B4 EZ SU THE WASHINGTON POST.WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 28 , 2019
BY PETER HERMANN
A man who was beaten last
week in a homeless shelter in
Southeast Washington has died of
his injuries, according to D.C. po-
lice, and his death has been ruled a
homicide.
Authorities have not publicly
identified the victim, saying they
have been unable to locate rela-
tives.
Police arrested a man who they
said had been visiting the shelter.
The suspect, identified as Edward
M. Banks, 47, of Northwest Wash-
ington, has been charged with sec-
ond-degree murder.
The incident occurred about
12:45 a.m. Aug. 18 in the 801 East
Shelter in the 2700 block of Martin
Luther King Jr. Avenue SE.
Police said in an arrest affidavit
that the 45-year-old victim was
found unconscious at the shelter
and taken by ambulance to a hos-
pital. Staff at the shelter, which is
run by Catholic Charities, deter-
mined that he had been assaulted
and contacted police Aug. 19.
The victim died Aug. 20, and the
medical examiner’s office on
Thursday ruled the death a homi-
cide from blunt-force trauma, ac-
cording to the affidavit filed in
D.C. Superior Court.
Detectives discovered surveil-
lance video of the attack that led
them to a suspect, the affidavit
says. The documents say the video
shows a man punching the victim
in the head, and the victim falling
and striking his head on the
ground.
Police said that after the victim
was attacked, other residents of
the shelter were seen rummaging
through his belongings. Police
also said the suspect went through
security at the shelter but did not
sign in and had not been assigned
a bed.
According to the affidavit,
Banks told police that he had been
at the shelter but did not recall
having an altercation or hitting
anyone.
In a statement, Catholic Chari-
ties said that it is working with
police and that it could not com-
ment on the ongoing investiga-
tion.
Banks was ordered detained
until a preliminary hearing
Sept. 10. His attorney with the
Public Defender Service did not
respond to an interview request.
[email protected]THE DISTRICT
Death of man beaten in
shelter ruled homicide
state trends — with progress in
English and declines on most
math exams.
Thirty-one percent of Prince
George’s students in grades three
to eight showed proficiency on
English exams, an increase of
nearly two points. Math perform-
ance was poorest in middle
school and for Algebra 1, which
had a passing rate of about
10 percent.
Monica Goldson, chief execu-
tive of the Prince George’s Coun-
ty school system, noted progress
in English scores in a letter to
the community and said efforts
to improve further are in the
works.
“Our results mirror the gains
and losses the state displayed last
year and will require a deeper
analysis,” she wrote, adding that
school officials spent time over
the summer revising math curric-
ulum documents and other in-
structional materials. Each
school developed a performance
plan, and a districtwide plan is
being finalized, she said.
Montgomery Schools Superin-TESTS FROM B1 tendent Jack Smith described the
state tests as “one of several im-
portant measures” to monitor
progress and said he was pleased
to see continued improvement.
“However, we know more must
be done to address areas where
we are seeing decreases in per-
formance and ensure all students
have the access, opportunity and
intentional instruction they need
to be successful,” he said in a
statement.
Statewide, black and Hispanic
students posted increases in Eng-
lish-language arts, with passing-
rate increases of about two per-
centage points. Students with dis-
abilities and English-language
learners showed smaller gains,
inching up in English and math.
Achievement gaps have been
stark between white students and
their peers of color in Maryland —
and state board member David
M. Steiner, an education profes-
sor at Johns Hopkins University,
pointed out that the gap has not
narrowed and in fact increased
from 2015 to 2019 for black and
Hispanic students.
“That is really difficult news,”
he said.The results mark the end of
Maryland’s experience with
PARCC exams.
Last year, the state decided to
move away from PARCC — named
for the Partnership for Assess-
ment of Readiness for College and
Careers — amid complaints that
the exams were too long and
disruptive to schools. Many crit-
ics associated PARCC with over-
testing, a flash point nationally.
And teachers complained that the
results were slow in coming, mak-
ing them less useful in classroom
instruction.
The state’s new standardized
tests will be called MCAP — for
Maryland Comprehensive As-
sessment Program — and state
officials say those exams will be
based on the same high-level
standards and rigorous curricu-
lum as PARCC tests. Teachers
have been involved in helping to
write items for the tests, they said.
