SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 20 , 2022. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ RE C7
After he had several strokes,
she drove him to his medical
appointments. She was with him
on the day he was told he had
liver cancer. In the months since,
she has finally gotten to meet
some of the people she had heard
him talk about and some she
hadn’t.
“Everyone is texting each
other, asking, ‘How is everything?
How are we feeling?' ” she said. “I
had only one close friend here in
the United States, who was Rick,
and now I have, I can’t even count
on my two hands how many I got
from this sad situation.”
On Friday afternoon, after
mostly sleeping for two days,
Massumi died in his home. He
had come from a broken family
and had never formed his own,
but in the end, he was
surrounded by a wonderfully
weird one of his own making.
And he recognized that.
Duggan shared with me a text
Massumi asked Junghans to
write on his behalf and send to
the group.
“This experience has brought
an unexpected and incredibly
moving new element I treasure,”
it reads. “It is like a whole new
family has blossomed up around
me. I watch in wonder as all these
people rally round me and I feel a
unique and powerful love
pouring on me unlike any other I
have ever experienced.”whether he would make it home,
she tucked his beloved cat in her
jacket and with Duggan’s help
took it undetected into his room.
“He always told me, ‘I don’t
have anyone. I’m so lonely,’ ”
Anastasia Novoseltceva said.
“And now, all these people are
coming from all over the world.
He has so many friends.”
Her name is also on that list.
The Russian native met Massumi
a decade ago when she was 20
and staying in D.C. for a summer.
They ended up at the same
performance because of a mutual
acquaintance, and afterward he
drove her and her roommate
home. When he saw that they
were staying in a high-crime area
in a run-down house, he offered
them a free room in his home.
Novoseltceva said they were
skeptical at first but quickly
realized he only wanted to help
them. They also barely saw him
because he worked such long
hours.
Over the years, she and
Massumi formed a close
friendship and once traveled to
Russia together, where he danced
to the accordion in her family’s
home. He told her she was the
daughter he never had.
“I was raised without a dad, so
to find one across the ocean,” she
said. “For me, there is no word.
The word does not exist to
express who he is to me.”for-life” relationship. Junghans
described him as a “divining rod
for the special and the rare,” a
person who throughout his life
knew good food and good music
and wanted to share those
pleasures with people. She lives
in Massachusetts and has made
the trip to D.C. several times in
recent months.
Another name on the list is
Karla Soptirean. She was
working in Munich as an IT
consultant when she learned
through Duggan that Massumi
wanted someone who wasn’t tied
down by a job to go on
adventures with him in his final
months. The pandemic had left
her feeling depressed and burned
out, so she quit her job and
arrived in D.C. in December. She
planned to travel to exciting cities
with Massumi and dine in great
restaurants. Instead, his
condition declined faster than
anyone expected, and she took on
caretaker tasks. Dying can be
ugly, and she saw all of that — and
she decided to stay beside him.
She called him “a mentor.” He
called her his “guardian angel.”
Junghans said she wasn’t sure
what to expect when Massumi
told her about Soptirean, but she
came to “love” and “trust” her.
Soptirean also played a key role
in a scene that brought happiness
to Massumi. During one hospital
stay, when it was uncertainhim,” said his younger brother,
Brian Massumi, who lives in
Canada. “When I was there, I
kept thinking to myself, ‘It’s like a
wake, but he’s still with us.’ ”
He described his brother as
having an “insatiable curiosity”
and said he was in high school
when their parents split up and
their mother took them to live in
Arizona. From there, Rick
Massumi went to Vassar College.
He then attended Georgetown
Law and worked as an attorney
for the SEC before going into
private practice. Brian Massumi
said one of the things his brother
was proudest of was the work he
did free behind the scenes. He
produced music for bands he
feared would be forgotten, and he
fought to keep gentrification
from changing D.C.
neighborhoods by doing pro
bono work for local businesses.
Duggan said he met Rick after
he offered to do legal work for
Madam’s Organ nearly 20 years
ago, and their friendship grew
from that. He shared with me a
list of people who have been
coming by the house. It contains
25 names. At the top are the
words “Rick’s Salon.”
