Paramedics had a choice when the call brought them to a man passed out in the dark at K and North Capital streets Northeast, his arms crossed loosely over his chest.
Washington, D.C
How D.C.’s first sobering center could ease drug and alcohol addiction
Until recently, their only choice would have been a hospital emergency room. But on this cold January night, the paramedics had another option: the D.C. Stabilization Center, a place where people who’ve used drugs or alcohol can safely recover for up to 24 hours under the care of nurses and mentors who have been in their shoes.
In just over three months, the center on K Street Northeast has surpassed 1,000 admissions.
Mayor Muriel E. Bowser opened the center to fanfare last year as part of the District’s overall plan to reduce fatal overdoses, which have killed more than 400 Washingtonians annually for four consecutive years, outpacing the city’s homicide toll.
The facility, one of about 60 across the country in cities such as Baltimore, San Francisco, Houston and St. Louis, aims to link patients with treatment — if and when they are ready. If successful, District officials say, the approach will free up overburdened emergency responders and alleviate strain on hospitals still confronting pandemic-era staffing shortages.
Comprehensive solutions to the opioid crisis have eluded the city as the death toll continues to rise. And while public health advocates have called for the Bowser administration to demonstrate greater urgency and provide more wraparound supports, such as housing, many have hopes that the center will help.
A warm room. A safe place to sleep it off. Someone to talk to who understands. All awaited the man on the curb, if he wanted them.
Paramedics covered him in a pale yellow sheet before loading him onto a stretcher and into the back of an ambulance. Robert Holman, the D.C. Fire and EMS medical director along for the ride this evening, rested a gloved hand on his shoulder and tried to rouse him with basic Spanish. “Cómo sientes?”
The man’s head lolled back under the bright lights as a digital clock ticked off the minutes. 3. Firefighter paramedic Cody Grosch tapped a report on his laptop as paramedics checked his vital signs and discussed his condition.
The radio sprang to life again. The ambulance was on the move.
It was 2018, and the horrors of the pandemic were still years away. Still, medics were taking longer to drop off patients at hospitals as calls were mounting for people on drugs or alcohol, city data shows, reflecting in part a surge of deadly fentanyl into the city’s drug supply.
Holman pushed for a sobering center but knew the city’s Fire and EMS department couldn’t get it done alone. That’s when Barbara J. Bazron, director of the Department of Behavioral Health, reached out, saying she helped set up a similar center in Baltimore and it could work in D.C.
Years later, they are betting millions in city funds annually on the center to help meet a still growing need. There were 427 opioid-related fatal overdoses in D.C. last year through October, according to the most recent data available from the chief medical examiner’s office, putting the District on track to outpace a 2022 high of 461 overdoses.
Bowser declared a public health emergency on opioids in the fall — set to expire Feb. 15 — and a panel of local officials, providers and recovering drug users known as the Opioid Abatement Advisory Commission began meeting in October to make recommendations to Bowser for how to divvy up the settlement funds to prevent and treat substance abuse disorder.
City officials say they know the center won’t solve all the city’s problems with addiction, but it could save lives.
The location was an early hurdle. They looked back at a year of data to confirm known hot spots in Columbia Heights and east of the Anacostia River, as well as in central D.C. near Union Station and the homeless shelter at 2nd and D streets Northwest, one of the largest in the nation. Despite pushback from advocates who argued Wards 7 and 8 needed it more, officials chose 35 K St. NE for its central location and the relative ease of using a building where the city already ran an adult behavioral health clinic.
Covid put plans on hold in 2020, and they tried three times to find a local operator before settling on an agency based in Arizona, Community Bridges Inc., to run the center.
Since the center opened in late October, 730 people people have been admitted, some more than once, for a total of 1,019 admissions, city data as of Feb. 5 shows. More than 70 percent of admissions have been Black and 80 percent male. The average age is 45.
Nearly 60 percent of patients used alcohol and at least 10 percent opioids, city data shows, based largely on self-reporting. The opioid antidote naloxone was administered twice, according to city data. The center also sees cases involving PCP, K2 and xylazine.
