The Washington Post - USA (2022-05-28)

SATURDAY, MAY 28 , 2022. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ M2 K B3

VIRGINIA

Teenager arrested in 9-year-old’s wounding

Investigators arrested a Triangle teenager on Thursday in connection with the wounding of a 9-year-old girl who was hit by a stray bullet and suffered critical injuries while playing in a Woodbridge neighborhood Tuesday, Prince William County police said. Officers were called about 6:40 p.m. to the 15300 block of Gatehouse Terrace, where they found the girl suffering from a gunshot wound, police said. Officers administered aid until rescue crews arrived, and the girl was flown to a hospital with life-threatening injuries, police said. Prince William County Police Chief Peter Newsham said Wednesday afternoon that she remained in an intensive care unit. Late Thursday night, police officials announced they had arrested a 15-year-old male on charges that included aggravated malicious wounding, attempted malicious wounding, shooting at an occupied vehicle and gun charges. The teenager was not identified by police. “I think it goes to the belief by some in the community that it’s okay to discharge a firearm in our community,” the chief said. “We need to change that.” — Justin Jouvenal and Martin Weil

Results from May 27

DISTRICT
Day/DC-3: 0-2-5
DC-4: 2-0-5-2
DC-5: 6-3-8-6-0
Night/DC-3 (Thu.): 6-2-2
DC-3 (Fri.): 0-9-3
DC-4 (Thu.): 8-4-6-0
DC-4 (Fri.): 0-9-5-0
DC-5 (Thu.): 6-5-5-2-9
DC-5 (Fri.): 3-5-6-5-9

MARYLAND
Day/Pick 3: 7-9-4
Pick 4: 4-8-6-0
Pick 5: 3-8-8-0-6
Night/Pick 3 (Thu.): 1-6-9
Pick 3 (Fri.): 9-6-3
Pick 4 (Thu.): 3-2-6-4
Pick 4 (Fri.): 2-7-0-7
Pick 5 (Thu.): 1-5-1-7-2
Pick 5 (Fri.): 2-6-3-6-5
Multi-Match (Thu.): 13-18-19-30-37-41
Bonus Match 5 (Thu.): 2-10-15-20-21 32
Bonus Match 5 (Fri.): 13-14-18-31-35 9

VIRGINIA
Day/Pick-3: 5-3-4 ^8
Pick-4: 1-4-9-1 ^7
Night/Pick-3 (Thu.): 3-9-7 ^6
Pick-3 (Fri.): 8-1-4 ^6
Pick-4 (Thu.): 6-7-1-8 ^4
Pick-4 (Fri.): 7-7-0-0 ^2
Cash-5 (Thu.): 12-27-30-35-38
Cash-5 (Fri.): 8-11-20-33-41

MULTI-STATE GAMES
Mega Millions: 3-14-40-53-54 **8
Megaplier: 3x
Cash 4 Life:9-12-27-49-50 ¶4
Lucky for Life:2-3-17-38-47 ‡1

*Bonus Ball Mega Ball ^Fireball
¶ Cash Ball ‡Lucky Ball
For late drawings and other results, check
washingtonpost.com/local/lottery**

LOTTERIES LOCAL DIGEST

BY KEITH L. ALEXANDER

After 50-year-old Pedro Melendez-Alvarado was shot and killed in 2015 while driving along Interstate 295 in the District, police suspected the incident might have been a case of road rage. But at a court hearing this week for the man charged in the case, a detective outlined a far more elaborate plot: an aggrieved son, he alleged, was targeting a man he believed had killed his father more than a decade earlier. The new information emerged at a two-day hearing in D.C. Supe- rior Court for 32-year-old Oscar Ramos, who was arrested last fall. He is charged with first-degree murder while armed and other offenses in the fatal shooting of Melendez-Alvarado, a father, un- cle and brother. Melendez-Alvarado had been driving on I-295 North near exit one during the busy morning rush hour at about 8:30 a.m. on May 28, 2015, when people in another vehicle began shooting into the car, authorities have said. Melendez-Alvarado died at the scene. A person in the passenger seat was injured. For years, the case remained unsolved, and police believed M elendez-Alvarado may have been shot by an angry motorist during an altercation in traffic, in part because of the account of the passenger in the car. But D.C. homicide detectives got a break in 2017, when they were tipped that Ramos may have been the shooter. They began investigating, and found witnesses who claimed that Ramos had targeted Melendez-Alvarado as part of a retaliation plan he or- chestrated because — in his tell- ing — Melendez-Alvarado killed his father almost 15 years earlier, when Ramos was 12 and living in El Salvador. There has not been any evidence that Melendez-Alvarado was charged with or actually committed such a killing, and the detective did not say whether

