
caliber bullet casing found near
where Davon was shot has been
linked to casings found at the
shooting of Edwards, just a few
blocks away.
“I just believe it is an evil lurk-
ing in this area,” said Kamonie
Edwards’s brother, Darius Ed-
wards, a youth minister at a
church and a security guard at a
middle school in Prince George’s
County. “It’s almost like the peo-month before and two blocks
away from where his mother was
killed.‘All I could do was pray’
It seemed Kamonie Tyrese Ed-
wards was off to a promising
start.
Ketcham Elementary. Kramer
Middle. Anacostia High.
She was accepted to college but
decided instead to try her hand at
catering, like her mother, and
start her own business.
Her family had moved away
from Anacostia, where she grew
up, because of violence there. But
Edwards, 21, went back to hang
out.
Her mother, Monique Ed-
wards, 47, called it “the danger
zone.”
“My daughter had to be around
there and be around her friends,”
she said. “All I could do was pray.”
On Tuesday, June 9 at
12:25 a.m., Kamonie Edwards
sent a one word text to her moth-
er: “Ma.” It was their code for
everything is okay.
At 1:30 a.m., Edwards got a call
that her daughter had been shot,
and she rushed to the hospital.than 2½ hours on July 10, a deadly
day in a deadly month, in a neigh-
borhood where residents say they
are caught between two warring
gangs.
Jones had lived in Carver-
Langston for about a decade be-
fore moving to Maryland four
years ago. She had raised three
sons in the District, built up a
lifetime of friends there and re-
turned often.
Pate said his mother had been
on her own since age 16, and
raised her boys as a single mother.
His father and the father of his
older brother, Tayvon Jones, 26,
were killed in separate shootings
years ago. A third brother, 15, is in
high school.
“A thousand things I could tell
you about her,” Pate said of his
mother. “She had a great heart. A
lot of real people loved this lady.”
Pate, a singer who raps under
the name “Poppy,” said his music
is aimed at getting young men out
of trouble. His message, he said, is
“be humble, keep your head up,
stay out of the way and don’t fall
victim to the streets.”
One of his friends, 27-year-old
Lowell Tolliver, was fatally shot aers. He also argues that culling
the jail population and slowing
the work of the courts because of
covid-19 — the illness caused by
the novel coronavirus — have left
free in the community p eople he
says are contributing to the vio-
lence.
Tyrone Parker, the director of a
group called the Alliance of Con-
cerned Men, which seeks to inter-
vene in disputes before they be-
come violent, attributed the surge
in violence to a combination of
factors — guns, anger, environ-
ment and hopelessness.
He said the killing of George
Floyd in police custody in Minne-
apolis and the pandemic have put
inequities of policing and society
in stark perspective. “There is no
support system in place,” Parker
said, citing problems of racial
bias, poverty, addiction and
health.
The killings have left families
grieving over lost loved ones and
squandered potential, residents
fearful for their safety and police
picking up bullet casings that
sometimes number in the dozens
at a single crime scene.
‘People loved this lady’
For two years, Tamika Jones
drove children from Bethesda,
Potomac and Chevy Chase to and
from the prestigious Potomac
School in McLean, where she was
praised by the head of school as a
“friendly, high energy” driver.
“She loved the kids on her bus,
and they loved her,” said Dwayne
Pate, 22, one of her three sons.
Jones was fatally shot while
talking with friends outside a row
of apartments in the Carver-
Langston neighborhood in
Northeast Washington on a Fri-
day afternoon. Police said Jones
had been sitting on a wall with
friends when two men fired at the
group from a car. Someone in that
group returned fire, police said.
Jones was hit by one of 43 bullets
fired; police said they do not think
she was targeted.
The 45-year-old was one of four
people killed in the District in less
GUN VIOLENCE FROM C1
Police say some freed in pandemic are linked to shootings
D.C. POLICE
Tamika Jones, 45, shown at left two decades ago, was fatally shot July 10 in Northeast Washington. Kamonie Edwards, 21, was fatally shot
June 9 in Southeast. Rayfone Gassaway, 37, was fatally shot July 19, also i n Southeast. He is shown on a flier that police issued in the case.FAMILY PHOTO FAMILY PHOTOhappened: People showed up at
the polling place with their mailed
ballot in hand.... They wanted to
watch it go into the machine. We
didn’t anticipate that, and there
was no way to react to it. We’re
trying to make sure that it doesn’t
happen again.”
