B4 EZ SU THE WASHINGTON POST.WEDNESDAY, JULY 31 , 2019
BY LYNH BUIPrince George’s County Fire
Chief Benjamin M. Barksdale
announced Tuesday that he will
retire, with plans to exit the
department in the fall.
Barksdale, who has led the
department for nearly three
years, will be replaced by Chief
Deputy Tiffany D. Green, who
will be the department’s first
female chief as she fills the post
on an interim basis pending
council confirmation as the new
chief.
Barksdale has been in the fire
service for more than 35 years
and said it’s time for him to slow
down.
“This is a relay, as I explained
it,” Barksdale said. “I’m handing
off the baton to Chief Deputy
Green.”
Prince George’s County Execu-
tive Angela D. Alsobrooks (D)
said Barksdale has been a visible
fixture in the community since
he came to the department from
Arlington almost nine years ago,
often out and about on nights
and weekends at churches and
county events to talk about fire
safety and prevention.
“He made it his business to
educate our citizens, and he did
it with a passion and compassion
that is so uncommon,” Also-
brooks said. “He came here with
a strong reputation, and he is
leaving with a very strong repu-
tation.”
Barksdale, 54, started his ten-
ure as chief in 2017. Before that,
he was a deputy chief, coming to
Prince George’s County in 2011
after retiring from the Arlington
County fire department.
Barksdale worked in Arling-
ton for 24 years, serving as a
battalion chief after a plane
crashed into the Pentagon dur-
ing the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
“It’s a childhood dream what
I’m doing,” Barksdale said dur-
ing an interview when he be-
came chief. Barksdale remem-
bered being enamored with
firetrucks growing up near a
fire station in rural West Vir-
ginia and signed up as a volun-
teer when he was 16.
Barksdale was a key figure in
helping the county get new
breathing equipment for fire-
fighters and new engines in re-
cent years.
He also led the department
when it lost one of its own. When
the chief at the time was out oftown, Barksdale stepped up “in a
strong way” as the second-in-
command after a firefighter was
shot during a call by a home-
owner who mistook emergency
responders for intruders.
Green, 44, will serve as inter-
im chief when Barksdale leaves
Oct. 31.
If confirmed by the Prince
George’s County Council, she
would become the department’s
13th fire chief. Green is expected
to take over one of the busiest
departments in the nation, with
roughly 900 career firefighters
and 1,000 volunteers.
“What I am most excited
about is Chief Deputy Green is
here this morning not because
she is a female and not because
she is a Prince Georgian but
because she is qualified,” Also-
brooks said. “She is best quali-
fied at this point to lead this
department.”
Alsobrooks had elevated
Green to the second-highest po-
sition within the fire department
in November, making her the
“highest ranking female fire offi-
cial in the history” of the depart-
ment, according to a biography
on the county’s website.
Green acknowledges that
women often face challenges in
the predominantly male profes-
sion, but she said her mission is
to be a “trailblazer,” “regardless
of the challenge.”
“When you’re in the gear, and
you’re out saving lives, you can’t
tell if you’re a man or a woman,”
Green said.
Green had served as an Oxon
Hill fire department volunteer
before starting her career in the
department in March 1999, ac-
cording to the county. With bach-
elor’s degrees in public safety
and biology, and a master’s in
emergency and disaster manage-
ment, Green rose through the
ranks, previously serving as a
firefighter, paramedic, station
commander and deputy fire
chief, among several other roles.
She previously oversaw the train-
ing and leadership academy and
managed the high school cadet
program.
“One of the benefits is that I’ve
come up through this depart-
ment,” Green said. “I’ve come up
through the ranks. My experi-
ence, my integrity speaks for
itself.
“I believe I can lead this
department.”
[email protected]MARYLANDPrince George’s fire chief
to retire; deputy to lead
PRINCE GEORGE’S COUNTY FIRE/EMS
Tiffany D. Green will be the
first woman to lead the Prince
George’s fire department when
she takes over as interim chief.— only healthier, more energetic,
happier, better able to handle
stress.
Hundreds of them had
gathered in the District over the
weekend for the International
Conference on Nutrition in
Medicine. The topics included the
role of food in triggering
“pathological processes” and how
foods can reverse diseases.
Eric L. Adams, a former New
York City police captain now
serving as Brooklyn borough
president, was among the
participants. He’d been
diagnosed with diabetes three
years ago and declared legally
blind in one eye. He was told he’d
probably have to turn in his
driver’s license and be on
medication for the rest of his life.
“That was my wake-up call,”
Adams told me. He began doing
research on treatments that didn’t
involve a lifetime of insulin shots
and discovered the work of
physicians Michael Greger, Dean
Ornish, Neal Barnard and
Caldwell B. Esselstyn Jr. and
biochemist T. Colin Campbell,
which showed that diabetes and
other chronic diseases could be
prevented and even reversed with
a plant-based diet.