police think Ramos’s belief was founded. A prosecutor raised questions about his credibility at the hearing. Relatives of Melendez-Alvarado have said he lived an inconspicuous life that seemed unlikely to attract vio- lence, most of it centered around work and sending money back to relatives in El Salvador. The Washington Post was unable to reach relatives for comment Friday. For his part, Ramos has plead-

ed not guilty, and his defense attorney raised questions about the credibility of the witnesses detectives interviewed. D.C. homicide detective Ken- niss M. Weeks testified in court that at least three witnesses told authorities that Ramos relocated from El Salvador to the Washing- ton area illegally, setting up a fictitious Facebook account of a Latina woman and flirting with Melendez-Alvarado to determine his whereabouts.

“He used the account to lure the decedent to his death,” Assis- tant U.S. Attorney Michael Lieb- man argued. Weeks did not identify the witnesses, but said three were part of the Latino street gang MS-13, and one was charged with a 2017 homicide. They were on authorities’ radar in part because of an FBI investigation into the gang’s conduct, Weeks said. Weeks said that Ramos admit- ted “avenging” his father’s death during two separate interviews with police in 2018 and 2021. In one of the interviews, Ramos told police his father was killed in 2005 back in El Salvador. But in a second interview, he said the killing occurred in the U.S. but gave no further specifics. “This shows the defendant can’t keep his stories straight,” Liebman said. Ramos had been deported twice to El Salvador but returned to the U.S., the prosecutor argued. In 2021, he was arrested and convicted of illegal reentry. Rachel E. McCoy, Ramos’s defense attorney, argued there was no direct evidence, such as eye witnesses or DNA, connecting Ramos to the fatal shooting. She argued the three witnesses who connected Ramos to the shooting were gang members, one of whom gave information about the shooting before he was sen- tenced in his own homicide case. “They are doing this for their own personal benefit,” McCoy argued. McCoy also noted that while there was abundant Facebook communication between Melendez-Alvarado and the account the prosecutor said Ramos created, there was no conversa- tion in which Melendez-Alvarado gave his home address or his commuting route, which would have allowed Ramos to target him on the road. “It makes no sense,” she argued. The judge, while citing concern about the credibility of the three gang members, determined the evidence “collectively” against Ramos was strong, and the case could move forward. She also ruled Ramos was a “flight risk” and a “danger to the community” and ordered him to remain in the D.C. jail until trial.

Magda Jean-Louis contributed to this report.

THE DISTRICT

Police: I-295 shooting was more than road rage

FAMILY PHOTO Pedro Melendez Alvarado, 50, w ith his two parents in El Salvador.

