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Linnea Kristiansson • March 5, 2015

“This is a clear violation of the District of Columbia Whistleblower Protection Act,” said Metropolitan Police Department officer Hilton Burton, as he initiated a lawsuit against MPD Chief Cathy Lanier and the District in August 2012.

But two weeks ago, on Feb. 11, after less than a day of deliberations, a D.C. Superior Court jury rejected Burton’s whistleblower lawsuit.

Burton was demoted two ranks and transferred from his position in the Special Operations Division after he provided a police escort to actor Charlie Sheen nearly four years ago. Lanier and the department received numerous complaints about the escort, and Lanier testified in June 2011 before the D.C. Council that the officers involved in the escort acted outside of department regulations.

On April 19, 2011, Sheen traveled from Dulles International Airport to D.C. He received a police escort in order to make an appearance at an event at Constitution Hall. Sheen was so impressed by his escort that he tweeted with a photo attached: “In a car with Police escort in front and rear! Driving like someone’s about to deliver a baby!”

After the details of the Sheen escort were revealed, MPD released a statement informing the public that the incident was under investigation. The statement also said that it wasn’t departmental practice to utilize emergency equipment for non-emergency situations.

In the lawsuit, Burton claimed that MPD did not have a “clear policy in place to safeguard the health and safety to the public as it relates to non-dignitary escorts.” At the time of the Sheen incident, Lanier told the Washington Post that the department did not give escorts to celebrities.

“There are limited circumstances where we do police escorts,” Lanier said in April 2011. She explained that those circumstances are based on the need for security and that protocols are followed.

The two-week civil trial drew dozens of spectators. Lanier and other officers took the witness stand and testified about whether prior to the Sheen escort D.C. police had a long-standing policy of escorting celebrities. Lanier said that Burton’s demotion was performance-related and had nothing to do with Burton’s statement to the Council, but he believes it was retaliation for questioning the veracity of the chief.

“The police and the citizens of the District are hurt by this decision,” Burton said. “They are basically telling everyone that Lanier can do and say whatever she wants and get away with it.”

Lanier said in a statement released after the verdict that she appreciated ”the jury’s commitment to finding the truth.” “Although it was difficult to listen to attacks on my credibility, the truth came out in the end,” she said.

Robert Devaney •

Legendary Washington newsman Arnaud de Borchgrave, former editor-in-chief of the Washington Times and top foreign correspondent for Newsweek for 30 years, died Feb. 15 at the age of 88 of cancer.

Known around town and the world for his access to international leaders as well as for a stylish, high-profile manner, de Borchgrave was one of the last of the great, on-the-scene, hands-on journalists who were actually where he said he was. He personified and lived the life of the foreign correspondent at Newsweek magazine and later put his charismatic and journalistic stamp on a young Washington Times.

He was born in Belgium on Oct. 26, 1926. During World War II, his father, Count Baudouin de Borchgrave d’Altena, was director of military intelligence for the exiled Belgium government. His mother, Audrey Townshend, was the daughter of a British general. De Borchgrave escaped the Nazi invasion of southern France only to return with Canadian forces at Juno Beach during D-Day in 1944.

In 1949, de Borchgrave worked for the United Press news agency and succeeded Walter Cronkite — later the managing editor and lead anchor for CBS News — as its Belgium bureau chief. By 1951, de Borchgrave was head of the Paris bureau for Newsweek in Paris and later hired his successor, Ben Bradlee, who would go to become executive editor of the Washington Post.

The list of places and persons de Borchgrave reported on is a long one and included leaders of Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Libya, Syria and wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan and the Middle East.

Known for his foreign reporting, de Borchgrave was also known for the advantage of his sartorial style, his expense accounts and his seemingly perpetual tan.

A few quotes by de Borchgrave in a Newsweek feature in 2012 tell the tale:

— “I saw this in Morocco once. I had a Chesterfield coat with a black velvet collar. Looked like a diplomat. Nasser was coming in his yacht to Casablanca and getting together with all these Arab heads of state, and the media was dressed, as you know, how the media dresses. I was dressed like an ambassador. And I managed to get in with the ambassadors. I did that over and over again.”

— “Reporting always came first. For example, Newsweek had me on the lecture tour after each major scoop. They would bring me back to talk to the advertisers. But I remember once having a deal with Juan Carlos of Spain. I said, ‘Newsweek is about to put me on a big lecture tour of the states. What if something happens to Franco and you become king?’ So we organized a little code. The message that he would send me was, ‘Charlie is on his way to Rome and wants to see you.’ That meant Franco is sick and dying. I was in Seattle when I got it. I canceled the rest of the tour. The Newsweek business team was furious. They’d invested a lot of money. But I said, ‘I’m sorry, I’m going to get the biggest scoop—the first interview with the new king of Spain.’ Which I did.”

