C6 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.SUNDAY, OCTOBER 20 , 2019
tennis shoes and clothes, and he
spent the money he earned on
himself.”
Bobby Williams would some-
times drive into the District and
have lunch with his nephew at
Potomac Gardens. The morning
before he was killed, Marcus
Williams spoke with his uncle by
phone and told him he was
planning to go to North Carolina
to visit his mother.
“I told him to drive carefully,”
Bobby Williams recalled.
“He said, ‘Okay, Unc.’ ”
That was a Thursday.
He was supposed to make the
trip Saturday.
“He never made it,” his uncle
said.
[email protected]The younger Williams was not
married and had no children, but
Bobby Williams said he had a
girlfriend and had just moved
into his o wn apartment in South-
east.
“He was just a kind young
man,” Bobby Williams said. “He
was a country boy in a big city. H e
came here a nd d idn’t get into any
kind of mischief. He worked one
job, then another, and on Sun-
days, he went to church.... He
loved everyone, and everyone he
came in contact with loved him.”
The uncle said many young
men are arrogant, with a “mad
against the world” attitude. “He
wasn’t like that,” Bobby Williams
said. “He realized he had to work
to survive. He liked nice things,school teacher and church dea-
con who lives in Fort Washing-
ton, Md. The 71-year-old said he
raised two daughters and
thought of his nephew “as the
son I never had.” Marcus Wil-
liams joined his uncle’s church,
Paramount Baptist in Southeast
Washington, attended Sunday
school and was baptized.
He w orked as a groundskeeper
at Potomac Gardens, first for a
private company, then for the
housing authority when the
agency t ook o ver t he contract. He
drove h is older-model silver Mer-
cedes to the job site every day,
and when his shift was done, he
drove to Virginia to work his
second job, an overnight stocker
at Harris Te eter.Henderson, N.C., a town of about
15,000 north of Raleigh, where
he attended high school and
“was a gifted athlete,” according
to the death notice. He had two
brothers who l ive in the D.C. area
and a sister who lives in Fayette-
ville, N.C. His mother, Janet,
worked for Revlon before she
became ill.
The victim m oved t o Maryland
after he was released from p rison
in November 2017, serving time
for a federal drug conviction in
Virginia. D.C. police said their
investigation into his killing
shows no connection to drugs or
to that case.
At first, Marcus Williams
stayed with his uncle Bobby
Williams, a retired elementaryliams pushed off his attacker and
tried to escape by running
around the front of the car. The
assailant chased as Williams ran
into the courtyard of the housing
complex.
Police said it is there that he
was shot in the chest.
No arrest has been made.
The fatal daylight shooting
was one of eight killings in five
days in the District, a spate that
pushed the homicide count to
8 percent above last year’s pace
and prompted the mayor and
police chief to order a fall crime
initiative, targeting hard-hit ar-
eas of the District.
Marcus Williams grew up inWILLIAMS FROM C1crisis escalated in 2017.”
Anida says Fonge moved his
mother from one place to
another to keep her safe from the
violence.
“It’s becoming worse,” he says.
“They don’t value human life.”
They don’t value human life.
He is talking about there. But he
could also be talking about here.
Students in the District have said
they are scared to walk to and
from school because of the gun
violence, and a climbing
homicide count recently pushed
D.C. officials to authorize paying
officers overtime to patrol three
areas of the city.
Within a 24-hour period this
month, bullets killed a 15-year-
old boy, a D.C. Housing Authority
employee on his lunch break
and, in that rowhouse, two men
who spent their days sharing
food and practicing saying words
such as “Good night.”
“He loved his job,” Bezezuh
says. “He enjoyed every minute
of doing his job.”
He says his cousin earned
about $15 an hour, which he
generously shared with friends
here who needed it and relatives
in his home country.
Before the Wednesday he was
killed, he told several friends
that he planned to send his
mother money that Friday.
Now, they’re hoping to at least
send her his body.
[email protected]explain, she keeps asking me.”
He also works as a home
health aide and says the days
since Fonge’s death have been
difficult.