Authorities believe the shooter thought his target killed his father

BY ERIN COX

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan ve-
toed 18 bills late Friday, including
legislation that would have let vot-
ers fix mistakes on mail-in ballots,
provide tax breaks to union mem-
bers and stave off eviction for ten-
ants awaiting rental assistance.
In the final legislative action of
his two-term tenure, Hogan also
upended measures forbidding
debt collectors from sending peo-
ple to jail and forcing the state to
make low-income housing ener-
gy-efficient.
The decisions cap a General As-
sembly season that also cornered
Hogan into taking positions on
abortion access, gun control, paid
family leave and legalizing mari-
juana, a suite of liberal policy pri-
orities the Democratic-controlled
legislature sent to his desk this
spring.
Hogan vetoed all of those, ex-
cept for legislation regulating
ghost guns that takes effect next
week. But while the legislature
overrode Hogan on vetoes he is-
sued this spring, the General As-
sembly has no opportunity to re-
verse the vetoes issued after they
adjourned in April.
Some Democrats who had
championed proposals that Ho-
gan vetoed Friday accused the gov-
ernor of putting his potential
presidential ambition ahead of
policies he agreed were good for
Maryland voters. Hogan is weigh-
ing a presidential bid in 2024.
“Wow, if you want to see some
real Repub presidential politics at
work, the Guv vetoed a bill he says
has ‘positive changes to State elec-
tion law’ because it did not also
address other election matters,”
Del. Marc A. Korman (D-Mont-
gomery) wrote on Twitter.
Hogan vetoed an election bill
that would give voters a chance to
sign mail-in ballots if they forgot
to do so before dropping it off,
allowing those votes to be count-
ed.
“Maximizing voter participa-

tion and providing citizens with accessible and convenient ways to cast their ballots is vital to a healthy democracy,” Hogan wrote in his veto message. “Just as equal- ly vital, however, are election secu- rity and voter confidence ... for even the appearance of impropri- ety or the opportunity for fraud can be enough to undermine citizens’ confidence in their electoral system.” Election results in close races could be delayed if a large number of voters cast ballots by mail, since election officials may not start counting them until after the polls close. Hogan has traveled nationally and internationally this year as he raises his political profile. The governor has said he will not an- nounce his decision until after his term ends in January. His spokes- person said the legislature passes hundreds of bills, often at the last minute, and the governor is con- stitutionally obligated to veto those he believes are misguided. “This use of checks and balanc- es often leads to a bizarre lashing out by legislators, who express great offense that the governor does not agree with every single thing they do and say—or they just call him names," Hogan spokes- person Michael Ricci said in an email. “We can and should have policy disagreements without im- pugning each other’s motives.” Hogan vetoed a bill that would allow union members to deduct union dues from their taxable state income, saying that it afford- ed “unfair advantage to unions and activists.” On the tenant-rights bill, Ho- gan said that Maryland already has some of the nation’s strongest tenant protections. Forbidding evictions when tenants had pend- ing applications for rental-assistance programs, he said “will do little to help tenants and will make it harder for small and family- owned property owners to stay in business.”

MARYLAND

Hogan delivers 18 vetoes

in last legislative action

BY NICOLE ASBURY

Maryland’s State Board of Education has taken steps that could potentially remove Prince George’s County’s school board chair, a state board spokeswom- an said Friday. The board voted this week to issue a notice of charges against Juanita D. Miller, the chair of the school board at the helm of Maryland’s second-largest school system. To remove a local board member, the state board has to receive a request from a member of the school board or a county resi- dent. Board members can be removed for “immorality, mis- conduct in office, incompetency or willful neglect of duty,” ac- cording to the Code of Maryland Regulations. The decision for removal has to receive approval from the governor. State Board of Education members did not share any details at Tuesday’s meeting on what behavior from Miller led to the charges. Miller did not respond to a request for comment. The Prince George’s school board has historically suffered from years of infighting, leading to member resignations and mis- conduct allegations. Miller, who was appointed to the position by the county executive and began as chair last January, has often been at odds with the board’s liberal voting bloc. Current and former county school board members have called for Miller to step down for months, arguing that Miller has inflamed problems on a board that’s already been hindered by polarization that stems in part from its hybrid structure of elected and appointed members. In January, six members of the board and several county resi- dents filed a request with the Maryland State Board of Educa- tion to intervene and remove Miller. But the request was de-

