The Washington Post - 06.09.2019

showed up and took him from his familiar perch for

the last time.

Food vendors he regularly greeted and outreach

workers he spurned said their goodbyes.

“I want you to look at all the people touched by

Chino,” said the Rev. Linda M. Kaufman, an advo-

cate for the homeless who planned the service. “I’ve

done services for people who died on the street

before, and I’ve never seen this many people show

up.”

District officials announced earlier this year that

SEE FUNERAL ON B2

BY JUSTIN WM. MOYER

P

eople gathered Thursday beneath the awn-

ing of a downtown Washington department

store to honor the life of a homeless man

they knew little about but loved nonethe-

less.

Bernard “Chino” Dean Jr., 45, lived under the

Macy’s awning across from an entrance to the Metro

Center station for more than a decade. The dozens

in attendance weren’t sure why he made his home

on the sidewalk or how he died Aug. 25, when EMTs

far during his presidency), the

Joint Base Andrews Children’s

Development Center is in danger.

Parents complained when the

playground was inaccessible for

months and kids had no space to

frolic and that the bathrooms

look sketchy with huge holes in

the tiles. The center’s Facebook

feed chronicles power outages, air

conditioning troubles, phones

and computers being dead and

damage done by a car that hit the

building.

So finally, Congress approved

$13 million in the 2019 budget to

give this important base the kind

of child-care facility it deserves.

But nevermind. The Trump

administration just killed the

funding for this project, as well as

a handful of others at schools and

SEE DVORAK ON B2

Here we go again

— our nation’s

leaders are

sticking it to kids.

And in this case,

it’s the kids of all

those military

men and women

everyone likes to

salute and praise and honor.

When it’s convenient.

While they go to work

defending our country, thousands

of parents in the military trust the

welfare of their kids to child-care

centers on base. It’s one of the

things that the military usually

does really well.

But here in the Washington

area, on the very base that

President Trump uses nearly

every time he flies out to one of

his golf courses (229 golf games so

KLMNO

METRO

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 6 , 2019. WASHINGTONPOST.COM/REGIONAL EZ SU B

MARYLAND

Cases are winding down

for teens charged in the

Damascus High School

locker room attacks. B5

THE REGION

The D.C. attorney general

is suing 16 suburban

parents for alleged school

residency fraud. B3

OBITUARIES

Alison Cheek, 92, was

the first female priest to

administer sacraments in

69 ° 71 ° 76 ° 72 ° an Episcopal church. B6

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

High today at

approx. 4 p.m.

76

°

Precip: 60%

Wind: NE

10-20 mph

BY ROBERT MCCARTNEY

The District plans to tear down

the dilapidated RFK Stadium by

2021, a move officials say is driven

by a need to save money and not

to advance any plans for the

Redskins to build a new football

stadium there.

The decision announced

Thursday will end the life of the

58-year-old stadium best known

for hosting the Redskins during

the team’s glory years in the 1980s

and early 1990s, when it won

three Super Bowl champion-

ships.

RFK, located on the Anacostia

River two miles east of the U.S.

Capitol, also was home for a time

to both the Nationals and Sena-

tors baseball teams, as well as the

D.C. United soccer team. It also

hosted concerts, including per-

formances by the Beatles, Madon-

na and Foo Fighters.

Events DC, the District agency

that manages the 47,000-seat sta-

dium, is seeking bids by Oct. 25

from contractors to demolish the

facility. Since D.C. United left in

2017, RFK has attracted few

events and is costing the city

$2 million a year for mainte-

nance, landscaping, pest control,

security and other services. Utili-

ty bills add an additional

$1.5 million a year.

“We don’t want to throw mon-

ey after a resource that’s exceeded

its useful life,” Events DC Presi-

dent Gregory A. O’Dell said.

The demolition also will make

it easier for the District to move

ahead with plans over the next

five to seven years to build a

$500 million recreational and

event space for residents and

tourists, O’Dell said.

He and other officials pushed

back against speculation that the

city was bulldozing RFK to pave a

path for the Redskins to replace it

with a new stadium. John Falcic-

chio, chief of staff to Mayor Muri-

el E. Bowser (D), said the District

has had “no substantive conver-

sations” with the team about a

new stadium in 13 months.