— “I lived extremely well. I traveled a lot. In those days we always traveled first-class. Was never questioned. We stayed in five-star hotels. Never questioned. If we had to stay in one place for several days or weeks, we could get a suite. Never questioned. I never had an expense account questioned in the whole 30 years I worked at Newsweek.”

In 1985, de Borchgrave, who had never worked at a newspaper, became the editor-in-chief of the then three-year-old Washington Times and quickly put it on the map, going up against the city’s biggest paper, the Washington Post, which at the time owned Newsweek.

Owned by the Unification Church and its founder, the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, the Washington Times was a conservative voice in the nation’s capital during the Reagan years. Nevertheless, de Borchgrave denied that Moon or the church directly influenced editorial policy at the newspaper. De Borchgrave left the Times in 1991.

“Arnaud was an extraordinary man,” Wesley Pruden, told the Washington Times, where Pruden succeeded de Borchgrave as editor-in-chief until his retirement in 2008. “He came to us when we were struggling against considerable hostility to establish a second newspaper in Washington, and overnight he gave the Times identity, purpose and credibility. His friends teased Arnaud that he was ‘a legend in his own mind,’ but we were all in awe of his enormous self-confidence and his intrepid and relentless pursuit of the story. He leaves us a true legend in his own times.”

Indeed, the headline of a specially printed fake edition of the Washington Times in 1996 did read, “A legend in his own mind,” accompanied by a front page photo of de Borchgrave wearing military fatigues. It is for a 70th birthday party for de Borchgrave at the Washington Times headquarters on New York Avenue. The party was attended by Bradlee, who knew de Borchgrave from his Newsweek years — it is the only time that Bradlee is known to have come to the Times offices.

In 1998, De Borchgrave went on to work for United Press International and stayed on as a columnist until his death. He was also director of the Transnational Threats Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

De Borchgrave’s survivors include his wife of 45 years, Alexandra Villard De Borchgrave; a daughter by his second wife (Eileen Ritschel), Trisha de Borchgrave; a sister; a two granddaughters. A son by his first wife (Dorothy Solon), Arnaud de Borchgrave, Jr., died in 2011.

Robert Devaney • February 26, 2015

While some in the neighborhood knew Rhino Bar would be closing, this week’s news still made major media buzz. The legendary Rhino Bar and Pumphouse, popular with Georgetown University students, will close Feb. 28.

Known for its sports bar verve, Rhino at 3295 M St. NW is a big fan zone for the Boston Red Sox and Philadelphia Eagles as well as for college basketball, especially the Hoyas. It is full of sports memorabilia.

For those who want a piece of the place, there is an online auction by Rasmus Auctions that lists just about everything that isn’t nailed down. Lighted advertising signage, flat-screen televisions, bar tables, stools and other restaurant fixtures are on the list, but it is the memorabilia that is worth noting.

First, there is the presiding rhino head at the center of the bar as well as signs from previous bars that existed at the property: Winston’s and the Shamrock. There are signed sports jerseys in frames that include Patrick Ewing, Derek Jeter, Michael Jordan, Joe Namath, Magic Johnson, Joe Theisman, Larry Bird and many more along with autographed magazines covers of sports figures.

The bidding continues until Feb. 27 with inspection at Rhino Bar, noon to 4 p.m., Feb. 26, and removal, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., March 2. Check out Rasmus.com/auction/250679/bar-and-restaurant-online-auction-washington-dc/

Peter Murray •

“I’m not willing to let law enforcement off the hook,” FBI Director James B. Comey said in a Feb. 12 speech about policing and race Thursday at Georgetown University’s Gaston Hall. The speech marked the first time an FBI director has spoken on the topic and comes on the heals of nationwide unrest spurred by the deaths of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice and others who were killed at the hands of police officers.

In addition to race, Comey touched on technology, community policing and trust as areas that police needed to improve upon, but he also argued that most police officers are “good people” who are “overwhelmingly doing the right thing and making the right choices.” He also highlighted his “affection” for law enforcement.

On the increased militarization of police forces, Comey argued, “It’s not the stuff [the equipment]. It’s about the training and the discipline and how we use it.” He asked rhetorically, “Do we use that stuff to confront people who are protesting in a crowd? Do we use a sniper rifle to see closer in a crowd?”

In a strong condemnation of how police report law-enforcement-involved deaths, Comey said it was “ridiculous” that such deaths are harder to find information on than “how many people went to the emergency room with fly symptoms last week.” He said it is impossible to “understand or address these issues” without more data and details on how police shooting incidents occur. Comey critiqued the current system of voluntary reporting in such incidents and said, “Without complete or accurate data, we are left with ideological thunderbolts.”

