D.C. Police Agitate For Flood Of E-Mails
Teen Freed Twice, Neighbors Informed

By Theola Labbé-DeBose and Robert E. Pierre
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, November 22, 2008

D.C. police, frustrated that a teenage robbery suspect they have arrested kept getting released, took to cyberspace yesterday in an unusual effort to lobby judges and city officials to keep him off the streets.

Exasperated by the third arrest of the same suspect in a string of 21 robberies, a D.C. police official sent an electronic bulletin to residents of Columbia Heights pleading for them to flood Peter Nickles, the city's top attorney, with calls and e-mails demanding that the suspect not be released.

As of last night, he hadn't been.

Under the subject line "ALERT ALERT ALERT ALERT ALERT," Inspector Edward Delgado said the teenager allegedly had been sneaking up behind victims, knocking them to the ground and swiping whatever he could: money, cellphones, iPods.

The teen was picked up again yesterday. His name is being withheld because of juvenile privacy laws that restrict city officials from discussing their case files. He had been arrested and released twice before, police said, after a judge ruled him mentally incompetent to stand trial. It was not immediately clear whether there was any alternative to releasing him.

The basis for the reported decision to release him after the finding could not be learned last night. A court official said authorities could not locate a case yesterday matching the description.

"Flood the email system today because time is critical in this matter," Delgado implored the subscribers to the 3rd District Substation e-mail group. "Let them not release this criminal yet again into the community."

Of the robberies the teen is accused of committing, Delgado wrote, "I am concerned that if this person is released again he may commit more robberies or worse harm one of you. I find this lack of accountability by the juvenile justice system to be a travesty and a disservice to the community."

The effort appears to have worked.

Nickles got more messages than he cared to count and said the orchestrated letter-writing campaign was inappropriate.

"I don't mind getting 20 e-mails about a particular problem that reflects the unique perspective of people in the community, but I don't approve of an organized campaign to send me 50 e-mails," he said.

"I haven't touched them," he added. "I told my secretary to put them in a pile."

In the past, police commanders relied solely on community meetings as the forum for urging people to contact other parts of the justice system. Police officials and residents still meet once a month to discuss crime, but in between meetings, police have leveraged the speed and ubiquity of the Internet to quickly update residents.

Yesterday was one of the first times D.C. police have turned to Internet neighborhood-based message groups to seek such action. Making it unusual is that police targeted an individual as opposed to a more general crime problem.

In a follow-up e-mail message, Delgado told neighbors that the attorney general's office "has fulfilled" its responsibility and urged them to e-mail the U.S. attorney general's office, to which he said he was sure the case would be transferred.

In the District's complex juvenile e system District those charged as juveniles go to Family Court. Their cases are open only to relatives of those charged and to victims, who are sworn to secrecy.

Those charged with serious crimes and awaiting trial can be held at the Youth Services Center, operated by the Department of Youth and Rehabilitation Services. Others participate in a diversion program that sends them to halfway houses or group homes, an effort to keep fewer youths in locked facilities.

Decisions about where to send youths awaiting trial are made by judges with Court Social Services.

Police said yesterday that the robbery suspect was in a halfway house, but he had never been found guilty of a crime and committed to the care of Youth and Rehabilitation Services.

In an adult proceeding, an incompetent defendant would normally be confined to a psychiatric facility to restore competence.

But it was not clear last night whether a suspect found incompetent in a juvenile proceeding could be forced to undergo mental health treatment unless the person was made a ward of the city.

When Assistant Chief Diane Groomes learned about the arrest, she thought it was an opportunity to tap what she considered pent-up community desire to help police. She contacted Delgado and encouraged him to send out the bulletin. "This is a test case," Groomes said.

In a community meeting in Brightwood last week, Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier encouraged residents to write to judges and prosecutors and air frustrations about criminals who cycle through the revolving doors of criminal justice, with arrests followed by speedy releases.

She said yesterday that the justice system allows for community input after the fact, often when it's too late to make a difference. "We don't want the judge to hear at the end what the impact on the neighborhood is," said Lanier, who said she supported Delgado's message. "We want them to hear it up front."

One of the e-mails came from Cecilia Jones, president of the Northwest Columbia Heights Community Association. Jones said that in the two years she has been working with police on crime issues, she has pleaded with police to share information and keep residents informed. Columbia Heights has been hit with a number of robberies recently.

Jones said she composed a quick note to Nickles and then forwarded her letter and Delgado's original message to 40 active members of her group. "I was kind of wondering . . . if this is the right thing to do," Jones said. "But it was important to me to be supportive. Delgado doesn't ask us to do things very often, so I thought the very least I can do is give it a full effort."

Marie Robertson, a spokeswoman for D.C. Superior Court, declined to comment on the details of the case. "The court is investigating this matter but has not had the time to conduct a full investigation," she said.