Author: ARLnow.com

Launched in January 2010, ARLnow.com is the place for the latest news, views and things to do around Arlington, Virginia. Started by a Pentagon City resident who has spent the past several years working in local TV news, ARLnow.com seeks to distinguish itself with original, enterprising, up-to-the-minute local coverage.

UPDATED: Police Investigating Fatal Rollover Crash in Barcroft

By ARLnow.com

(Updated at 1:55 p.m.) A man has died after a serious rollover crash in the Barcroft neighborhood last night.

The crash happened around 9 p.m. on the 4800 block of 8th Street S., a residential street that dead ends near the W&OD trail.

“At 9:07 p.m. ACFD was dispatched to the area of 4800 block of 8th Street S. for an accident with entrapment,” said Arlington County Fire Department spokesman Capt. Justin Tirelli. “Crews were advised by a bystander that a vehicle had left the roadway and entered the woods.”

“After a short search by ACFD and ACPD the vehicle was found in the woods near the W&OD trail, overturned with the male driver still inside,” Tirelli said. “Crews removed the driver and transported him to the hospital with life-threatening injuries.”

On Wednesday afternoon, Arlington County police said the man had died from his injuries. More from an ACPD press release, below.

The Arlington County Police Department’s Critical Accident Team is investigating a fatal single vehicle crash that occurred on the evening of July 7, 2020.

At approximately 9:01 p.m. on July 7, police were dispatched to the area of the Washington and Old Dominion Trail in the 4800 block of 8th Street S. for the report of a crash with injuries. The preliminary investigation indicates the driver lost control of the vehicle, struck a parked vehicle in the 4500 block of 8th Street S., and continued traveling, before overturning onto the trail.

Arriving officers and medics rendered aid to the driver, who was subsequently extricated from the vehicle by the Arlington County Fire Department. The driver of the vehicle, identified as Bolivar Cobos, 92, of Arlington, Va., was transported by medics to an area hospital with life threatening injuries. He later succumbed to his injuries and was pronounced deceased.

This crash remains under investigation and anyone with information related to this incident is asked to contact Detective T. Parsons of the Arlington County Police Department’s Critical Accident Team at 703-228-4172 or [email protected]. To report information anonymously, contact the Arlington County Crime Solvers hotline at 1-866-411-TIPS (8477).

Map via Google Maps

Morning Notes

By ARLnow.com

Deadline Set for Back to School Choice — “APS will provide two instructional delivery methods for families to choose from – hybrid in-person with physical distancing or full-time distance learning – when school resumes. Families will have until July 20 at 5 p.m. to select one of the two instructional delivery methods. If families do not select one of the two options by the deadline, their selection will automatically default to the hybrid instructional delivery model.” [Arlington Public Schools]

HS Athletes Understanding of Cancellations — “Senior track and field stars Isaiah Mefford of Wakefield High and Rebecca Stewart of Washington-Liberty could have won state crowns during the outdoor spring season. ‘It was disappointing for all of us, but people were getting sick. So something had to be done,’ Mefford said. Said Stewart: ‘With all that was happening with that virus, we couldn’t think about ourselves.'” [InsideNova]

D.C. Area Facing Tech Talent Gap — “The Capital Region is expected to add more than 130,000 digital tech jobs over the next five years, but the demand for tech talent continues to outpace supply, according to a new study… The talent gap will only continue to widen, unless much more is done to create a robust tech talent ecosystem that makes deliberate connections between digital tech pathways and diverse learners.” [Greater Washington Partnership]

Photo courtesy Buzz McClain

BREAKING: Takis Karantonis Wins County Board Special Election in Landslide

By ARLnow.com

(Updated at 10:45 p.m.) Democrat Takis Karantonis will fill the late Erik Gutshall’s former Arlington County Board seat.

Karantonis, an economist and the former director of the Columbia Pike Revitalization Organization, captured 62.4% of the vote. He overperformed among absentee ballots, with 71% of the more than 10,000 absentee ballots cast amid the pandemic.