“Sometimes I cry at work,” he
says. “Sometimes I’m eating and
I think of him and cry. It will
take me a long time to stop
crying.”
Fonge’s roommate, Paul
Anida, says he woke up a few
nights ago from a panic attack.
He says Fonge had an “electric,
vibrant personality” t hat drew
people toward him. Now, Anida
says, their apartment “feels like a
graveyard.”
He also came from Cameroon
and says that for many people in
the community, Fonge’s death
has brought close what they
thought they left far behind:
“You come here and expect to
have peace of mind. You come
here and you expect to stay away
from all the troubles back home.”
A Human Rights Watch report
describes violence and human
rights abuses taking place in the
country in recent years: “In the
South West and North West,
government security forces have
committed extrajudicial
executions, burned property,
carried out arbitrary arrests, and
tortured detainees.... According
to the International Crisis
Group, government forces and
armed separatists killed over 420
civilians in the regions since theCameroon, where his mother
and younger brother remain.
“His mother told me that since
last week, people keep coming to
the home,” s ays Alfred Forgwe,
who adopted Fonge when he was
a teenager. There, he explains, it
is customary for people to stay
with grieving families for days.
“People are sleeping everywhere.
Some are sleeping on the floor of
the living room. The house is
full. It’s going to keep on like
that until he is finally buried.”
The family is trying to raise
$25,000 through a GoFundMe
campaign to send his body
home. By Friday afternoon, the
fund had been shared more than
1,200 times and had raised more
than $15,000.
“It’s amazing,” Forgwe says. “I
appreciate everyone.”
He describes Fonge as
“different” f rom most people. He
says Fonge rarely got angry with
anyone, and if someone got
upset with him, he always found
a way to make that person laugh.
He recalls watching him build a
relationship with Miler. He saw
them cook together and take
naps on the couch at the same
time. He says Fonge also had a
way of connecting with children,
including Forgwe’s 8-year-old
daughter.
“She keeps asking me, ‘Why
would someone shoot him to
death? What did he do?’ ”
Forgwe says. “No matter what Ithe area from Cameroon about a
year and a half ago, Fonge was
the one who made sure he felt
welcomed. He pulled him into
his social circles and helped him
get a job as a home health aide.
Fonge had come from the same
southwest region of the country
years earlier with an aunt and
uncle who adopted him.
Bezezuh says his cousin’s
death has not only hit his family
hard, but it has also been felt by
Cameroonians throughout the
Washington region, across the
United States and beyond.
The family expects that
hundreds of people will show up
at a service they are planning for
him in the D.C. area. They also
know many people are waiting
for his body to be sent tosold at the house. Peyton asked
to use the restroom and was
directed upstairs. A short while
later, according to the witness
statements, Peyton came
downstairs, brandished a black
handgun and demanded money.
“Give up whatever you got,”
one person heard him say.
One of the witnesses who
spoke to police was Peyton’s
brother. He told them that when
Peyton pointed the gun at Miler,
he tried to stop him from
shooting the man. He told police
that he stood in front of Miler
but that Peyton reached around
him, fired the gun and pushed
him out of way. The brother said
Peyton then walked toward the
back of the house, pointed the
gun at Fonge and, after saying,
“Give it up,” pulled the trigger
again.
When police arrived,
according to the warrant, they
found both men unconscious,
with “no signs consistent with
life.” Miler had been shot in the
neck and Fonge had a gunshot
wound to the face.
“I just don’t want to believe
that he’s gone,” Bezezuh says on a
recent afternoon of his cousin,
who was also called Leke. “I keep
saying every day, ‘Leke, come on,
let’s go, I’m still waiting for
you.’ ”
When Bezezuh, 30, came toVARGAS FROM C1BY PETER HERMANNShe was officially called a “data
entry specialist,” but what Dilcia
Rodriguez did at the 8 01 East
Men’s Shelter in Southeast Wash-
ington could n ot be contained by a
mere j ob title.
The 32-year-old matched
homeless clients to beds, record-
ing some of their most personal
details, immersing herself in the
lives of some o f the District’s most
distressed citizens who passed
through the shelter run by Catho-
lic Charities.
