The Washington Post - 06.09.2019

B2 EZ RE K THE WASHINGTON POST.FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 6 , 2019

possible trial witness. Leitess aggressively pushed back on the defense accusations, saying she informed them in Feb- ruary that Kirchner expressed worries to her office about Ramos and turned over all information it had about Ramos’s Twitter activity. Leitess said she had someone in her office review Kirchner’s con- cerns and determined there was nothing at the time her office could do but had told court secu- rity to be on the lookout for Ra- mos. Leitess said she did not turn over the email chain between her office and Kirchner because it didn’t directly relate to the shooting at the Capital Gazette. Arundel County Circuit Judge Laura S. Ripken said she will rule on the request for sanctions Oct. 2. [email protected]

Kirchner shared her fear in an email to Leitess’s office, asking prosecutors to determine whether a crime had been committed. Leitess responded in an email that she would send the details to investigators, a promise that defense attorneys said Thursday contradicts Leitess’s later repre- sentations in court that no investi- gation was conducted into Ra- mos’s activity that needed to be turned over as discovery in the Capital Gazette shooting. The evidence that should have been turned over, defense attorneys said, also includes details showing Leitess had interacted with Ramos in the years preceding the shooting and blocked him on Twitter. Because of that history, Ramos’s attorneys suggested Leitess should recuse herself from the case because she could become a

ment. Newsroom coverage of the ha- rassment case fueled long-stand- ing anger Ramos had toward the publication, which Ramos sued for defamation in a case he lost, prosecutors have said. After his plea, Ramos sued Mc- Carthy’s client and began making threats on social media against McCarthy and Kirchner, accord- ing to court filings. Worried about herself and her brother, Kirchner asked her husband, who conducts threat assess- ments as part of his profession, to review Ramos's writings and social media feeds. Her husband determined Ramos was fixated on her and her brother and told them to immediately disengage with Ramos because they could be tar- gets for violence, Kirchner said in court Thursday. After her husband’s review,

2018, and killing five: editorial page editor Gerald Fischman, 61; assistant editor Rob Hiaasen, 59; sportswriter, reporter and editor John McNamara, 56; sales assistant Rebecca Smith, 34; and reporter Wendi Winters, 65. Pros- ecutors say Ramos attacked the newsroom after losing a defamation suit against the paper for a story it ran about Ramos pleading guilty to harassing a former high school classmate. Ramos has pleaded “not crimi- nally responsible,” Maryland’s ver- sion of an insanity defense, citing a mental disorder. The request for sanctions by Ramos’s attorneys turns on emails lawyer Kathleen Kirchner sent to Leitess’s office in 2014. Kirchner is the brother of lawyer Brennan Mc- Carthy, who represented a woman harassed by Ramos. Ramos pleaded guilty in 2011 to the harass-

paper employees dead in Mary- land. Defense attorneys also suggested prosecutors misrepresent- ed what actions prosecutors took to investigate Ramos in connec- tion with the 2014 complaints. State’s Attorney Anne Colt Lei- tess pushed back against the alle- gations, calling them “bald faced” and “without merit.” The request for sanctions — including a request to possibly force Leitess to recuse herself from the trial — played out in an acrimoni- ous clash in court Thursday. Ramos, 39, is accused of blast- ing through the newspaper offices of the Capital Gazette on June 28,

BY LYNH BUI

An Anne Arundel County Cir-
cuit Court judge will decide next
month whether prosecutors han-
dling the case against accused
Capital Gazette shooter Jarrod Ra-
mos should be sanctioned for al-
legedly failing to disclose possible
evidence.
Defense attorneys for Ramos
have accused the Anne Arundel
County state’s attorney’s office of
withholding emails detailing con-
cerns raised about his social me-
dia activity in 2014 — four years
before Ramos was charged in the
mass shooting that left five news-

family support facilities on
military bases.
Wait until you hear why.
In a frantic cash grab, the folks
in power released a list of Defense
Department projects they are
raiding to fund the border wall
that the majority of Americans
said they don’t want. All in time
for the 2020 election.
The projects they are
defunding include a toxic waste
warehouse and a fire and crash
rescue station — some crucial-