Nurses typically do a urine drug test and breath analysis on patients, who change into scrubs and can shower and eat if they’d like. Contraband such as weapons or drugs is confiscated.
Officials say they do not yet have a plan for tracking the long-term progress of patients, knowing they may turn down treatment many times before giving it a try. One person visited at least 17 times in just over three months, Bazron said, adding their 18th visit could be the one that does the trick.
About 17 percent of total admissions, 176 patients, have gone to residential treatment or a shelter or gotten a referral for other behavioral health care, city data shows, but for now, that’s where the path ends.
“We’re making an initial hot connection,” Bazron said.
Back on K Street Northeast, the ambulance pulled into the parking lot at the stabilization center, known as Hospital 99 to medics. Flashing red ambulance lights bounced off the beige bricks.
The man lay motionless, his head turned to the side, as paramedics rolled the gurney up a ramp, through glass doors and into the brightly lit lobby. A sign on the wall pledged empathetic care, a safe space to recover and a pathway for a long-term solution.
Nurses were expecting him — and recognized him. The man, 63, had left around noon that same day, they said, planning to go to a shelter. Paramedics found him barely a block away.
“How ya doing? You gonna come stay with us?” the center’s clinical director, Mary Page, asked. He nodded. A wheelchair appeared. “Remember me from this morning? I gave you food?”
Alert to verbal/tactile stimuli? Check. Blood pressure under 200 mmHg. Check. No signs or trauma or need for sutures. Not combative or violent. No chest pain. A nurse searched his jacket and handed a bottle of Taaka vodka to a security officer, who stashed it in a drawer. His clothes and belongings would be catalogued and locked in a bin for him.
They swapped his shoes for grippy socks. His feet dragged on the floor as he was wheeled backward into an intake room. “Feel better,” Holman said after him, as the door closed.
Most patients rest in one of 16 smooth blue reclining chairs under low lights and the soft glow of television, as nurses move around the floor. The average stay is 15 hours.
Paramedics have brought the vast majority of patients to the center — the others come via friends or family or walk in on their own. Not everyone is eligible.
The sobering center is not right for anyone who shows signs of trauma or needs sutures, is combative or violent or has vital signs outside a certain range, among other qualifiers on a 14-point checklist that medics and the center staffer both sign.
Two of these came during another freezing 24-hour shift in January.
At 2:46 p.m., dispatch sent a crew to a reported cardiac arrest — a signal of a possible drug overdose — at Georgia Avenue and Columbia Road Northwest. There, they found a 41-year-old man sitting on the ground in the corner of a bus shelter, clutching the bench seat, his head nodding as he struggled to stay awake.
They suspected alcohol intoxication. The ad behind him showed a hand holding a canister of Narcan. “Be Ready. Save a Life.”
He told paramedics he wanted to get on the bus. At 86 over 70, his blood pressure was too low for the stabilization center. They took him to George Washington University Hospital, where medics spent about an hour and 45 minutes waiting for a bed for the patient, FEMS officials said later.
At 6:33 p.m., it was 26 degrees when dispatchers routed a crew to North Capital and H streets Northwest. Paramedics found a man, 40, shivering and moaning in nothing but a sweatshirt and sweatpants, saying he wanted to kill himself.
Firefighter paramedic Kyle Belton wrapped a blanket over his head and shoulders and propped him up against a building for support.
“Cold,” the man said over and over.
“We’re gonna get you some help,” Belton said.
They pricked his finger to test his blood sugar. At 132 over 78, his blood pressure was elevated. He was shaking too hard for them to get an accurate heart rate. Someone suspected he may have used K2, or synthetic marijuana.
The man wasn’t out of control but was probably off his psychiatric medication, emergency personnel concluded. Suicidal ideation disqualified him from the stabilization center, making a hospital the best choice.
Later, they could arrange a ride for him to a warming center. Belton advised EMTs on their way to prepare heat packs.
Once they eased him into an ambulance, Belton retrieved his sneakers from the street, brushing dirt from the white leather.
“You’re not alone,” Belton told him.
The Justice Department has notified D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department that it completed its investigation into whether members of the department manipulated crime data to make crime rates appear lower, sources tell News4.