“I changed my diet and three
weeks later, my vision had cleared
up,” said Adams, who is 58. “The
tingling sensation in my hands
and feet stopped. My ulcers
disappeared, my cholesterol
dropped. It was like a complete
reversal.”
His mother had been a diabetic
for 15 years and had spent seven
years on insulin. “Two months
after going plant-based, she was
off the insulin,” Adams said.
He used to think that diabetes
was just a part of his genetic
inheritance, something he could
not have done anything to
prevent. “What I learned was that
MILLOY FROM B1
the problem was not my DNA; it
was my dinner,” he said.
At his job as borough president,
Adams turned his office in a mini
kitchen and gym. He prepares his
own food, has a stand-up desk and
a stationary bike.
“I have centered my life around
my health,” he said. “People see
this and they are reaching out to
me, like a life raft.”
Adams, who is African
American, said it matters to him
that black people see his
transformation and have become
receptive to how he did it.
“We suffer disproportionately
from food-related diseases and
yet many of us think that this
plant-based thing is a white
thing,” he said. “The fact is, what
we call ‘soul food’ is really slave
food. It’s what the ‘master’ gave us
to eat on the plantation, and its
killing us.”
Pig feet, pig ears, chitterlings,
hog maws — sorry, but those just
aren’t the delicacies some try to
make them out to be.
“The more we make the
historical connections, the more
we’ll start making the changes
necessary to save our lives,”
Adams said.The event was sponsored by
the D.C.-based Physicians
Committee for Responsible
Medicine and George Washington
University School of Medicine
and Health Sciences.
Marie L. Borum, director of the
division of gastroenterology at
GWU, gave a sobering
presentation on racial disparities
in colorectal cancer deaths —
which is more than 20 percent
higher among African Americans
than whites. In the District, colon
cancer among black people,
especially black women, is
epidemic. Studies show that high
amounts of red meat consumed
by African Americans is among
the factors contributing to the
disparity.
At a dinner after the
conference, I got a chance to sit
and talk with Baxter
Montgomery, a cardiologist who
runs Montgomery Heart and
Wellness in Houston. He has used
plant-based nutrition to
successfully treat diabetes, heart
failure, hypertension and obesity.
He has even taken patients
who were in hospital intensive-
care units, some on the verge of
death from kidney failure, andbrought them back to health by
feeding them plant-based
nutrients through their IV tubes.
“These dramatic reversals
seem miraculous, but plant-based
treatments are making them
happen and more people need to
know about it,” Montgomery told
me.
The center features an on-site
plant-based restaurant and
specialized food plans. “Reversing
diseases, reducing medication —
that’s what we do in a nutshell,”
he said.
We were meeting at the
GreenFare Organic Cafe in
Herndon, where my plant-based
journey had begun in January.
Gwyn Whittaker, the owner, had
incorporated many features of a
wellness center into her
restaurant. She brought in
nutrition experts, held cooking
classes and did a monthly 21-day
kick-start program to help people
transition from bad eating to
healthful eating.
She’s also a producer on an
upcoming documentary, “The
Game Changers,” which features a
lot of tough guys — military men,
professional boxers and football
players — who’ve achieved
success as vegans.
The cafe also offers books, such
as Tracye McQuirter’s “By Any
Greens Necessary” and
Montgomery’s “The Food
Prescription for Better Health.”
There’s also “Undo It: How
Simple Lifestyle Changes Can
Reverse Most Chronic Diseases,”
by Dean and Anne Ornish.
How would Dean Ornish,
whom I interviewed at the
conference, sum up the simple
changes?
“Eat well, move more, stress
less, love more,” he told me.
So far, so good.
[email protected] To read previous columns, go to
washingtonpost.com/milloy.COURTLAND MILLOY
Eating well, feeling good and finding a community
BY CLARENCE WILLIAMSThe D.C. firefighter/paramedic
hopped from his Medic 2 ambu-
lance and got ready to wheel a
patient into the George Washing-
ton University Hospital emergen-
cy room.
Suddenly, a man shoved him
twice in the back, and the medic
felt his wallet being lifted from his
back pocket.
When he turned, the medic
would later tell police, he saw a
shirtless man in red boxer shorts
sprinting away with his billfold in
hand.
The paramedic chased him. He
shouted to a passerby that he had
been robbed. Another passerby
joined the pursuit, and police offi-
cers were called to the scene.
The wild episode unfolded atabout 2:45 p.m. Sunday outside
the hospital in the 900 block of
23rd Street NW, according to a
D.C. police report.
“Stop him. He took my wallet,”
the paramedic yelled, according to
a charging document filed at D.C.
Superior Court.
The would-be-robber fell and
dropped the wallet but got back on
his feet and ran again, the court
document states. One of the pass-
ersby picked up the billfold and
handed it back to the paramedic.
The victim’s black wallet, with a
Chase credit card and cash, was
recovered, the police report said.