Rodriguez also was the confi-
dante of her colleagues, t he shoul-
der to cry on for o thers in distress.
“She was the person everybody
would go to to get into a better
mood,” s aid Amanda Chesney, the
executive d irector o f the nonprofit
organization’s h ousing a nd home-
less services. “She w as literally t he
person people would go to for
hugs.”
What few people k new was that
Rodriguez also was s truggling.
D.C. police said Rodriguez’s
husband of seven years, Calvin
Aughtry, 37, fatally shot her
Wednesday morning inside their
apartment in Washington High-
lands, and they think he later
fatally shot himself inside a vehi-
cle in Maryland.
Two close friends said Rodri-
guez was as upbeat and inspira-
tional at h er home on Chesapeake
Street SE as she was at the office,
doting on four children the couple
were raising. She would make oth-
ers laugh by doing a dance or
giving an impromptu hug, even as
she grew convinced that she had
to leave her abusive environment
while still working two jobs to get
by.
Stephanie Gudger, one of the
few people Rodriguez confided in,
said they drove around on Tues-
day night discussing how Rodri-
guez could leave and get to a safe
place with the children. She told
Gudger she was being a bused, but
she never called police, afraid, her
friend said, that the children
would be split up. The couple had
a 7-year-old son together; she had
two children from a previous r ela-
tionship, a nd he had one.
Antonika Johnson, a friend
who lives in an apartment below
Rodriguez’s, said she heard n oises
that sounded like muffled gun-
shots about 4:45 a.m. Wednesday,
but she dismissed them. She and
Gudger said the children were
home at the time Rodriguez was
shot, but they apparently did not
see or hear the incident.
They said Aughtry took the
children to school before he ap-
parently took his own life, an ac-
count confirmed by D.C. police.
Officers, called by someone con-
cerned for Rodriguez’s safety,
found her body about 8 a.m.
Johnson said she wished she
had done more to persuade Rodri-
guez to seek help. “I could have
saved her,” s he said.
She recalled how Rodriguez
helped her furnish her apartment
when s he moved in, even ordering
a sofa for her online. The two
laughed together. And danced to-
gether. Cooked dinner together.
Their children played together.
“She was the life of the party,”
Johnson said. “She was a good
cook. She could do hair. She loved
the color red.”
But the friend said she heard
loud arguments between Rodri-
guez and Aughtry and once wit-
nessed physical abuse by the hus-
band.
Rodriguez began working for
Catholic Charities seven years
ago, s tarting as receptionist at the
downtown office, where she greet-
ed everyone from deep-pocketed
donors to the penniless seeking
bus fare, and then migrating to the
men’s s helter on the g rounds of St.
Elizabeths Hospital, which c an ac-
commodate 380 people a night.
Whether feeding her children
or feeding the homeless, Rodri-
guez thought atmosphere mat-
tered. She served Thanksgiving
dinner at home on good china,
and when she h elped w ith holiday
meals on tables outside Catholic
Charities’ central office, she insist-
ed that those guests weren’t given
disposable p lates.
A former co-worker, Christabel
L. Estrada, recalled her saying,
“Everyone deserves to eat off fan-
cy p lates.”
Estrada said Rodriguez “treat-
ed everybody with respect” and
kept up her inspirational ways
even as her life got harder. “Clear-
ly, she was going through a lot of
personal issues,” Estrada said.
“Yet you would never know it. She
would walk around making you
feel good without sharing the
hardship she w as enduring.”
[email protected]
THE DISTRICT
Shooting
victim had
told friend
of abuse
THERESA VARGASCaregiver for autistic man ‘treated his client as a blood brother’
FAMILY PHOTO
Lekelefac Fonge and his client,
Devon Miler, were fatally shot.Fa mily mourning slain D.C. housing employee and his mother
BY JESSICA ANDERSONbaltimore — Early results of a
new Baltimore Police Depart-
ment campaign recruiting men
and women to “Be a Part of the
Greatest Comeback Story in
America” are promising: Applica-
tions soared to 476 in the month
after the launch, nearly double
the previous month’s number. In
fact, the department has lured
more applicants so far this year
than in all of 2018.