PARCC exams are scored on a
five-point scale. Scores of four or
five show students have met or
exceeded expectations, which the
state board considers a show of
proficiency.
The scores released Tuesdaymarked the fifth year of PARCC
results, and state officials pointed
to notable math gains over time
in grades three, four and five.
English increases stood out in
grades four, six, seven and eight,
they said.
Scores for English 10 were fair-
ly flat statewide, but a state analy-
sis found a more than four-point
increase for first-time test-takers.
Some students take the test more
than once because a passing score
is required for graduation. Simi-
larly, Algebra 1 gets repeat test-
takers, a large share of whom fail
to reach proficiency.
“We are making progress in
some areas,” said Carol William-
son, the state’s chief academic
officer.
For grades three to eight,
Montgomery ranked seventh
among Maryland’s 24 school sys-
tems in English, and Prince
George’s was 23rd. In math,
Montgomery remained seventh
while Prince George’s was 22nd.
At the top were Worcester County,
which includes Ocean City, and
Carroll County, northwest of Bal-
timore.
[email protected]Md. schools post gains in English, declines in math
BY DAN MORSE
Former Portsmouth, Va., police
chief Tonya Chapman has pulled
her name from consideration to
become the next police chief of
Montgomery County, further
stalling what has become a seven-
month effort to find a new top
cop in Maryland’s largest county.
“It is with a heavy heart and
much deliberation that I regret-
fully informed the county execu-
tive that I am withdrawing my
application,” she confirmed via
text message Tuesday to The
Washington Post, adding, “My
withdrawal is for personal rea-
sons,” without being more specif-
ic.
Speaking to reporters later in
the day, County Executive Marc
Elrich said that Chapman did not
have support from the nine-
member County Council, which
would have had to confirm her.
“While she didn’t have five
votes against her, she didn’t have
five votes for her,” Elrich said. “I
think she thought at this point it
wasn’t worth going through more
uncertainty.... She probably fig-
ured she needed to have a break
and go on.”
Elrich committed to naming a
new nominee soon.
Montgomery County’s most re-
cent police chief, J. Thomas Man-
ger, left the post this year after 15
years heading an agency that
now has 1,300 sworn officers.
Elrich has said the county
received more than 20 appli-
cants, who were narrowed to
several finalists, including Chap-
man, Takoma Park Police Chief
Antonio DeVaul and Montgom-
ery County interim police chief
Marcus Jones, a longtime veteran
of county police.
But after another cut, Elrich
(D) was down to Chapman and
DeVaul, with Chapman seen as
the front-runner. A short time
later, DeVaul removed his name
from consideration.
While Elrich had not formally
nominated Chapman, he had sig-
naled for six weeks that she was
his choice.
Chapman’s was touted on
July 16 in a letter from the county
executive to the County Council.
Elrich praised her experience
and qualifications, writing, “I be-
lieve she will be a great addition
to our county.”
“We need somebody from out-
side the force, I think, who can
bring a fresh look at how we do
things,” he told WAMU’s Kojo
Nnamdi on Aug. 2.
Hiring from the outside for
chief is not new for Montgomery:
Manger and his predecessor each
came from a different depart-
ment.
From the beginning, Chap-
man’s name prompted concern
from within the council.
Chapman has held an array of
law enforcement positions, from
street officer to a senior-level
policy position with the Virginia
governor’s office. It was her most
recent post — as police chief for
the city of Portsmouth, a post
from which she was forced to
resign — that became an issue for
many council members.
“We need to dig deeper and do
everything within reason to find
out what happened,” council
member Gabe Albornoz (D-At
Large) said several weeks ago.
“This is an extremely important
position.”
Chapman, who is African
American, had suggested her de-
parture from Portsmouth was
rooted in racism. Her direct su-
pervisor, also a black woman, has
said Chapman’s leaving was
based on the quality of her lead-
ership.
That Jones, the interim chief,
had been passed over has been a
source of frustration for many
police officers and community
leaders. A veteran of the Mont-
gomery County force for more
than 30 years, he has held com-
mand posts in the Silver Spring
police district, the narcotics bu-
reau and the major-crimes bu-
reau. Before his current role,
Jones served as assistant chief in
charge of investigations.
Elrich said Tuesday that he
would not be reconsidering Jones
for the post.
