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THURSDAY, MAY 26 , 2022. WASHINGTONPOST.COM/LOCAL EZ SU B

BY TOM JACKMAN

AND PETER HERMANN

The executive order to improve

policing in the United States un-

furled by President Biden on

Wednesday has direct effect only

on federal officers and agents, who

were instructed to wear body cam-

eras, create a national database of

police misconduct and conduct

thorough internal investigations

in use-of-force cases. But there are

about five times as many local

police officers and sheriffs depu-

ties nationwide as federal agents,

and the president doesn’t have

authority over them. And it was

local, not federal, police officers in

Minneapolis, Louisville and At-

lanta whose widely publicized ac-

tions in 2020 sparked the nation-

wide call for police reform.

Still, local police officials say

they have already implemented

most of the reforms being ordered

by Biden federally, though some

community activists say the pace

of change hasn’t been fast enough.

And two of the key contributors to

the Biden order, the leaders of the

International Association of

Chiefs of Police (IACP) and the

Fraternal Order of Police (FOP),

said the Biden reforms were large-

ly based on changes already enact-

ed at the local level. They said

Biden’s 21-point order should cre-

ate a national policing standard

for departments that aren’t al-

ready restricting choke holds and

no-knock warrants, limiting use of

force and training their officers in

avoiding biased policing, as the

president instructed federal agen-

cies to begin doing.

Christopher Geldart, the Dis-

trict’s deputy mayor for public

safety and justice, said many of the

21 actions ordered by Biden “are

things we have already done or are

currently doing.” Police in the Dis-

trict have banned the use of choke-

hold restraints, which caused the

death of Eric Garner in New York

in 2014, and no-knock warrants,

SEE POLICE ON B4

Police

react to

Biden’s

order

MANY REFORMS

ALREADY UNDERWAY

Federal-officer mandate

could create standard

JOHN KELLY’S WASHINGTON

Florence Merriam Bailey's

“Birds Through an Opera-

Glass” inspired a new way

of birding. B3

THE DISTRICT

Union Station’s operator

blasted Amtrak’s bid to

take over the property via

eminent domain. B3

OBITUARIES

Colin Cantwell, 90,

a concept artist, helped

bring the Star Wars

62 ° 66 ° 72 ° 71 ° universe to life. B6

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

High today at

approx. 6 p.m.

73

°

Precip: 25%

Wind: SSE

6-12 mph

BY NICK ANDERSON

Three days before Christmas, the founder of a

private school with global ambitions sent a bombshell

note to families, faculty and staff of the D.C. campus.

Paychecks for employees of Whittle School & Studios

were a week late, Chris Whittle disclosed, and the

financial situation looked dire. It was unclear whether

classes would resume after the winter break.

“It has been 7 years since we began work on the

school and this is the most worried I have ever been

that we may not be able to continue and to fulfill what

we all set out to do,” Whittle wrote to his D.C.

community. He appealed to investors, friends and

families for emergency help.

The school survived that scare, with parents pitch-

ing in to help cover the payroll. It plans to hold its first

D.C. graduation this week for 14 students in the Class of

2022 — a milestone for an educational start-up that has

struggled to live up to grand promises.

Uncertainty hangs over Whittle School nearly three

years after it opened in Northwest Washington with

about 185 students in tandem with a sister campus in

China. It now enrolls fewer than 130 in a cavernous

building on Connecticut Avenue that was once envi-

sioned as a futuristic campus for more than 2,000

students from prekindergarten through high school,

SEE SCHOOL ON B2

Enrollment also has ebbed in

t he District for a private start-up

that envisioned a network of

campuses around the globe

TOP: The China-centric classroom at Whittle School & Studios in Northwest Washington. The private start-up

opened three years ago along with a sister campus in China. ABOVE: School founder Chris Whittle pitched the

f or-profit venture in 2018 as “the first global school,” but the goal now is just to remain open in D.C.

I was a kid when a classmate was

shot and killed. That trauma lasts.

I am shaking as I

write this.

I am thinking

of them. I am

thinking of her.

I am grieving

for their parents. I

am grieving again

for hers.

I am a mother of two trying to

make sense of the elementary

school shooting that occurred in

Uvalde, Tex., not far from where I

grew up. I am 13 again and

walking past my classmate’s

casket after she was gunned

down at a birthday party in San

Antonio.

The trauma from Tuesday’s

shooting, in which a gunman

killed at least 19 students and

two teachers, won’t just be far

reaching and long lasting. It will

reach further and last longer

than anyone will be able to see. I

know that not because of any

studies or expert opinions. I

know that because I lost a

classmate to a mass shooting in

Texas three decades ago.

My eighth-grade classmate

Blanca Garcia was shot and

killed at a birthday party

attended by half my classmates.

Several of them and their

parents were also shot when

gang members, who had the

wrong house, barged in and

started firing with handguns and

shotguns.

In the coming days, prayers

for the Uvalde community will

increasingly be replaced by

political posturing, and people

who prioritize saving guns over

protecting children will

characterize school shootings as

“rare.” The problem with doing

that, beyond the insensitivity of

it, is it offers a skewed

measurement. It counts events,

not damage. It does not take into

account how many people are

actually affected when bullets fly

at children and how long they

carry that trauma with them.