Speaking on Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, Comey harked back to the nation’s history of slavery and law enforcement’s “complicity” in that history, calling it “our inheritance as law enforcement.” He said the “mental shortcut” of assuming “everyone lies and everyone is guilty” is “easy but… false,” yet “irresistible.” He went on to say that if law enforcement can’t change their “latent biases” they can at least change their “behavior in response to those instinctive reactions.”

Comey implied that fixing the ways police use technology and react to minorities will help law enforcement regain the trust of the American people. He called the current lack of trust in minority communities “corrosive” to the “entire justice system.”

However, Comey also took swings at law enforcement’s critics, saying that broader societal problems lead poor kids to “inherit a life of crime” and that body cameras will not solve “a host of problems” in the criminal justice system.

Comey closed out his remarks on a conciliatory note, quoting Martin Luther King Jr. in saying, “We must learn to live as brothers or we will perish together as fools,” adding, “Relationships are hard. Relationships require work. So let’s begin that work. It is time to start seeing each other as who we really are.”

Robert Devaney • February 25, 2015

The legendary Rhino Bar and Pumphouse, popular with Georgetown University students, will close Feb. 28.

Business owner and restaurateur Britt Swan told The Georgetowner the he was willing to go with a new lease that doubled the rent but the owner of the building at 3295 M St. NW declined. “Georgetown has changed,” Swan said. “It’s all about high-end retail.”

There will be a big reunion party and last hurrah for all old timers and past and present staff Sunday, Feb. 22, at Rhino Bar, which opened in 1998.

An insider told The Georgetowner: “From 1953 until this Feb. 28, there has been a long-term lease in place that moved from bar owner to bar owner. As I understand it, this is the first time that the lease will expire after all of these years. Many of us will gather at Rhino on its last Sunday night.”

Known for its collegiate atmosphere and sports bar verve — along with nicely priced drinks and good food — the bar was a big fan zone of the Boston Red Sox, often displaying the team’s name in building-wide signage. The place also attracted a clientele of “bros and basics,” according to one Yelp comment.

The bartender with the longest tenure in Georgetown is Rhino’s own Jeff Stiles, who just celebrated 23 years Feb. 8. Stiles worked at Sports Fans before moving to Rhino Bar. The property previously housed the equally legendary Winston’s and, before that, the Shamrock.

Georgetowner •

Ari Roth, artistic director of Mosaic Theater Company of DC, a new company based at H Street’s Atlas Performing Arts Center, will be the speaker at Georgetown Media Group’s Cultural Leadership Breakfast on Thursday, Feb. 19, at the George Town Club, 1530 Wisconsin Ave.

Mosaic’s work “seeks to contribute to a broader civic conversation in our city and within our intra and interfaith communities.” Roth spent 18 years as artistic director of Theater J at the D.C. Jewish Community Center, a position he left in December. The event runs from 8 to 9:30 a.m. Admission is $20 ($15 for George Town Club members).

To RSVP, email richard@georgetowner.com.

Future speakers in the series, sponsored by Long & Foster, are Martin Wollesen (March 12), Kim Sajet (April 9) and Steven Knapp (May 7).

Georgetowner •

Most of us who practice – or practiced – what remains of the still enduring, alluring profession of journalism deal in stories and reports and tales.

At whatever level we work – magazine, big city newspaper, blog, television, small-town paper – we come to the job armed with training, experience, curiosity, compassion and empathy, as well as acquired expertise. The things, people, places and events we write about on a daily basis are part of our life. But they do not occupy the same space held by people we love, parents, wives, husbands, friends, children, pets and other passionate regularities. In short, we don’t bring our personal lives and history to the profession.

We can write about politicians, but, other than voting, we are not in the political stream. We write about criminal acts, but, as a rule, are not criminals. We walk with soldiers at times, even in a war zone, but are not soldiers. We opine about theater, but are not actors. We write about drugs and addiction, but are not drug addicts ourselves.

Except of course, when we are, for whatever reasons.

David Carr, the highly respected New York Time media columnist, former Washington City Paper editor and red-carpet commentator, died Feb. 12 after collapsing in his office at the Times. He was only 58, thin, with a raspy voice and totally in love with the job. The causes included lung cancer, which spoke to a worn-out immune system.

Carr had all of the aforementioned professional requirements for a journalist in spades, especially when it came to a stylish, tough, layered, intelligent and often moving – as well as funny – writing style. He had a boundless curiosity and strongly held views. He also (and it’s easy to assume that it informed his writing) had a nightmarish fall to the bottom of life’s pit, that time when you fall into the cold basement only to discover that there is a door in the room to a deeper cellar.

He was raised in Minnesota, worked at an alt paper in the Twin Cities and along the way became addicted to, among other things, crack cocaine. He fathered two children by a girlfriend who was also his dealer. He apparently came close to dying. But, instead, he went into rehab and was successful, married, had other children.