Susan Cunningham, who described herself as a “progressive Independent,” received 32.6% of the vote. A civically-involved professional and mother of two, Cunningham was endorsed in the race by John Vihstadt, the last non-Democrat to win a seat on the County Board.

Republican Bob Cambridge, a former CIA instructor, received 4.8% of the vote.

In all, 19,866 votes were cast — a turnout of 12.6% of the Arlington electorate. That’s below the 22,264 votes tallied in the 2014 special election, in which Vihstadt first won his seat on the Board.

Besides taking place during a pandemic, today’s election was also hampered by a relatively short campaigning period, and an election day just after the Fourth of July. Karantonis won the Democratic nomination in a closed caucus of about 250 local Democratic party insiders, as the party decried not having enough time to organize a broader primary or caucus.

Karantonis’ initial term on the Board will run through Dec. 31, 2021.

In a press release issued by the Arlington County Democratic Committee, Karantonis pledges “true progressive policies and effective leadership.”

“Arlington voters responded overwhelmingly to Takis’ positive, issues-oriented campaign, surmounting the unprecedented challenges posed by the coronavirus to elect an experienced leader to the County Board,” Arlington Democrats Chair Jill Caiazzo said. “Takis will be a leader for all Arlingtonians. He has the expertise and empathy to build on the impressive legacy of Erik Gutshall. We know he’ll serve Arlington well.”

During the campaign, Karantonis touted his status as an immigrant as a reason he’ll be particularly effective during these fraught times for the country. He has been a resident of Arlington for 14 years, currently living with his wife in the Arlington Village neighborhood.

“As an immigrant and a first-time candidate, I did not expect to receive the overwhelming amount of support from Arlingtonians throughout every zip code in our county,” Karantonis said shortly after the election was called. “Our victory is meaningful for two specific reasons: it is the recognition of my many years of civic engagement in Arlington and it serves as a testament to Arlington voters’ expectation of true progressive policies and effective leadership.”

Karantonis previously served as executive director of the Columbia Pike Revitalization Organization, and now directs micro-lending for the Ethiopian Community Development Council, an Arlington-based nonprofit. He serves as vice chair of the Alliance for Housing Solutions, and previously was president of the Columbia Heights Civic Association and board chair of Arlingtonians for a Clean Environment (now known as EcoAction Arlington). A native of Greece, Karantonis lived and worked in several European countries before immigrating to the United States. He speaks eight languages.

Cunningham, in a statement, thanked her opponents “for a spirited and hard-fought race” and wished Karantonis well on the County Board.

“Tonight I want to thank each and every voter in Arlington,” Cunningham said. “And I also want to thank my daughters and my husband, along with an incredible army of volunteers, who pulled out all the stops during a pandemic. This was always an uphill battle — not just against my opponents but also against an entrenched one-party system in Arlington… I truly hope we started some important conversations about the perils of one-party rule and the need for greater accountability.”

“I hope all of our elected officials will get serious about transparency, accountability, and improved School-County collaboration,” Cunningham concluded. “I have been deeply honored to meet and talk with so many Arlington residents. I look forward to many more discussions in the future.”

More on the turnout from the county elections office:

File photo

EXCLUSIVE: ACPD Arrest Data Shows Race, Residency Disparities

By ARLnow.com

Most people arrested in Arlington are Black and most do not reside in Arlington.

That’s according to 2019 arrest data shared by the Arlington County Police Department, at the request of ARLnow and a local community group. Its release follows calls for police reform and nationwide protests over the deaths of Black men and women at the hands of law enforcement.

ACPD officers arrested 3,613 people in 2019, according to the data, and just over half were Black. Only 35.8% of those arrested live in Arlington.

The data provided says 45% of arrestees were white, but that includes those most of the 19.6% of arrestees identified as Latino. (Latino is considered an ethnicity while Black, white, Asian/Pacific Islander and American Indian/Alaskan Native are classified as races in the ACPD data.)