One of the names on the list is
Lida Junghans. She has known
Massumi since she was 18 and he
was “a cool, dashing 25-year-old.”
They later dated for a bit but
eventually settled into a “friend s-watch,” Duggan says. “To me, in a
town like Washington, where
people are so separated or in
their own bubble, he had bubbles
going out in so many different
directions. And until he was
dying, all of us in these different
bubbles didn’t even know about
one another.”
Most people have to die before
all the important figures in their
life come together. It’s at their
funeral that their favorite high
school teacher sits in the same
room as their favorite boss. But
Massumi, who was one of the
longest-serving board members
for the National Council for the
Traditional Arts, got to witness
those connections.
“It really was amazing how
people were rallying aroundchildren, and he confessed over
the years to a few people that he
often felt lonely. But his front
door in recent weeks hasn’t
looked like one that belongs to a
man who has no one. People have
been passing through it
constantly. They have come from
down the road, other states and
even other countries.
And they have helped
Massumi in different ways. They
have tracked down a hospital bed
for him. They have searched for
the type of beer he first drank
(Coors). They have organized his
awesome collection of cowboy
boots. They at one point sneaked
a cat, his favorite one, into a
hospital. And they have sat with
him, sometimes talking and
sometimes in silence.
But what struck Duggan as
unusual the more time he spent
at the house, and what he tells me
about in detail on a recent
evening, was not what people
were doing for Massumi. It was
what Massumi was unknowingly
doing for them. Most of them
were strangers to one another
until they learned he was dying.
Now, they text and call one
another, and they describe their
relationship using words such as
“magical,” “beautiful” and
“family.”
“It’s been pretty amazing to
VARGAS FROM C1
THERESA VARGAS
It started with ‘Greetings from a dead man!’ and ended with a family of friends
FAMILY PHOTO
Ronald “Rick” Massumi
worked as an attorney. He
never married or had children.BY JESSICA ANDERSONBaltimore police and the com-
pany involved in a controversial,
now-defunct surveillance plane
program will expunge all of the
records and data collected as part
of a lawsuit settlement.
The police department and
Persistent Surveillance Systems,
the company that ran the planes
out of Martin State Airport dur-
ing a six-month testing period,
will dispose of all records with
the exception of those that are
part of ongoing prosecutions, as
part of an agreement filed last
week in a federal lawsuit brought
against the police department in
2020.
Program data “shall be ex-
punged from BPD records once
every criminal prosecution which
relies upon information or evi-
dence obtained or derived from
the AIR [Aerial Investigation Re-
search] program is final, and the
direct appeal of all such prosecu-
tions has been exhausted or ren-
dered untimely,” the agreement
said.
It’s not clear how many cases
will use data from the program,
or when police will begin expung-
ing the data. Baltimore police and
the Baltimore state’s attorney’s
office did not provide the number
of cases potentially affected l ast
week.
The surveillance program had
been sold initially as a tool to help
police investigate murders, non-
fatal shootings, armed robberies
and carjackings. But it quickly
became criticized as excessive
government overreach.
The Maryland chapter of the
American Civil Liberties Union
sued the police department in
April 2020 over the program,
citing privacy concerns, and
sought an injunction to groundthe planes. Last June, the U .S.
Court of Appeals for the Fourth
Circuit in Richmond ruled infavor of the plaintiffs.
“Allowing the police to wield
this power unchecked is anath-ema to the values enshrined in
our Fourth Amendment,” Chief
Judge Roger Gregory wrote in the
opinion.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf
of Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle,
a grass-roots city think tank; Err-
icka Bridgeford, co-founder of the
Baltimore Ceasefire 365 project;
and Kevin James, a community
organizer and hip-hop musician.
Dayvon Love, d irector of pub-
lic policy for Leaders of a Beauti-
ful Struggle, said Wednesday that
the organization is “satisfied”
with the settlement.
Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle
decided to be plaintiffs in the
lawsuit because “it was impor-
tant for us to push back against
the government attempts to un-
dermine social movements,” he
said.
An outside review was com-
pleted last year of the program
that flew three Cessna planesover Baltimore during a six-
month trial in 2020. The report
found that 1,532 crimes occurred
during that period, but only 158
crimes had evidence collected
from the planes.