Arriving officers were given a
description: “a shirtless black
male, 6’1” to 6’2” wearing red box-
er shorts underwear last seen go-
ing inside the hospital,” the charg-
ing document said.
In the affidavit, D.C. police offi-
cer Andy Shaheen said he and
other officers searched inside and
soon saw the suspect on a stretch-
er in an emergency room treat-
ment area “being attended to by
hospital staff.”
Investigators did not describethe nature of the alleged robber’s
treatment or that of the arriving
patient.
Police arrested Davis Lucas, 49,
of Southeast Washington, a police
spokesman said. Prosecutors
charged him with robbery and he
was jailed after a presentment
hearing, according to court files.
A message left on his attorney’s
voice mail was not returned.
The paramedic was not injured,
fire officials said. He did not re-
spond to a request made with the
firefighters’ union for an interview.
“In this case, we had a firefight-
er/paramedic whose attention
was entirely focused on delivering
exceptional, caring and compas-
sionate pre-hospital care when he
was allegedly attacked and
robbed,” fire department spokes-
man Doug Buchanan said in a
statement.
“The D.C. Fire and EMS Depart-
ment is grateful to the officers
with the Metropolitan Police De-
partment who made a quick arrest
and recovered the member’s be-
longings,” Buchanan said.
[email protected]Man steals wallet from on-duty medic
MARVIN JOSEPH/THE WASHINGTON POST
Benjamin M. Barksdale will
step down as fire chief this fall
after having led the county’s
department for three years.ANAKOPA/GETTY IMAGES/ISTOCKPHOTO
Some physicians have found that diabetes and other chronic
diseases can be prevented or reversed with plant-based diets.First responder was
targeted while looking
after a patientBY PETER HERMANNA man was shot Tuesday after-
noon in the Third Street tunnel
after one vehicle rear-ended an-
other, closing the northbound
lanes on the heavily used com-
muter route that connects the
Southeast Freeway to New York
Avenue, according to D.C. police.
The victim was being treated
at a hospital; police did not
comment on his condition.
Homicide detectives were called
to the scene, an indication that
the injuries are serious.
The shooting occurred shortly
before 3 p.m. in the northbound
lanes of Interstate 395, near the
exit to Massachusetts Avenue in
Northwest, a few blocks from
Union Station.
Cmdr. Morgan Kane, who
heads the 1st District station,said the male driver of a Ford
Explorer rear-ended a blue se-
dan. People in both vehicles got
out and argued, she said.
Kane said police believe the
driver of the sedan shot the
driver of the Explorer.
“This was unnecessary,” Kane
told reporters. “It is truly tragic
that a simple vehicle accident
can escalate into a shooting.”
Police were searching for theperson who escaped in a dark
blue sedan with a bike rack and
“severe damage” to the rear vehi-
cle area.
Authorities said they have pic-
tures of the vehicle and would be
making them public later Tues-
day.
The northbound lanes of the
tunnel were closed for several
hours.
[email protected]THE DISTRICT
Police: Man shot after crash in Third Street tunnel
THE DISTRICTBY MARTIN WEILTheft from vehicles is a major
problem in the Washington met-
ropolitan area and beyond, fig-
ures show. In Richmond, police
said recently, items taken from
cars this year included more than
100 firearms.
In the Washington area, police
departments often report that
items stolen from cars include
laptops, cellphones and back-
packs. It may be difficult to speci-
fy where such items turn up.
But in a video posted Friday on
the Richmond police’s Twitter
account, a Richmond detective
had no hesitation in saying where
the stolen guns went. They were,
Tanekia Owens said, “now in the
hands of criminals.”
The total number of guns tak-
en from January to June, she said,
was 106. In addition, the police
said Friday that a dozen guns
were stolen “just this week.”
“This is a public safety issue,”
Owens said. She called on Rich-
mond residents to secure their
firearms. This did not include
placing them in the glove box, in
the center console or under a seat.
“Come on, Richmond,” shesaid. “When you know better, do
better.”
Thefts of legally obtained or
possessed weapons have been de-
scribed by law enforcement as a
way firearms find their way into
the hands of criminals, despite
restrictions.
By seeming coincidence, the
report on gun thefts from cars
came only days after an unusual
gun incident in which a Rich-
mond police officer was shot.
In that incident, which oc-
curred July 21, officers went to
the Highland Park area of the city,
where a disorderly crowd wasreported, police said.
When the officers arrived, po-
lice said, the crowd dispersed. As
officers tried to detain one person
in the group, a pistol discharged.
One shot was fired, wounding the
officer in both legs.
The officer will recover fully,
police said.
Police said they determined
that the gun discharged “unex-
pectedly” as it was being carried
inside a backpack.
A man was charged with carry-
ing a concealed weapon, they
said.
[email protected]VIRGINIA
More than 100 guns taken from Richmond cars
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