According to the latest Census estimates, 61.4% of Arlington’s population is non-Hispanic white, 15.6% is Hispanic/Latino, 11.1% is Asian/Pacific Islander, 9.7% is Black, just under 3.6% is multiracial and 0.6% is Indigenous.

More on the ACPD arrest data, from a report that accompanied it:

Of the 3,613 arrestees, 1,830 were identified as Black (50.7%) and 1,625 (45.0%) were identified as White. Those identifying as Asian/Pacific Islanders 118 arrests (3.3%), American Indian/Alaskan Native 3 arrests (0.1%) and Other/Unknown/Blank Race 37 arrests (1.0%) made up the remainder. Ethnicity of persons are recorded separately from race. Arrestees identified as Hispanic/Latino ethnicity accounted for 708 arrests, 19.6% of total arrests.

Most arrestees (64.2%) did not identify Arlington as their residence. There was some disparity in the Arlington-resident status of arrestees across racial groups. American Indian/Alaskan Natives individuals (66.7%) were the most likely to be an Arlington resident, then Asian individual arrestees (52.5%), followed by White individuals (43.8%), then Black individuals (27.2%). Unknown race individuals were listed as Arlington residents 56.8% of the time. […]

Most arrestees were either 18-25 years old (26.7%) or 26-35 years old (31.4%). The remaining arrestee age cohorts of 36-45 (16.0%) , 46-55 (10.0%), 12-17 (8.3%) and 56+ years old (7.5%) combined for fewer than 50% of total arrestees. When age cohorts were grouped by race, they tended to closely resemble overall racial arrest distribution, with the exception of juvenile arrests. Of total arrested individuals ages 12-17, 61.0% were Black individuals and 36.7% were White individuals, compared to 50.7% and 45.0% across all ages

In a recent Williamsburg Yorktown Daily article about the disproportionate number of Black arrestees in that part of Virginia, a director of the state chapter of the ACLU quotes an unnamed former Arlington commonwealth’s attorney in explaining the county’s disproportionate arrest statistics as largely a function of the residency of those arrested.

Jenny Glass, director of advocacy for the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia… said the previous commonwealth’s attorney in Arlington County gave a similar explanation when Glass noticed 60 percent of the arrests were black people even though they made up around 10 percent of the population.

“I was looking into if there was any validity why the jail in Arlington County had such a disparate [number] of Black people in it,” Glass said.

“It’s because we arrest a lot of people in D.C.,” Glass said was what the former commonwealth’s attorney told her.

The ACPD report similarly suggests that when residency is separated out, the racial disparities are not as stark. However, even among Arlington residents, the proportion of Black arrestees is still about four times higher than that of the population.

“A comparison of Arlington arrest data to Arlington demographic data is problematic because Arlington-residents only made up 35.8% of ACPD arrests in 2019,” the report says. “If we only examine Arlington-resident arrests – 55% were White individuals, 38.5% were Black individuals, 4.8% were identified as Asian/Pacific Islander, 1.6% were identified as Other/Unknown/Blank race, and 0.2% were American Indian/Alaskan Native individuals.”

Meanwhile, Arlington officers wrote 38,766 non-parking citations in 2019 and the demographics of those receiving citations is more in line with the county’s population.

“Total traffic citations and warnings given to Arlington residents (28.5% of total citations/warnings) closely resemble the racial demography of Arlington,” the ACPD report says. “76.2% of traffic summons/warnings were issued to White residents, 14.2% to Black residents, 5.9% to Asian residents, 3.6% to Other/Unknown residents, and 0.1% to American Indian/Alaskan Native residents.”

The report adds that white and non-white drivers were equally likely to get off on just a warning during a traffic stop.

“Residents were slightly more likely to get a Traffic VUS Warning citation (23.0%) than non-residents (20.4%),” the report said. “Individuals identified as White and individuals identified as non-White received warning citations at virtually the same rate – 21.1% for drivers identified as White, 21.2% for drivers identified as non-White.”

Equity, particularly racial equity, was identified as a key 2020 priority for Arlington County government at the beginning of the year.