And he wrote a memoir in 2008 about his addiction called “The Night of the Gun,” approaching the job like an investigative reporter in his own life, questioning everything in search of his own true story. That might have been harder than going cold turkey.

He brought his gifts to the job, both the necessary tools and a champion way with words. He worked at the City Paper in the 1990s, encouraging and nurturing a talented group of writers: Amanda Ripley, Michael Schaffer, Jake Tapper, Eddie Dean and Eric Wemple. Google will take you to Wemple’s enthralling and affectionate tribute.

In 2002, Carr joined the New York Times, at first reporting on entertainment celebrities, which included several gigs on the edge of Oscar’s red carpet. But he gained stature, fame and respect when he took on the Media Equation column for the Times, and in many ways – speaking to groups, teaching classes, going on television and hosting panel discussions – became the face of the most honored newspaper in the land. He played a memorable role as himself in the 2011 documentary “Page One: Inside the New York Times.”

Recently, in all of the journalese that came out of the s—storm over Brian Williams, it was Cole who nailed it, smartly, kindly, without malice, in a summary that managed to say everything that needed to be said about Williams and anchors in general: “We want our anchors to be both good at reading the news and also pretending to be in the middle of it. . . . We want our anchors to be everywhere, to be impossibly famous, globe trotting, hilarious, down-to-earth and, above all, trustworthy. It’s a job description that no one can match.”

He also wrote a thoughtful, spot-on, serious essay on the reasons why “Selma” seemed to be lacking in support come Oscar-time, a piece that made me want to disown every silly word I wrote about the aftermath of Oscar.

It could not have been fun to be his friend or loved one during his trial by fire, but you can also more than admire the life he led after his recovery – all of it, in fact – and think that it would have been the highest sort of fun to work with him.

He had the grace of understanding his own life. To quote from the conclusion of his book, as did his last employer, the New York Times: “I now inhabit a life I don’t deserve, but we all walk this earth feeling we are frauds. The trick is to be grateful and hope the caper doesn’t end any time soon.”

It ended way too soon for Carr.

Robert Devaney • February 23, 2015

A fight between two potential riders and their limo driver escalated into a stabbing around 7:30 p.m. Sept. 8 at the entrance to the Washington Harbour retail-condo complex on K Street. Two young persons were allegedly stabbed by a for-hire limo driver.

According to the Uniformed Division of the Secret Service, the incident occurred in the 3000 block of K Street, NW. The Secret Service police were nearby — as part of its regular patrols to protect embassies — and made the arrest, while the Metropolitan Police arrived to assist.

The two attacked with a knife were taken to the hospital. According to WJLA, the driver for the car service who was arrested is Yohannes Deresse. He is charged with two counts of assault with a deadly weapon.

One self-described eyewitness told the Georgetowner that the young men were beating up the driver who subsequently pulled out a knife. “They were hitting him hard,” he said. “Then, blood everywhere.” The crime, seen by passers-by at the riverside complex which attracts sightseers and restaurant-goers, occurred within the Washington Harbour traffic circle at K and Thomas Jefferson Street and was over in less than five minutes.

Police have not said what provoked the attacks.

UPDATE, 5:38 p.m.: the Secret Service called the Georgetowner to clarify whom and what it protects, besides the president and those in the Executive Branch. It is not assigned to protect those in the U.S. Congress. (The original Georgetowner story mentioned that House minority leader Nancy Pelosi lives near the scene of the Sept. 8 incident. U.S. Capitol Police would be assigned to protect her.)
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Linnea Kristiansson •

The Georgetown Arts Show, hosted by Citizens Association of Georgetown, kicks off at the House of Sweden Thursday, Feb 12., during an evening reception, 6 to 9 p.m., and runs through Feb. 15.

The Georgetown Arts chair Laura-Anne Tiscornia has two of the largest pieces of art work — 40-by-40 inches — at the exhibit. Besides paintings, the show has both glass and mixed-media pieces. This year, the exhibit has one sculpture.

”Every year is surprisingly different and that is what is most interesting and exciting about this exhibit,” Tiscornia said. ”The show attracts new artists as well as reoccurring artists and to see all the different pieces come together and play off one another is remarkable.”

The arts show include art from a unique collection of artists. Some artists are young professionals while others are lifelong learners or teachers. A few of the artists exhibit nationally in other galleries. Attendees are in for a treat to see the vast artistic talent that Georgetown offers.

During Saturday and Sunday, there will be several Artist Talks. At 2 p.m. on Saturday, Peggy Sparks, owner of Artist’s Proof, a gallery on Wiscosin Avenue, will discuss the art scene in Washington, D.C., and highlight the art work displayed.

Artist Guy Fairlamb, Dariush Vaziri and Sherry Kaskey will be talking Sunday at noon. In the afternoon, you will also be able to listen to Andrey Bogoslowsky, Jane Lepscky and Ross Ruot during the Artist Talks.