Even before the Uvalde

shooting occurred, I was

thinking about my middle school

classmate because of an email I

received weeks ago. The subject

line contained only two words:

Blanca Garcia.

I wondered who, after all this

time, could be writing to me

about her. I clicked it open.

“A friend just mentioned the

band Birthday Massacre,” it read.

“Took me back to one of my

worst nights as a TV News

Photographer.”

The man who wrote the email

explained that on the night of the

shooting he was working the

overnight shift for a local news

station.

“We heard the call over the

radio,” he wrote. “We were close

by and made it to the house even

before the ambulances arrived. It

was f---ing terrible. ... It was the

first time I cried at a scene.”

When shootings happen, we

tend to focus on where those

bullets land. We count the dead

and we note the number of

injured. But we are fooling

ourselves if we think that

SEE VARGAS ON B5

Theresa

Vargas

OBTAINED BY THE WASHINGTON POST

B lanca Garcia, 14, was fatally

shot at a birthday party.

BY SALVADOR RIZZO

His expression blank, his voice

monotone, the MS-13 leader told

a hushed courtroom how he and

others in the gang took turns

stabbing and striking one of the

teens, and how the other begged

to know why he was being at-

tacked.

Testifying in federal district

court in Alexandria about the

two 2016 slayings, Josue Vigil

Mejia said MS-13 members sus-

pected one of the youths, a 14-

year-old, of working with police,

and the other, a 17-year-old, of

spying for the rival 18th Street

gang.

But prosecutors said the 14-

year-old was no police inform-

ant. And Vigil Mejia said that

shortly after killing the 17-year-

old, gang members found a photo

on his phone showing he was

earnestly trying to join their

MS-13 clique in Northern Vir-

ginia.

“By that time, it was too late,”

said Vigil Mejia, who conceded

he stabbed the teen about 20

times with a knife. “We shouldn’t

have killed him.”

Vigil Mejia, who is in his

mid-20s and went by the nick-

name “Horror,” is considered the

most critical witness in the trial

of five members of a Northern

Virginia MS-13 clique, all in their

mid-20s to early 30s, who pros-

ecutors say killed 17-year-old Ed-

vin Eduardo Escobar Mendez o f

Falls Church and 14-year-old Ser-

gio Anthony Arita Triminio of

Alexandria.

The teenagers’ bodies were

found buried 50 yards from each

other in a Fairfax County park in

2017, police said. Prosecutors be-

gan presenting their case to ju-

rors this month, with Vigil Mejia

providing painstaking details of

the killings over four days of

testimony last week.

Those on trial are Ronald Her-

rera Contreras, Duglas Ramirez

Ferrera, Pablo Miguel Velasco

Barrera, Elmer Zelaya Martinez,

and his brother, Henry Zelaya

Martinez.

They were among 13 men in-

SEE TRIAL ON B2

Gang chief

describes

slayings

of 2 teens

Leader is a top witness

at m urder trial of 5

MS-13 members in N.Va.

After flashy opening, financial

struggles for Whittle S chool

BILL O'LEARY/THE WASHINGTON POST

2018 PHOTO BY SARAH L. VOISIN/THE WASHINGTON POST

BY DANA HEDGPETH

The number of blue crabs in the

Chesapeake Bay hit a record low,

marking the lowest count in more

than three decades of tracking the

crustaceans, experts said.

The annual Baywide Blue Crab

Winter Dredge Survey, which

comes up with an estimate of the

blue crab population, this year

tallied 227 million crabs, the “low-

est abundance observed since the

survey began in 1990,” said the

authors of the count. Officials say

the survey by the Maryland De-

partment of Natural Resources

(DNR) and the Virginia Institute

of Marine Science (VIMS) is key to

knowing how to manage the num-

ber of blue crabs that can be har-

vested each year by commercial

and recreational fishing opera-

tions.

“It provides the guardrails of

how we manage the crab harvest,”

said Michael Luisi, acting director

of Maryland DNR Fishing and

Boating Services, whose division

helps in the survey.

This year’s survey raised several

concerns: The number of juvenile

crabs was down at roughly 101

million, marking the “third con-

secutive year of [a] below a verage”

count; and the number of female

crabs that are of spawning age

dropped from 158 million crabs in

2021 to 97 million. A ccording to

the survey, there were also 28

million adult male crabs, which

experts called the “lowest adult

male abundance on record.”

Experts said the number of fe-

male crabs that could spawn in the

coming year is an important “indi-

cator of future spawning

p otential.” By knowing the total

number of crabs in the bay, they

said, they can figure out how

SEE CRABS ON B4

Chesapeake’s blue crab count at a

low, and experts search for solutions

LINDA DAVIDSON/THE WASHINGTON POST

The annual Baywide Blue Crab Winter Dredge Survey estimates

the blue crab population in the Chesapeake Bay at 227 million.

Decline in number of

females raises concerns

about future spawning