Local criminal justice reform advocates have called for Arlington Police Chief M. Jay Farr, who is retiring at the end of the year, to be replaced by a new chief “who is committed to justice system transformation, eliminating bias, and implementing new methods of policing.”

Farr wrote a letter to the Arlington community to accompany the release of the arrest data. The full letter is below.

(more…)

Glass Recycling Bin to Be Moved

By ARLnow.com

One of Arlington’s glass recycling bins is being moved to improve access to those in the far northern reaches of the county.

The drop-off bin in the Cherrydale library parking lot, which has been there since last fall, is being moved to the Madison Community Center  (3829 N. Stafford Street) later this week.

“The new glass recycling drop-off bin will be available starting at 9 a.m. on Friday,” the county said. “The location of this site, along with the County’s four other glass drop-off sites, allows for glass drop-off centers to be available within 2.25 miles of all County residents. Convenience is an important component in making recycling drop-off centers successful.”

The county’s other purple glass drop-off bins are located at:

  • Quincy Park (N. Quincy Street and Washington Blvd)
  • Shirlington Trades Center (2700 S. Taylor Street)
  • Aurora Hills Community Center (735 18th Street S.)
  • Lee Community Center (5722 Lee Highway)

Glass was removed from Arlington’s curbside recycling collections last year, but residents have flocked to the bins in order to keep their bottles and jars out of landfills.

“In just a year, our community has recycled over 2 million pounds of glass and we hope to continue the success of the program together,” the county said.

Much of the glass collected by the bins is sent to Fairfax County to be crushed and used as construction material, but some has been sent to a processing plant and turned into new glass products.

Morning Notes

By ARLnow.com

Special Election Voting Today — Voting is underway in the three-way special election to fill the late Erik Gutshall’s County Board seat. Polls are open from 6 a.m.-7 p.m. The candidates are Takis Karantonis, Susan Cunningham and Bob Cambridge. “Don’t forget your photo ID, ballpoint pen, and face mask,” Arlington’s election office said this morning in a tweet. [Twitter]

No Incentive Payments for Amazon This Year — “Amazon.com Inc. won’t receive any direct cash payments from Arlington County, this year at least, for its HQ2 office leases… because Amazon’s incentive payments are tied to Arlington’s tourism industry. And many rooms remain empty to this day.” [Washington Business Journal]

APS Working to Offer Free Internet Service — “In May, the Arlington County Board allocated $500,000 of funding for a joint County/School Internet Essentials Grant Program to provide broadband internet access to APS students in need. The grant, allocated as part of the federal [CARES] Act, will provide free, high-speed internet access to low-income families who qualify for Internet Essentials from Comcast. Arlington is the first community in Virginia to partner with Comcast to offer free broadband services to students and their families.” [Arlington Public Schools]

Flying Squirrel Rescued from Chimney — From the Animal Welfare League of Arlington: “This little flying squirrel had been stuck in a local resident’s chimney since Saturday, but thankfully, Sgt Ballena was able to remove him and release him safely nearby!” [Twitter]

Synetic Organizing Joint Fundraiser — “Synetic Theater has partnered with the Arlington Food Assistance Center (AFAC) to raise $20,000 during the month of July to be split evenly between the organizations. This partnership was initiated by Synetic Theater to help fulfil the company’s desire to invest in their local community while they are unable to host live performances at their Crystal City/National Landing theater space.” [Press Release]

Interview With New Poet Laureate — “When Hollynd Karapetkova learned that she had been selected as Arlington County’s poet laureate, she saw it as a wonderful piece of good news and positive recognition at a time when everything in the world seemed so chaotic. ‘I’m really grateful that Arlington has gone ahead with this program in spite of all the chaos that’s unfolding,’ she said.” [Patch]

Flickr pool photo by John Sonderman

Power Outages, Dark Traffic Signals Reported in Parts of Arlington

By ARLnow.com

(Updated at 10:55 a.m.) Last night’s intense thunderstorms knocked out power to hundreds of homes across Arlington and darkened traffic signals at some key intersections.