Multiple law enforcement sources familiar with the matter tell News4 that DOJ will release its findings as early as Monday.
A draft version of the report obtained by News4 describes members of the department as repeatedly downgrading and misclassifying crimes amid pressure to show progress.
MPD’s “official crime statistical reporting mechanism is likely unreliable and inaccurate due to misclassifications, errors, and/or purposefully downgraded classifications and reclassifications. A significant number of MPD reports are misclassified,” the draft report says.
Investigators spoke with more than 50 witnesses and reviewed thousands of police reports, the draft report says. Witnesses described a change under Chief of Police Pamela Smith.
“While witnesses cite misclassifications and purposely downgraded classifications of criminal offenses at MPD for years prior, there appears to have been a significant increase in pressure to reduce crime during Pamela Smith’s tenure as Chief of Police that some describe as coercive,” the draft report says.
The draft report faults a “coercive culture” at in-person crime briefings held twice a week.
“The individuals presenting are denigrated and humiliated in front of their peers. They are held responsible for whatever recent crime has occurred in their respective districts. For instance, if a district had a homicide and numerous ADWs over a weekend, Chief Smith would hold the Commander of that district personally responsible,” the draft report says.
Smith announced this week that she will step down from her position at the end of the month. News4 asked her on Monday if she is leaving because of the allegations and she said they didn’t play into her decision.
The DOJ review is one of two that were launched in relation to MPD crime stats, along with a separate investigation by the House Oversight Committee.
Both MPD and Mayor Muriel Bowser’s office have been given copies of the report. They did not immediately respond to inquiries by News4. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for D.C. also did not immediately respond.
News4 was first to report in July that the commander of MPD’s 3rd District was under investigation for allegedly manipulating crime statistics on his district. Cmdr. Michael Pulliam was placed on leave with pay and denied the allegations. The White House flagged the reporting.
“D.C. gave Fake Crime numbers in order to create a false illusion of safety. This is a very bad and dangerous thing to do, and they are under serious investigation for so doing!” President Donald Trump wrote on social media.
Trump has repeatedly questioned MPD crime statistics. He put News4’s reporting in the spotlight on Aug. 11, when he federalized the police department. He brought up the allegations against Pulliam at a news conference, and the White House linked to News4’s reporting in a press release titled “Yes, D.C. crime is out of control.”
A D.C. police commander is under investigation for allegedly making changes to crime statistics in his district. News4’s Paul Wagner reports the department confirmed he was placed on leave in mid-May.
D.C. Police Union Chairman Gregg Pemberton told NBC News’ Garrett Haake this summerthat he doubts the drop in crime is as large as D.C. officials are touting.
“There’s a, potentially, a drop from where we were in 2023. I think that there’s a possibility that crime has come down. But the department is reporting that in 2024, crime went down 35% — violent crime – and another 25% through August of this year. That is preposterous to suggest that cumulatively we’ve seen 60-plus percent drops in violent crime from where we were in ’23, because we’re out on the street. We know the calls we’re responding to,” he said.
In an exclusive interview on Aug. 11, News4 asked Bowser about the investigation.
“I think that what Paul’s reporting revealed is that the chief of police had concerns about one commander, investigated all seven districts and verified that the concern was with one person. So, we are completing that investigation and we don’t believe it implicates many cases,” she said.
D.C. Chief of Police Pamela Smith will step down at the end of the month after heading the department for less than three years. She spoke about her decision and whether tumult in D.C. including the federal law enforcement surge and community outrage over immigration enforcement played a role. News4’s Mark Segraves reports.
News4 sends breaking news stories by email. Go here to sign up to get breaking news alerts in your inbox.
Washington, D.C
Senators Seek to Change Bill That Allows Military to Operate Just Like Before the DC Plane Crash
Senators from both parties pushed Thursday for changes to a massive defense bill after crash investigators and victims’ families warned the legislation would undo key safety reforms stemming from a collision between an airliner and Army helicopter over Washington, D.C., that killed 67 people.