It’s too early to see a surge of
new officers from the media cam-
paign, which began in July. It will
take four to six months for appli-
cants to become hires, Police
Commissioner Michael Harrison
said.
Ye t those hires can’t come too
soon. As of Oct. 1, the department
had hired 128 officers and lost 143
to attrition this year — a net loss
of 15 officers. And those 128 hires
put the department well below a
pace to meet its goal of 300 new
hires a year.
Amid the high attrition rate
and anemic hiring, Harrison and
others express hope that the re-
cruiting bump, technological effi-
ciencies and more strategic use of
civilians will put the department
on a stronger footing to staff
patrols in a city staring down a
fifth year of more than 300 homi-
cides.
“The department is seeing a
large number of applications. It’s
sizably larger than it has been
because of our digital marketing
campaign,” Harrison said.
“We’re now working to vet
those applications to see how
many of those people will make it
through our process, but it’s very
promising,” Harrison said.
The $200,000 marketing cam-
paign was announced in July to
help fill the department’s ranks,
aiming to hire more women, mi-
norities and city residents. Balti-
more has just under 2,300 sworn
officers. Harrison has not speci-
fied how many more are needed,
saying it depends in large part on
how quickly the department im-
proves its technology and effi-
ciency.
So far this year 3,643 people
have applied, up from 3,039 total
last year and more than double
the number who applied in 2017.The department in the past has
struggled to quickly perform
background investigations.
When Harrison became commis-
sioner in February, h e decided not
to immediately spend money
available to have a consultant do
the investigations, saying he
wanted to complete a broader
review of recruitment first. Police
spokesman Matt Jablow said the
department was able to eliminate
the backlog without using the
outside firm and that it has
slashed the time between when
applications are received and re-
viewed.
Candidates now are often fully
vetted within three to four
months as the unit has become
more efficient, he said.
Leaders of the police officers
union said in a report released
Tuesday that the department has
fewer sworn background investi-
gators than it did at t he beginning
of the year. The union also said
the department must hire 400 to
500 new officers, which would
bring staffing levels closer to the
approximately 3,000 officers on
the force in 2012.
Last y ear, city officials attribut-
ed a jump in applications in part
to a new online process, which
they said widened the pool of
applicants and streamlined their
path.
Officials say it’s early to draw
conclusions about the current
campaign. But Mayor Bernard C.
“Jack” Young said he is optimistic.
“It’s going very well. It’s show-
ing signs of improvement,” Young
said. “More people are beginning
to apply. I think by the end of the
year, we should be seeing some
numbers that we can produce,
but right now it’s very encourag-
ing.”
Attrition has remained a prob-
lem for the past 10 years, with an
average of 232 officers leaving
yearly, according to department
figures.
In 2015, the department lost
243 officers and hired just 91.
The same year, six city officers
were charged in the arrest and
death of Freddie Gray. Gray’s
death put the department under
greater scrutiny after the U.S.
Department of Justice conducted
a civil rights investigation and
found that officers regularly vio-lated the rights of residents. The
investigation resulted in the city
and the Justice Department in
2017 entering into a consent de-
cree that requires the Baltimore
Police Department to undergo
sweeping reforms, including car-
rying out a comprehensive staff-
ing plan.
Harrison said a staffing study
should be completed by the end of
the year. In addition to new hires,
he plans to use more civilians for
clerical duties and increase the
use of technology to lessen paper-
work so officers can concentrate
on policing.
Recruitment is part of Harri-
son’s broader crime-fighting
strategy, w hich includes reducing
the workload for officers, espe-
cially in patrol, which has a va-
cancy rate of 26 percent, accord-
ing to last year’s staffing study.
The union plan released Tues-
day highlighted recruitment as a
top concern. It c alled for a greater
effort to assign administrative
duties to civilians. The union has
also called for the department to
look into other incentives to draw
officers from other agencies, such
as a signing bonus, as well as new
incentives for officers who have
recently retired.
The Fraternal Order of Police
Lodge 3 president, Sgt. Mike
Mancuso, declined to comment
for this article.