The early morning storms packed torrential rain and strong winds that brought down tree branches, and frequent lightning and thunder that woke many up from their slumbers.

A Flash Flood Warning for Arlington was issued in the midst of the storms, and some local flooding was reported. Route 50 was closed at Glebe Road due to high standing water, and Four Mile Run rose 6.5 feet in 40 minutes, overtopping its north bank, according to the National Weather Service.

In Arlington, nearly 750 Dominion customers were still reported to be without power as of 7 a.m. The outages were scattered, with the larger clusters around Shirlington, Fairlington, Douglas Park and Cherrydale.

Among the intersections with traffic signals reported to be dark is the busy five-points intersection in Cherrydale.

Petition Calls for Renaming Fairlington Bridge Amid Battle Over ‘BLM’ Art

By ARLnow.com

(Updated at 11:45 p.m.) More than 500 people have signed a petition calling for the S. Abingdon Street bridge over I-395 to be renamed “Black Lives Matter Bridge.”

The petition was created amid dueling efforts to place and remove the letters “BLM” on the bridge’s chain link fence, a thus far nonviolent dispute that has resulted in multiple calls to Arlington County police.

The BLM art first appeared about a month ago, during nationwide protests over the deaths of Black men and women at the hands of law enforcement.

Two weeks ago, the red cups used to form the letters were removed, promping locals to replace them with new cups and to write new chalk slogans. Among them: “no justice, no peace” and “take it down and we’ll do it again.”

Melissa Schwaber, who sent photos of the cups being replaced, described those doing so as “Fairlington moms and their kids.”

The cups were later removed again, which led to Black Lives Matters supporters creating a heart and spelling out BLM with harder-to-remove ribbons. That won Twitter praise from Arlington County Board Chair and Fairlington resident Libby Garvey. The next day, however, someone spray-painted “TRUMP 2020” under the letters.

https://twitter.com/GtoGtoreo77/status/1276868791423643649

The spray paint was in turn sprayed over later that morning, and “BLACK LIVES MATTER” written in chalk over it. Then, more spray paint appeared.

In a series of tweets on Wednesday, July 1, a local resident posted photos of an older man and a younger man — wearing a motorcycle helmet and a Liberty University shirt — who she accused of vandalizing the bridge and the lettering.

On Friday, a tipster said the “BLM vs. MAGA battle” was continuing to escalate.

“Now there are people putting up conspiracy theory banners on the bridge and people camped out on the bridge with large dogs,” the tipster said. The banners included a photo of Hillary Clinton under the words “WANTED 4 Crimes Against Humanity.”

Later that day, there were more skirmishes.

“I was driving on the Fairlington Bridge an hour or so ago and saw a man arguing with several white women near the BLM signs,” said another tipster. “He was waving his arms in one woman’s face. About 15 minutes ago, on my way home, I saw that the Arlington PD (about 3 cars) had detained the man at the gas station in Shirlington.”

An Arlington County police spokeswoman tells ARLnow that officers have responded to the bridge several times.

“ACPD has responded to multiple reports of disputes in the area of the S. Abingdon Street bridge regarding the posting and removal of signage,” said Kirby Clark. She said that “no charges have been filed related to any incidents involving the signs,” but one incident is under investigation.

(more…)

BREAKING: 14th Street Bridge Blocked By Protests

By ARLnow.com
1/3

(Updated at 4:55 p.m.) A large group of demonstrators blocked the outbound 14th Street Bridge between D.C. and Arlington during the evening rush hour.

Protesters were sitting down across the main southbound bridge span, according to D.C. police, but then started marching towards Arlington. The group — said to number in the hundreds — previously marched from the area around the Jefferson Memorial, according to scanner traffic.

Arlington County fire department medics were dispatched to the bridge at the request of Virginia State Police for a report of a protester who is dehydrated.

Drivers should expect delays in the area, though the outbound HOV lanes remained open. Police are on scene monitoring the demonstration.