Redskins spokesman Tony

Wyllie said the team would have

only one comment: “We support

the mayor’s decision.”

Both Bowser and team owner

Daniel Snyder have expressed

hope that the team might return

to the District, which it left in

1996 to play at FedEx Field in

Landover in Prince George’s

County.

Snyder would like to re-create

the electric atmosphere at RFK,

where fans famously stomped

feet so hard that the stadium

shivered. Bowser would like the

team to anchor a complex with

retail, restaurants and affordable

housing.

But the District would first

need to gain control of the land,

which it leases from the federal

government. At present, the lease

allows the site to be used only for

sports and recreation.

Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton

(D), the city’s nonvoting member

of Congress, has filed a bill to sell

SEE STADIUM ON B5

BY GREGORY S. SCHNEIDER

richmond — National groups

on both sides of the gun control

issue are pouring money into

Virginia legislative races, with

the NRA making an unusually

large donation to a Republican

leader and Everytown for Gun

Safety escalating its contribu-

tions to Democrats.

Everytown’s Action Fund said

Thursday morning that it was

spending an additional $438,000

to help turn the Virginia legisla-

ture blue in November, on top of

$135,000 in digital ad buys it

announced last month. The gun-

control group founded by former

New York mayor Michael Bloom-

berg has promised to spend

$2.5 million this year in Virginia,

where all 140 seats in the GOP-

controlled state legislature are on

the November ballot and the

balance of power is at stake.

The announcement came two

days after the National Rifle As-

sociation donated $200,000 to

the political action committee of

House Majority Leader Todd Gil-

bert (R-Shenandoah). That’s by

far the NRA’s largest one-time

contribution in Virginia in at

least the past 20 years, according

to the nonpartisan Virginia Pub-

lic Access Project. The NRA has

contributed a total of about

$800,000 directly to candidates

over that same time frame, ac-

cording to VPAP.

The NRA traditionally wields

power by mobilizing its network

of members rather than through

large donations. It also makes

relatively small independent ex-

SEE VIRGINIA ON B4

BY SAMANTHA SCHMIDT

For generations, girls have

been sent to the principal’s office

for violating dress codes: Shorts

must reach past fingertips. Shirts

can’t be too low-cut. No spaghetti

straps. No cleavage.

But these rules are often en-

forced in uneven ways, and black

girls are disproportionately tar-

geted, students from the District

said in a report last year from the

National Women’s Law Center.

Now, some of those students are

beginning to speak up — organiz-

ing walkouts, lunchtime protests

and meetings with administra-

tors to call out dress codes they

see as unfair.

In a report released this week,

the National Women’s Law Cen-

ter highlighted some of these

recent shifts and rated D.C. pub-

lic and charter high schools

based on the strictness of their

dress code policies.

The researchers found that,

among 29 D.C. schools, majority-

black high schools on average

had more dress code restrictions

than other high schools. Charter

schools in the District, on aver-

age, had more than twice the

number of dress code restrictions

than traditional public schools in

the 2018-2019 school year.

SEE DRESS CODE ON B3

Kids in military families

deserve better than this

Petula

Dvorak

Black girls take action

over uneven dress codes

National

groups

focus on

Va. races

MONEY FROM BOTH

SIDES OF GUN ISSUE

All 140 legislative seats

are on November ballot

RFK to be razed by 2021, o∞cials say, but not to pave way for Redskins

City cites costly upkeep

of dilapidated venue in

announcing demolition

Report rating D.C. school

policies includes stories

from affected students

EVAN VUCCI/ASSOCIATED PRESS

President Trump and first lady Melania Trump at Joint Base

Andrews. The Trump administration is using money once allocated

to a day-care center on the base to help fund the border wall.

A man they saw but never really knew

Dozens gather to remember homeless man who lived under D.C. store awning

TOP: The Rev. Linda M. Kaufman waits along 12th Street NW for people to arrive for a memorial service she held for Bernard “Chino”

Dean Jr., 45, who lived outside a D.C. Macy’s store for more than a decade. ABOVE: Chino recently worked as a Street Sense Media vendor

and in the organization’s office. “He is a guy of many passions and desires,” he once wrote about himself on Street Sense’s website.

STREET SENSE MEDIA

MATT MCCLAIN/THE WASHINGTON POST