The increase in applicants has
not affected the quality of those
seeking to join the Baltimore
department. Records show that
about 58 percent of the applicants
this year — before and after the
campaign — meet the minimum
hiring standards.
The city has sought to hire
more women, minorities and lo-
cal residents. Most of the appli-
cants are African American and
male. About a third are from
Baltimore, another third are from
elsewhere in Maryland and the
rest from out of state. Those
demographics are not substan-
tially different from those of the
months before the campaign.
City Councilman Ryan Dorsey
questioned the department’s
staffing strategy. He said some
jobs staffed by sworn officers
could easily be filled with civil-
ians at less expense. Dorsey said
many sworn officers are doingdesk work because they are found
to be unfit for patrol.
Although that number fluctu-
ates, last year at this time 88
officers were listed as being on
“light duty,” and 38 others were
on medical leave. An additional
34 were suspended, as the force
has seen a large number of its
officers investigated or charged
with various crimes or infrac-
tions.
“It begs the question of why
they are still working for the
department at all,” Dorsey said.
“We don’t know the exact reason,
but I’m sure there are officers
working [administrative shifts]
because they are a liability to put
on the street,” the councilman
said. “Something about their
track record, they are too great a
risk.”
To better monitor officers on
limited and medical duty, the
department has created a new
Administrative Duties Division
where those officers “can be ac-
tively managed to get them back
to full duty status,” according to a
recent presentation to City Coun-
cil members. The department has
been tracking 113 such officers, 19
of whom have been identified for
full duty again, officials said.
Dorsey questioned whether
the rise in applications would
actually result in more officers for
Baltimore, noting that other po-
lice agencies also are looking to
hire.
A survey of 412 police depart-
ments in the United States and
Canada by the Police Executive
Research Forum found that 66
percent of agencies reported a
drop in applications over the past
five years. It attributed the de-
clines to a diminishing number of
former military personnel who
have traditionally been a source
of recruits, an improved job mar-
ket giving potential recruits more
job options, and increasingly
challenging police work.
Baltimore officials say they
face one more recruitment chal-
lenge: “Negative feelings about
the department.”
For comparison, neighboring
Baltimore County also says it is
struggling to attract new hires.
“A ll the agencies are seeing it
across the country, but we are
very aggressive and looking atother avenues,” said Baltimore
County Police Cpl. Shawn Vinson,
a department spokesman. County
police hired 101 recruits in 2017,
85 in 2018 and 42 this year for the
June academy class, but the de-
partment expects to hold another
academy class before the end of
the year.
New Baltimore officers make
$51,953, while county officers
make $54,000 a year.
Baltimore County is under
greater scrutiny for its hiring
practices after the Justice Depart-
ment sued last month, alleging
that a written test for police
recruits was unfairly biased
against African American appli-
cants.
Once a city officer is hired, he
or she must undergo 1,400 hours
of academy training. Harrison’s
long-term crime plan calls for the
department to move the academy
to a new facility that can accom-
modate up to six classes of 40 to
50 recruits, or up to 300 recruits
annually. The current training
academy in Northwest Baltimore
can accommodate only four class-
es a year and requires renova-
tions.
Kenneth Thompson, who
heads the federal monitoring
team overseeing the Baltimore
police consent decree, said he
believes Baltimore’s increase in
applicants is encouraging.
“They are certainly progress-
ing. It is certainly a tough envi-
ronment nationally,” Thompson
said. “Here in Baltimore, they
were actually exceeding their tar-
gets. They’ve done some good
things. They’ve expedited the
processing of applicants. They
made progress along those lines.”
Ashiah Parker, head of the No
Boundaries Coalition, which has
long advocated for police reform
in the city, said her concern lies
with how the department is train-
ing those new hires.
“I hope they are training as
they have been mandated,” she
said. “It seems like their recruit-
ment is working. Let’s see if they
are able to hold on to them and
police in a constitutional man-
ner.”
— Baltimore SunBaltimore Sun reporter Kevin Rector
contributed to this report.MARYLANDBaltimore police applications up sharply, but net losses persist