Public safety watchdog Dave Statter broadcast live video of the protest, which as of 4:35 p.m. appeared to be winding down. Demonstrators, holding signs and flags, could be seen marching back toward D.C. Lanes reopened at 4:50 p.m.

The protest is related to the persecution of an ethnic group in Ethiopia, according to social media posts. It does not appear to be associated with the Black Lives Matter movement.

Arlington Under Flash Flood, Severe Thunderstorm Watches

By ARLnow.com

Another round of severe storms packing torrential rainfall and strong winds is possible today.

The National Weather Service has issued both flash flood and severe thunderstorm watches for Arlington and parts of the D.C. region.

The Flash Flood Watch is in effect until 9 p.m., while the Severe Thunderstorm Watch is in effect until 11 p.m.

“Severe thunderstorms are possible this afternoon and evening with locally damaging winds and large hail being the primary threat,” the National Weather Service says. “There is also an isolated threat for flooding.”

More from NWS:

THE FLASH FLOOD WATCH CONTINUES FOR

* PORTIONS OF MARYLAND, THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, AND NORTHERN VIRGINIA, INCLUDING THE FOLLOWING AREAS, IN MARYLAND, ANNE ARUNDEL, CENTRAL AND SOUTHEAST HOWARD, CENTRAL AND SOUTHEAST MONTGOMERY, NORTHERN BALTIMORE, NORTHWEST HARFORD, PRINCE GEORGES, SOUTHEAST HARFORD, AND SOUTHERN BALTIMORE. THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. IN NORTHERN VIRGINIA, ARLINGTON/FALLS CHURCH/ALEXANDRIA.

* UNTIL 9 PM EDT THIS EVENING

* THUNDERSTORMS WILL DEVELOP THIS AFTERNOON AND CONTINUE THIS EVENING ALONG THE I-95 CORRIDOR. SOME AREAS MAY EXPERIENCE MULTIPLE THUNDERSTORMS THROUGH THIS EVENING. RAINFALL AMOUNTS  OF 1-2 INCHES ARE POSSIBLE, WITH SOME ISOLATED AMOUNTS OVER 3  INCHES POSSIBLE. THIS AMOUNT OF RAIN OVER URBAN AREAS MAY LEAD TO INSTANCES OF FLASH FLOODING, AS WELL AS A POTENTIAL FOR CREEKS AND STREAMS TO RISE RAPIDLY IF SOME OF THE HIGHER AMOUNTS ARE REALIZED.

PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS…

A FLASH FLOOD WATCH MEANS THAT CONDITIONS MAY DEVELOP THAT LEAD TO FLASH FLOODING. FLASH FLOODING IS A VERY DANGEROUS SITUATION.

YOU SHOULD MONITOR LATER FORECASTS AND BE PREPARED TO TAKE ACTION SHOULD FLASH FLOOD WARNINGS BE ISSUED.

ACPD: Drunk Man Flashes Officers in Pentagon City, Gets Arrested

By ARLnow.com

A North Carolina man wound up in jail after allegedly declaring independence from his trousers Saturday night.

Just before midnight on July 4, police were called to the 1200 block of S. Eads Street in Pentagon City for a report of a man exposing himself.

“Arriving officers located the suspect, who attempted to walk away from them. He then turned back and allegedly exposed himself to officers, who then took him into custody without incident,” according to a new Arlington County Police Department crime report.

A 36-year-old man from Fayetteville, North Carolina “was arrested and charged with Indecent Exposure and Drunk in Public,” the report continued. “He was held on no bond.”

On the morning of the Fourth of July, a 29-year-old D.C. man was arrested on the 100 block of S. Fenwick Street, in the Arlington Heights neighborhood, after another alleged indecent exposure incident.

“At approximately 7:04 a.m. on July 4, police were dispatched to the report of an indecent exposure,” said the crime report. “Upon arrival, it was determined that the victim observed the male suspect allegedly touching himself inappropriately. Arriving officers located the suspect and took him into custody without incident.”

The suspect was charged with Public Masturbation and held on no bond, the crime report said.

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