Lamone, who did not share her
opinion on how the election
should be conducted, said she’s
concerned about local boards be-
ing able to process all the ballot
application requests, mailed-in
ballots and early voting and Elec-
tion Day ballots, all while observ-
ing social distancing.
Hogan is unsympathetic and
unmoved.
“All we’ve heard is a bunch of
arguing and whining,” he said.
“We’re going to have to take these
actions or they’re going to fail
miserably like they did during the
primary.”
Steve Johns, 62, said the gover-
nor’s plan vastly underestimates
what it takes to run an election or
show up to be a low-level election
judge, as Johns has in Prince
George’s for the past two elections.
“The [rule] book is almost as
thick as a school textbook,” he said.
“If you want to do it well, you have
to read it and pay attention in
class.”
Johns took the election-judge
training in January, before the
pandemic hit Maryland. But he
refused to serve after Hogan an-
nounced his all-precinct plan.
“There will be people who die
from this decision,” he said. “As
much as I’d like to help, but you
know, life, liberty and the pursuit
of happiness? You don’t have the
second two if you’ve lost the first.”
Others, like Karen Nitkin of
Howard County, are coming for-
ward for the first time, drawn by
what they see as the urgency of the
situation.
“It is almost, literally, the least I
could do,” said Nitkin, whose
daughter waited in line for three
hours to vote in an understaffed
Georgia precinct during the pri-
mary. When Nitkin filled out her
absentee ballot application in
Maryland, she checked the box
asking if she was willing to be an
election judge.
She’s concerned about the
health risk, but she’s confident in
the precautions and willing to
withstand it for one day, especially
because others are taking similar
risks just to earn a paycheck.
“I wouldn’t want to do it every
day,” she said. “But there are peo-
ple who work at Target every day,
and I wouldn’t want to do that
either. If there’s ever an essential
service, this is it.”
[email protected]according to a recent report on
election planning and the pan-
demic from the Union of Con-
cerned Scientists.
Hogan, who has been lauded
nationally for his response to the
pandemic, said he shares the goal
of keeping voters safe.
“My goal is to give everybody
every possible opportunity to
vote,” he said, adding that the state
will provide all the personal pro-
tective equipment necessary to
operate the polls.
Garreis, a deputy elections ad-
ministrator in Anne Arundel
County, said the costs of that are
enormous: He estimated that get-
ting plexiglass shields to separate
6,000 election check-in judges
from voters could add up to $1
million just for his county.
The governor has resisted calls
for an entirely or mostly mail-in
election by Attorney General Bri-
an Frosh (D) and a coalition of
voting rights groups, public health
doctors and activists, saying the
June primary was an “unmitigat-
ed disaster.”
The board sent some English-
speaking voters ballots in Spanish.
The company in charge of mailing
out ballots sent many of them late.
Some people reported never re-
ceiving their ballots, and others
got multiple ballots. Limited poll-
ing locations in Baltimore City
and elsewhere led to hours-long
waits.
“Frankly, I think that election
went well under the circum-
stances,” Lamone said. “Look whatfour-vote supermajority, a rule
geared at limiting partisanship
and increasing transparency, the
split vote did not count as an en-
dorsement of any plan, leaving
Hogan to go his own way.
A cross the country, 29 states
have enacted plans to let voters
cast ballots from home without
needing an excuse to do so, and all
have provided some avenue to let
people who need to vote in person
to do so, said Richard H. Pildes, a
constitutional law professor at
NYU School of Law who has writ-
ten about how critical it is to have
in-person voting.
D.C. intends to open 80 voting
centers across the city and mail
every voter a ballot. Virginia resi-
dents must request an absentee
ballot; they will not be sent an
application. Much attention of
voter rights advocates has focused
on the eight states, including New
York and Connecticut, that do not
consider fear of the pandemic a
legitimate reason to vote by mail.
Maryland appears to stand
alone for having widespread back-
lash to its in-person voting alter-
native to supplement absentee
balloting.
“I’m not aware of the kind of
pushback from local elections offi-
cials that seems to be happening
in Maryland right now happening
elsewhere,” Pildes said. “That
might be because in other states,
the state officials are not requiring
that every traditional polling pre-
cinct open.”