DVORAK FROM B1 sounding operations. So are the
projects for military kids — the
Andrews day care as well as a
middle school in Fort Campbell,
Ky., and an elementary school in
Fort Bragg, N.C.
Trump’s move represents a
betrayal of military families,
many of whom supported him in
the 2016 election. The day cares
are especially crucial for parents.
I’ll always remember how Air
Force Master Sgt. Tracy DeMarco
told me, nearly a decade ago, how
she watched her daughter take
some of her first steps via Skype

day after.” Kristal DeKleer, a former Street Sense employee who at- tended the memorial, once let Chino sleep on her couch for a few months after securing him a dish- washing job. He earned enough money to get his own place, but eventually lost it, she said. DeKleer said Chino’s complex character showed “the mystery of homelessness.” The same energy that brought people out to honor him should be used to get people like him safely housed, she said. After the memorial, mourners slowly dispersed, sharing memo- ries of Chino. The only traces of his passing were flower bouquets leaning against Macy’s and chalk on the sidewalk that read “Miss you my friend” and “I know you’re still here with us.” [email protected]

his North Carolina home. “When he was in his right state of mind, he was a loving husband and good to his kids.” Chino’s writing and comics on the Street Sense website offer glimpses of the energy people said he brought to the neighborhood. “He is a guy of many passions and desires,” he once wrote about himself. “At 41 years old, he is still energetic, and full of life.” Gerren G. Price, director of public space operations for the DowntownDC Business Improve- ment District, said Chino’s plight showed the importance of homeless outreach, particularly as offi- cials grapple with how to handle encampments around the city. “He’s just a guy who we’ve seen every day, we talk to every day,” Price said. “It was devastating when we had to come clean up the

health, still didn’t know he died. “That was like my brother,” Dean said in an interview from

mind.” He had been out of touch with family for years, Dean said, and his mother, who is in poor

nounced,” the report said. A spokeswoman for the medical ex- aminer’s office, Cheryle E. Ad- ams, said findings on the cause and manner of Chino’s death are pending. Despite having devoted friends, Chino’ carried with him an extensive criminal history. Public records show he was from New Jersey and was convict- ed of child molestation in 1992, then later charged with failure to register as a sex offender, drug possession and trafficking in sto- len property. He was last crimi- nally charged in the District in 2007 with possessing an open container of alcohol. Jason Dean, Chino’s cousin, said he once served in the Navy and was the father of two children, but the fallout from a bad marriage “made him lose his

6,521 homeless people live in the
city, a 5.5 percent decline from a
year earlier. While D.C. leaders
credit city policies for the decline,
they say a shortage of affordable
housing makes the problem diffi-
cult to tackle.
Despite Chino’s mental health
problems, society had a responsi-
bility to shelter him, said Brian
Carome, executive director of
Street Sense Media, a nonprofit
group that publishes a newspaper
sold by the homeless. He said
ending homelessness will require
a commitment to building cheap-
er housing.
“Chino should not have died under
this awning,” he said. “He should have
died in a home of his own.”
Though Kaufman never had
performed a sidewalk ceremony,
she reached out to nonprofit
Pathways to Housing DC the day
after Chino died to plan the me-
morial and put up fliers under the
Macy’s awning and the hot dog
stand at 12th and G streets NW.
During the lunchtime service,
she lit a candle at a makeshift
altar across the street from a
cheesesteak truck and asked at-
tendees to clear a path for pass-
ersby. Two men, oblivious to those
shedding tears, walked by carry-
ing a canoe.
Those gathered offered obser-
vations of a neighbor whose exu-
berant spirit couldn’t be obscured
by mental illness, addiction and
lack of a home address.
One outreach worker called Chi-
no “one of our toughest clients” — a
man who resisted well-meaning
attempts to put a roof over his
head, but insistent the sheets on
his sidewalk cot be clean. A woman
said he was passionate about
watching a movie every Friday. A
man commented he was “a hell of a
soccer player.”
“Let’s not sugarcoat it — Chino
could be a real pain in the a--,”
Carome said to general laughter.
“Like many Washingtonians.”
He said Chino worked as a
Street Sense vendor and in the
organization’s office before Car-
ome fired him about three years
ago. Though Chino wrote for the
organization, Carome said his
mental illness made him “con-
stantly disruptive” while trying to
sell newspapers.
Thursday’s brief memorial
filled gaps in the scant public
record of a man who died on a
sunny Sunday afternoon in
downtown Washington. Even a
police report detailing his death
doesn’t bear his name.
“Medic 3 transported S-1 to
Georege [sic] Washington Hospi-
tal where all lifesaving efforts
proved futile and S-1 was pro-