clined and dismissed without prejudice because an affidavit wasn’t attached. Those board members filed a subsequent request in February with an affidavit attached. State Board of Education members did not share any details at Tuesday’s meeting on what prompted them to issue the notice of charges against Miller. In the February request ob- tained by The Washington Post, board members allege Miller had a consistent pattern of intention- ally violating board policy and working against board decisions. They pointed to board meetings that Miller canceled in February 2021, when the school system was still at the height of the pandemic. They also allege that Miller dismissed seven ethics complaints in December, though board policy requires the complaints be recommended to the full board for a vote to dismiss. A member of the ethics panel told the board at the December meeting the complaints were given to Miller to give to the board, but board members say months later, they’ve never seen a copy to review. Some members of the school board argue County Executive Angela D. Alsobrooks (D) should not have appointed Miller to the

leadership seat in the first place. “Dr. Miller came in and very quickly demonstrated a disregard for policies and procedures, and very quickly proved to be an impediment to the board functioning properly,” said Edward Burroughs III, a former school board member who represented District 8. “If we would have dealt with this back in February, the system would not have had to suffer for so long.” Burroughs (D) is one of the three elected school board members who recently left the board, citing a toxic environment that

stopped members from creating meaningful policy for the school system’s roughly 131,000 chil- dren. He currently represents Dis- trict 8 on the Prince George’s County Council. When asked if Alsobrooks was considering requesting Miller step down, Gina Ford, her com- munications director, said in a statement Friday: “We respect the process currently underway with the Maryland State Board of Education, and we will allow that process to reach its conclusion.” Pamela Boozer-Strother, an elected school board member who represents District 3, de- ferred comment to a former chair of the board, Alvin Thorn- ton. She declined to comment, stating The Post needed to “start the story from scratch.” The county executive has appointed the chair of the school board in recent years. The Mary- land General Assembly passed legislation that would allow Prince George’s County school board members to choose their own chair and vice-chair starting in December of this year. Shayla Adams-Stafford (Dis- trict 4) said that if Miller were removed, she was hopeful that the board would either be able to pick its next chair, or the county executive would appoint some- one who was a “true unifier.” Miller will receive formal noti- fication of the notice of charges next week. She has the opportunity to request a hearing before a state administrative law judge.

MARYLAND

Pr. George’s school board chair could be removed

PRINCE GEORGE’S COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS The charges could bring the ouster of Prince George’s County public schools board chair Juanita D. Miller.

State Board of Education voted to issue notice of charges against leader

“[Juanita D.] Miller

came in and very

quickly demonstrated a

disregard for policies

and procedures, and

very quickly proved to

be an impediment to the

board functioning

properly.” Edward Burroughs III, former school board member and current County Council member

BY MARTIN WEIL

The Washington region under-
went hours o f dark a tmospheric
menace Friday, amid g usts of
wind and bursts of rain a nd fre-
quent warnings of worse.
B lackening skies swirled w ith
cloudy o minousness from noon
until nightfall a s t he National
Weather Service issued t ornado
watches and tornado warnings.
The Weather Service office in
Wakefield, Va., indicated on Twit-
ter that a tornado indeed had
been confirmed in the vicinity of
Hanover and Caroline counties,
about 80 miles south of Washing-
ton. Details were not immediately

available. Under the lash of thunder- storm winds, trees toppled onto streets and roofs in many parts of the area. I t sometimes seemed as if thickets of f oliage had e rupted from w et pavement. Friday’s daytime clouds sometimes seemed so s wollen as to be hauling h uge Niagaras of rain. But b y 9 p.m., although the night was not over, the amount mea- sured in Washington seemed a surprisingly small 0.15 inch. Citing “ very severe weather” predicted for Friday night, the Washington Nationals baseball team postponed the night’s scheduled game until Saturday.

THE REGION

Tempestuous Friday

brings lashings of rain

ANNOUNCEMENTS

RELIGIOUSSERVICESDIRECTORY

Advertiseyour *WeeklyServices*SpecialEvents *Guest Speakers&Lectures*Bible Study *VolunteerOpenings *Church&PastorAnniversaries*Retreats*Concerts *EmploymentListings&More

To advertise,email: [email protected]

ANNOUNCEMENTS

RELIGIOUS SERVICES DIRECTORY

The Washington Post - USA (2022-05-28)

Get our desktop app

Company

Features

Documentation

Resources