The planes were limited when
they could fly, only operating
during the day and during certain
weather. Of the 158 crimes in
which footage was captured, only
38 were cleared by arrest or
exception, the report said.
The trial program had been
funded by a pair of Texas philan-
thropists. The city’s Board of Esti-
mates voted to cancel the con-
tract for the program in February
2021.
As part of the lawsuit settle-
ment, the city has agreed to pay
$99,000 to cover the plaintiffs’
attorneys’ fees for the suit, which
was approved by the Board of
Estimates last month.
— Baltimore SunMARYLAND
Data to be wiped from controversial police surveillance plane program following lawsuit
JERRY JACKSON/BALTIMORE SUN
Eric Melancon, Baltimore Police Department chief of staff, left,
and Ross McNutt, founder of Persistent Surveillance Systems.board chair and a designated em-
ployee representative, and Fer-
nando Franco, a wine grower in
Barboursville who was recently
appointed by Northam to also rep-
resent employees.
“It’s clear that there is a big
push for silencing the voices of
workers and putting them in
harm’s way, and we won’t stand
for it,” Doris Crouse-Mays, presi-
dent of the Virginia AFL-CIO, said
in a statement.Rodriguez, an occupational
health and safety specialist with
the American Federation of Gov-
ernment Employees who has been
on the board since 2004, said she
was informed Monday that she no
longer needed to attend the
Wednesday meeting.
During the early days of the
pandemic, Virginia was the first
state to implement coronavirus
standards to protect workers
from infection, which prompted
other states to follow suit, she
said.
“We had some very strong pro-
tections,” she said. “That was a
time when the board really did a
lot of good work, with the staff.
That certainly has been the high-
light of my work with the board.”
At the Wednesday meeting, the
board voted 7 to 3 to end the
mandate, with “yes” votes coming
from Tina Hoover, a former board
member working in human re-
sources brought back by Young-
kin for the meeting, and three
other board members whose
nominations the House con-
firmed last week.Laura Vozzella contributed to this
report.tion neglected to submit their
names on time for approval.
McAuliffe could have used the op-
portunity to fill those slots with
his own picks, but instead reap-
pointed them, Locke said.
Sen. Adam P. Ebbin (D-Alexan-
dria), who chairs the privileges
and elections committee, which
oversees nomination confirma-
tions, said in an interview that the
hardball tactic employed by Re-
publicans “is not how we roll
down here.”
He urged Youngkin to reap-
point the 11 board members him-
self, arguing that it could help
prevent a “new tradition” from
taking hold in the General Assem-
bly that allows state board mem-
bers to be arbitrarily removed.
“And the House started that
tradition, and I hope that the Sen-
ate doesn’t have to continue it,”
Ebbin said, adding that he wasn’t
threatening that will be the case.
“But it would just be great not to
have that as a precedent.”
The near-term effect of the
purge was on display during an
emergency meeting Wednesday
that the Virginia Department of
Labor and Industry’s Safety and
Health Codes Board held at the
behest of Youngkin.
The chief item on the agenda
was to reconsider a mandate im-
plemented under Northam for
employers to follow Centers for
Disease and Control and Preven-
tion guidelines for preventing the
spread of the coronavirus, includ-
ing requiring workers to wear
masks and socially distance.
With the recent surge in coro-
navirus cases brought on by the
omicron variant having dropped
in Virginia to where they were just
before Christmas, the Youngkin
administration argued there is no
longer a compelling reason to con-
tinue the mandate, which applied
to about 3.7 million workers cov-
ered under state occupational
health and safety regulations.
Union leaders accused Repub-
licans of working to ensure that
the requirements are lifted in Vir-
ginia by yanking two board mem-
bers likely to support keeping
them: Milagro Rodriguez, theerson, another former Hanover
County superintendent who now
heads an architectural and engi-
neering firm with offices across
the Mid-Atlantic region, did not
respond to messages seeking com-
ment.
Democrats angry about the Re-
publican maneuver highlighted
the credentials of those and other
board members, saying the move
sets a dangerous precedent.