Hogan ordered the board to
send absentee ballot applications
in early July, hoping to encourage
more ballots to be mailed early
and avoid a last-minute surge in
requests.
But any changes to the absentee
ballot applications in Maryland —
including renaming them “mail-
in” ballots — involves a formal
notification and approval process
that takes a month. None can be
mailed until after the state board
approves them during a Wednes-
day meeting. And without an
emergency proclamation from
Hogan to change state law, none of
those mailed-in ballots can be
opened or counted until two days
after Election Day.
“It could take weeks” to get
results, said state administrator of
elections Linda H. Lamone, who
faced calls to step down after the
problem-plagued June 2 primary.
Lamone told the Hogan admin-
istration and state lawmakers it
will cost an extra $20 million to
finance the plan, with a big por-
tion of the cost due to sending an
absentee ballot application to ev-
ery voter in the state, plus return
postage.Maryland’s 27,000 election judge
jobs remained vacant.
It is another example of the
deadly pandemic weaving uncer-
tainty though the presidential
election process. As President
Trump faces bipartisan rebuke for
suggesting the election be delayed
and undermining mail-in voting,
Hogan is under withering criti-
cism — and facing open revolt —
from rank-and-file poll workers in
his state.
Elections administrators are
baffled by the moderate Republi-
can governor’s unusual voting
plan. After long lines and delays at
the limited number of polling
places open during the primary,
Hogan proposed thinning Elec-
tion Day crowds by sending absen-
tee ballot applications to every
voter and opening all precincts for
those who choose to vote in-per-
son on Nov. 3.
Maryland’s nonpartisan, local
election boards — career bureau-
crats tasked with finding poll
workers — say the plan is funda-
mentally flawed.
“Without election judges, it will
be impossible,” said David Garreis,
president of the Maryland Associ-
ation of Election Officials. “Re-
cruiting election judges is the
most difficult task by the local
boards in normal circumstances.”
The organization is meeting
with Hogan’s deputy chief of staff
soon to lobby for voting centers in
places like stadiums or other large
venues that can process thou-
sands of voters, spread far apart,
with minimal staff.
Hogan, meanwhile, has stead-
fastly rejected the criticism and
deflected responsibility for how
the election should be conducted
in November, saying the Board of
Elections should have already fig-
ured this out.
“This is their only job,” Hogan
said in an interview. “They have no
plan.... And so I said, ‘great, well,
we’re going to just do it all-of-the-
above.’ ”
The board voted 3 to 2, split
along party lines, in early July to
use a limited number of in-person
voting centers and mail absentee
ballot applications to every regis-
tered voter. Maryland is among
eight states planning to mail ab-
sentee ballot applications because
of the pandemic.
The two Democrats on the
board also wanted limited in-per-
son voting centers but preferred
mailing ballots to every registered
voter. Though it was considered as
an option, neither side supported
opening all of the state’s precincts.
Since board decisions require a
ELECTION FROM C1
Hogan wants a ‘normal’ election. Some call his plan unsafe.
MICHAEL ROBINSON CHAVEZ/THE WASHINGTON POST
Voters gather at one of the few in-person voting stations during the Maryland primary in Landover on
June 2. State officials faced criticism for long lines and mail ballot mishaps after the election.ERICA JOHNS“There will be people who die from
this decision.”
Steve Johns, who has chosen not to volunteer as an
election judge after receiving training in January“If there’s ever an essential service,
this is it.”
Karen Nitkin, who is volunteering for the first time this
yearKAREN NITKINREBECCA WILSONly in crowded places,” said Joshua
M. Sharfstein, a vice dean at the
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School
of Public Health and former state
health secretary under Hogan’s
predecessor, Martin O’Malley (D).
“The fewer people who are put in
that position, the better.”
And majority-minority com-
munities most vulnerable to the
virus are also statistically most
likely to have to wait in line to vote,Public health experts, mean-
while, have cast the state’s pre-
cinct plan as reckless and suggest-
ed that requiring people to take
initiative to request a ballot —
rather than simply mailing one —
might ultimately push more peo-
ple into understaffed precincts
with long lines and, potentially,
high viral loads.
“The virus is hoping that a lot of
people show up to vote, particular-“I will not volunteer for an
unnecessary suicide mission.”
Rebecca Wilson, a chief election judge from Prince
George’s County and 18-year poll worker