[email protected]MARYLAND
Search for Montgomery
police chief drags on as
front-runner pulls out
protect our residents,” Young
said. An independent audit is
being conducted to uncover flaws
and fix them, District officials
said, and a total of four employ-
ees from both agencies have been
put on leave.
The officer, along with several
colleagues, had responded to the
house to resolve a dispute be-
tween a tenant and the landlord.
He wrote in a report that he
immediately noticed the building
appeared to be an unlicensed
rooming house and had numer-
ous potential fire-code violations,
including “make shift doors with
locks which would make it diffi-
cult to exit in an emergency.”
He wrote in his report that he
“strongly” recommended inspec-
tors respond, and portions of the
report were written in bold for
emphasis.
The Sunday fire started in the
basement of the two-story house
along a commercial strip in
Brightwood Park. Both victims
lived in the basement. Kebede
died the same day as the fire;
Yafet, who lived with his mother,
died two days later.
Investigators from the District
and the federal Bureau of Alco-
hol, Tobacco, Firearms and Ex-
plosives have not determined
how the fire started, and officials
said Tuesday that the U.S. attor-
ney’s office has launched a crimi-
nal investigation. A spokeswom-
an for the prosecutor declined to
comment.
DCRA officials had initially
said inspectors had never gone to
the property because no com-
plaints were filed. But officials
said Tuesday that they subse-
quently searched for emails and
other records listing that address
and found several from the police
officer, along with his report.
During the March 21 call,FIRE FROM B1Young said, the officer got inside
the rowhouse and talked with the
owner.
Young said that in addition to
the report, the officer sent emails
to DCRA and the fire department.
He said DCRA inspectors failed tofollow up and seek a search
warrant after they were denied
entry. He said inspectors with the
fire department did not act be-
cause they assumed it was a
DCRA matter.
The administrator said several
reforms will be implemented to
ensure agencies communicate
better and supervisors follow up
more closely on cases.
The DCRA has said the row-
house was licensed as a pharma-
cy and lacked the permits needed
to rent to people. Tenants have
described a building partitioned
into a dozen tiny rooms with
shared bathrooms and kitchens.
The fire chief said firefighters
encountered bars on exterior
doors and windows and an interi-
or door and metal gate blocking a
hallway. Officials said there were
no working smoke detectors.The house is owned by James
G. Walker, who has not respond-
ed to interview requests, includ-
ing one made Tuesday.
News of the District’s failures
came on the eve of the funeral for
Yafet. He lived with his mother in
a basement apartment and had
attended Barnard Elementary
School. Police had initially given
his name as Yafety. His school and
the funeral home spell it Yafet.
His mother and other relatives
have not talked publicly about
Yafet or the fire. A vigil is sched-
uled for Friday in front of the
house that burned.
Yafet’s teachers at Barnard
launched a GoFundMe page to
help the family, and they posted a
photo of the boy in a blue striped
shirt standing in front of a wall of
paper butterflies. A school system
spokesman confirmed the page is
authentic.
On the GoFundMe site, the
teachers said they prepared for
the new school year that began
Monday by writing each student’s
name on their desk. “We thought
about getting to know them,
learning their dreams, and about
the journey we would have this
year,” they wrote. “On Thursday
we learned that one of those
desks will be empty.”
The teachers who knew Yafet
compiled a list of his attributes.
He wanted to be a lawyer. He was
kind and courteous. He helped
classmates resolve conflicts. He
was “extremely funny.” He had a
passion for reading that was in-
fectious.
One teacher recently ran into
Yafet in a mall, “dragging his
mom around to be sure he had all
his supplies for school,” anxious
for classes to start. Little did the
teacher know, teachers wrote on
GoFundMe, “this would be her
last hug, her final conversation
and her last moments with Yafet.”
[email protected]D.C. was told of conditions at rowhouse
D.C. PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Yafet Solomon, 9, was killed in a fire in a rowhouse in Northwest
Washington. The Aug. 18 blaze also killed a man. City officials said
the house had been illegally partitioned into tiny apartments.against Nicole Wittmann are very
troubling for our community,”
Biberaj said in a statement. “For
Loudoun County residents to
trust the criminal justice system,
we have to trust its prosecutors.... Nicole Wittmann’s decisions
violate that trust.”