“I hope that this is an anomaly
and from this point forward, I
hope that both House leadership
and the executive branch will live
up to its promise of wanting to
work together collaboratively for
the good of the commonwealth,”
Sen. Mamie E. Locke (D-Hamp-
ton) said on the Senate floor
Wednesday.
She noted that McAuliffe reap-
pointed 40 of Republican Gov.
Robert F. McDonnell’s state board
nominees after his administra-made to facilitate the expansion of
prekindergarten classes in public
schools and to incorporate cultur-
al competency as a metric in how
teachers are evaluated.
“As a board, we have worked
very hard and consistently to keep
student learning and student
achievement at the forefront of
our efforts,” said Wilson, a former
Hanover County Public Schools
superintendent who is now dean
of the University of Richmond
School of Professional and Con-
tinuing Studies. She added that
the board was set to focus more on
literacy during the next four years.
“I’m proud to have been part of
that and I’m confident, hopeful,
that will continue to be the focus,”
Wilson said.
Swann, a Franklin County fifth-
grade teacher who was named the
state’s teacher of the year shortly
after he was appointed in June
2020, declined to comment. Rob-pire in June.
Youngkin has made education
his chief priority, setting out on
his first day in office to do away
with mask mandates inside
schools, a goal he reached l ast
week when the General Assembly
passed a law enabling parents to
opt their children out.
Youngkin also has moved to bar
teachers from exposing students
to “inherently divisive concepts”
such as critical race theory, the
academic exercise to examine sys-
temic racism that is not part of
Virginia’s K-12 curriculum but has
become conservative shorthand
for any attempt to teach cultural
awareness.
The Board of Education has in
recent years supported policies
championed by Democrats.
Wilson, who served as the
board’s vice president after join-
ing in 2017, said she is proud of the
strides she and her colleaguesIt nonetheless allows the new
governor to advance his agenda
another way, through appoint-
ments to the vacant seats on the
Board of Education, the Air Pollu-
tion Control Board, the Water
Control Board, the Virginia Ma-
rine Resources Commission and
the Safety and Health Codes
Board.
“If I had to guess, the governor
already had this in mind but, now,
he has the cover to do it,” said
Mark J. Rozell, dean of the Schar
School of Policy and Government
at George Mason University, refer-
ring to the 11 rejections and the
claim by Republicans that Demo-
crats prompted the move by tak-
ing the rare step of rejecting a
governor’s Cabinet pick.
Several of the 11 board mem-
bers caught up in the scuffle ex-
pressed surprise over seeing their
names included on a list of denied
confirmations that had been whit-
tled down from what Republicans
initially threatened would be
1,000 rejections.
The governor’s office did not
respond to messages seeking com-
ment. Previously, his spokespeo-
ple had said Youngkin would
quickly work to fill the empty
seats. Nominees must be con-
firmed by both the GOP-con-
trolled House of Delegates and the
Senate, where Democrats hold the
majority.
The greatest impact is likely to
be seen on the nine-seat Board of
Education, which will soon have a
majority of Youngkin appointees.
Before last week, the entire board
was made up of appointees of
either Northam or Gov. Terry
McAuliffe (D).
Three members — Jamelle S.
Wilson, Anthony Swann and
Steward D. Roberson — had their
terms suddenly expire years earli-
er than they expected when their
appointments were not con-
firmed. Anne B. Holton, the state’s
former secretary of education and
wife of U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine
(D-Va.), was reconfirmed. The
four-year terms for another three
members are set to naturally ex-
VIRGINIA FROM C1
Youngkin loses Cabinet pick but could gain influence on vital state boards
BOB BROWN/RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH/ASSOCIATED PRESS
House Speaker Todd Gilbert (R-Shenandoah), left, meets with Sens. Mamie E. Locke (D-Hampton) and
Adam P. Ebbin (D-Alexandria) outside the House of Delegates chamber in Richmond on Feb. 11.“I hope that thisis an anomaly.”
Sen. Mamie E. Locke
( D-Hampton), on the Senate floor in
response to Republicans bucking
tradition by declining to confirm 11 of
Gov. R alph Northam’s nominees to
state boards