FUNERAL FROM B1

Sidewalk service honors homeless man in downtown D.C.

PHOTOS BY MATT MCCLAIN/THE WASHINGTON POST ABOVE: The Rev. Linda M. Kaufman, center, leads a memorial service along 12th Street NW for Bernard “Chino” Dean Jr. on Thursday. “I’ve done services for people who died on the street before, and I’ve never seen this many people show up,” Kaufman said. BELOW: A person picks out a stone at the makeshift memorial. The service helped those in attendance fill gaps in the homeless man’s scant public record.

PETULA DVORAK

while she was deployed. “I jumped up and nearly hugged the screen,” DeMarco said. I caught up with her when she was back on American soil, picking up that child from the day care at Andrews, which was convenient to her job at the base. But all facilities need investment. And this one was finally about to get some help. The families at Andrews had been waiting for years for a major renovation and expansion. An environmental impact report on the project in 2013 lists the

problems with the primary child- care building, which was built in

Multiple rooms couldn’t be
used because of mold, and the
facility had old heating and air
conditioning systems. At the
time, there were 130 children on
the waiting list who couldn’t be
accommodated, forcing them to
use much more expensive day
care off base.
“Most bases have a long list of
requirements that need repair,”
said Brian McKeon, a former
Pentagon official who is now
senior director of the Penn Biden
Center for Diplomacy and Global
Engagement.
So if a project even made the list
to go before Congress and get
approval, it “means very likely
they’re in bad shape,” McKeon said.

And delaying a project already in dire need will be even more difficult to repair later on, he said. It’s not only dangerous but also does very little to make good on all those yellow ribbons folks like to wear supporting troops, said Maryland’s Rep. Anthony G. Brown (D), a veteran. “Earlier today I was notified that important construction projects in Maryland — including at Joint Base Andrews — will be canceled in order to build President Trump’s wall,” he wrote on Facebook on Wednesday. “This will hurt morale, degrade readiness and make America less safe. President Trump should not build his ineffective, xenophobic vanity project on the backs of our service members and military

families.” Let’s also consider the millions of dollars in contracts that were once headed to local construction companies and engineering firms. Oh wait, some of the contractors in Maryland will still have work. The two new presidential airplanes — billion-dollar projects — are on their way to Andrews. And the new planes are soooo big that a whole new hangar has to be built for them. Don’t worry, they’re not touching that $315 million project to build the wall or to give military families better child-care facilities. The kids will have to just wait. [email protected] Twitter: @petulad

Day care at Andrews in need of repair

MARYLAND

Lawyers clash in court

in Capital Gazette case

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Historic: Free Tickets to a Pre-Screening of Downton Abbey on September 18 at AMC Mazza Gallerie This fall the worldwide phenomenon Downton Abbey becomes a grand motion picture event, as the beloved Crawleys and their intrepid staff prepare for the most important moment of their lives: a visit from the King and Queen of England. The movie comes four years after the end of the television series (2010- 2015) and will star the original principal cast, including Hugh Bonneville and Maggie Smith. See details at washingtonpost.com/postpoints, Events & Contests.

Catchy Tune: Free Tickets to Lloyd Cole on September 15 at City Winery The former frontman for ‘80s band The Commotions recently released Guesswork, “a rich, brave [and] eloquent piece of work.” (Q magazine) Accompanying Cole: Neil Clark (guitar), Blair Cowan (keys) and Fred Maher (drums) for what is predominately an “electronic” album. The end result: “a poised and expansive record.” (Mojo) See details at washingtonpost.com/postpoints, Events & Contests.

The Washington Post - 06.09.2019

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