Wittmann is fighting back ag-
gressively, saying that she has
been living in Loudoun and that
her voter registration is valid. She
had been renting a room from a
colleague in Leesburg since Feb-
ruary; she and her husband put
their Herndon home on the mar-
ket in July and bought a house in
Loudoun in August.
“Biberaj is taking this cheap
shot because she can’t defend her
total lack of experience and her
record of coddling dangerous
criminals to the voters of Lou-
doun County,” Wittmann’s attor-
ney, Charlie King, said in a state-
ment. “I want a trial date as soon
as possible.”
Wittmann did not comment
outside the statements from
King.
A hearing date is not yet set;
Loudoun’s judges are recusing
themselves, and the state Su-
preme Court will assign the case
elsewhere. King successfully de-
fended former state delegate Da-
vid Ramadan against similar ac-
cusations in 2011. In that case,
RESIDENCY FROM B1 Ramadan had bought a home in
his district three years before the
election, and neighbors testified
that he was rarely seen at his
previous house after declaring
his candidacy.
Biberaj is hoping to follow in
the footsteps of upstart candi-dates in Arlington and Fairfax
counties who upset longtime
commonwealth’s attorneys in
Democratic primaries this year
with promises to stop asking for
the death penalty, cash bond or
any punishment for marijuana
possession. The three are part of a
growing movement that aims to
overhaul the criminal justice sys-
tem from the perch of prosecu-
tors’ offices — a trend recently
criticized by Attorney General
William P. Barr as “dangerous.”
According to the petition filedin Loudoun County Circuit Court,
Wittmann has been living with
her husband and children in
Herndon, in Fairfax County. Until
February, she used the family’s
address in Herndon for utilities,
employment forms and voter reg-
istration.
Five days after Plowman was
elected a circuit court judge,
Wittmann changed her voter reg-
istration to a house in Leesburg,
the residence of another prosecu-
tor in her office.
She listed the landline at the
Herndon home as her phone
number in a February ethics fil-
ing, according to the petitioners,
who contend that her car is regu-
larly parked in Herndon and she
continues to receive mail there.
The petition calls her room
rental “a ruse” and her voter
registration thus invalid.
Beyond the eligibility question,
the differences between the two
candidates are sharp.
Biberaj, a Leesburg criminal
defense attorney and substitute
judge, said in her announcement
that she has seen “first-hand the
inequities of the legal system”
and became a lawyer to “change
the world for the better.”
She says the prosecutor’s office
wastes time and money on non-
violent cases, especially those in-
volving minors, that don’t make
the community safer.
“If you want to make somechanges, I am your person,” she
said at a recent event. “We are
going to have a different vision
for what justice looks like in
Loudoun County.”
While Wittmann’s website
says she believes that “incarcera-
tion is not always the answer,”
her focus is on crime and pun-
ishment. In her announcement,
she boasted that she had “put
more murderers in prison for life
than any other prosecutor in
Loudoun.”
Among them: Steven Combs-
LaFleur, who killed his wife with
a sledgehammer; Braulio Castil-
lo, who strangled his estranged
wife and tried to stage her death
as a suicide; and Timothy Wil-
liam Warnick, who robbed and
killed a man in 1988 and was
apprehended 30 years later.
She also prosecuted Michael
Gardner, who is serving a 22-year
sentence for molesting young
girls during a slumber party; and
Guillermo Enrique Figueroa-
Menendez, serving six life sen-
tences for molesting a minor for
years.
“We’re career law enforcement
people, we’re the reason your
community is as safe as it is,”
Wittmann said at a recent event
with Sheriff Mike Chapman (R).
Her opponent, she said, “wants to
bring to Loudoun... Chicago,
Philadelphia, New York values.”
[email protected]Loudoun candidate accused of lying about residence
HYUNSOO LEO KIM/VIRGINIAN-PILOT/ASSOCIATED PRESSTonya Chapman, seen after she was sworn in as Portsmouth, Va.,
police chief in 2016, was considered the front-runner to serve as
Montgomery’s new chief before she withdrew from consideration.
“Biberaj is taking this
cheap shot because she
can’t defend her total
lack of experience.”
Charlie King,
attorney for Nicole Wittmann, on
Wittmann’s opponent for Loudoun
County commonwealth’s attorneyBefore the fire, a D.C.
police officer “strongly”
recommended that
inspectors visit the
house, and portions of
his report were written
in bold for emphasis.