The head of the National Transportation Safety Board investigating the crash, a group of the victims’ family members and senators on the Commerce Committee all said the bill the House advanced Wednesday would make America’s skies less safe. It would allow the military to operate essentially the same way as it did before the January crash, which was the deadliest in more than two decades, they said.
Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell and Republican Committee Chairman Sen. Ted Cruz filed two amendments Thursday to strip out the worrisome helicopter safety provisions and replace them with a bill they introduced last summer to strengthen requirements, but it’s not clear if Republican leadership will allow the National Defense Authorization Act to be changed at this stage because that would delay its passage.
“We owe it to the families to put into law actual safety improvements, not give the Department of Defense bigger loopholes to exploit,” the senators said.
Right now, the bill includes exceptions that would allow military helicopters to fly through the crowded airspace around the nation’s capital without using a key system called ADS-B to broadcast their locations just like they did before the January collision. The Federal Aviation Administration began requiring that in March. NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy called the bill a “significant safety setback” that is inviting a repeat of that disaster.
“It represents an unacceptable risk to the flying public, to commercial and military aircraft, crews and to the residents in the region,” Homendy said. “It’s also an unthinkable dismissal of our investigation and of 67 families … who lost loved ones in a tragedy that was entirely preventable. This is shameful.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said he is looking into the concerns but thinks they can be addressed by quickly passing the aviation safety bill that Cruz and Cantwell proposed last summer.
“I think that would resolve the concerns that people have about that provision, and hoping — we’ll see if we can find a pathway forward to get that bill done,” said Thune, a South Dakota Republican.
The military used national security waivers before the crash to skirt FAA safety requirements on the grounds that they worried about the security risks of disclosing their helicopters’ locations. Tim and Sheri Lilley, whose son Sam was the first officer on the American Airlines jet, said this bill only adds “a window dressing fix that would continue to allow for the setting aside of requirements with nothing more than a cursory risk assessment.”
Homendy said it would be ridiculous to entrust the military with assessing the safety risks when they aren’t the experts, and neither the Army nor the FAA noticed 85 close calls around Ronald Reagan National Airport in the years before the crash. She said the military doesn’t know how to do that kind of risk assessment, adding that no one writing the bill bothered to consult the experts at the NTSB who do know.
The White House and military didn’t immediately respond Thursday to questions about these safety concerns. But earlier this week Trump made it clear that he wants to sign the National Defense Authorization Act because it advances a number of his priorities and provides a 3.8% pay raise for many military members.
The Senate is expected to take up the bill next week, and it appears unlikely that any final changes will be made. But Congress is leaving for a holiday break at the end of the week, and the defense bill is considered something that must pass by the end of the year.
Story Continues
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Washington, D.C
Bill would rename former Black Lives Matter Plaza for slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk – WTOP News
A South Carolina Republican Congresswoman wants to rename a well-known stretch of 16th Street NW in D.C. after slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
A South Carolina Republican Congresswoman wants to rename a well-known stretch of 16th Street NW in D.C. after slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
Rep. Nancy Mace introduced legislation Wednesday to designate the area once known as “Black Lives Matter Plaza” as the “Charlie Kirk Freedom of Speech Plaza.” The proposal comes three months after Kirk was killed while speaking at a free-speech event at a Utah college.
Mace said the change would honor Kirk’s commitment to the First Amendment, calling him “a champion of free speech and a voice for millions of young Americans.” Her bill would require official signs to be placed in the plaza and updates made to federal maps and records.
In a statement, Mace contrasted the unrest that followed George Floyd’s killing in 2020, when the plaza was created, with the response to Kirk’s death, saying the earlier period was marked by “chaos and destruction,” while Kirk’s killing brought “prayer, peace and unity.”
She argued that after Floyd’s death, “America watched criminals burn cities while police officers were ordered to stand down,” adding that officers were “vilified and abandoned by leaders who should have supported them.”
But D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton pushed back, saying Congress should not override local control.
“D.C. deserves to decide what its own streets are named since over 700,000 people live in the city,” Norton wrote on X. “D.C. is not a blank slate for Congress to fill in as it pleases.”
The stretch of 16th Street was originally dedicated as Black Lives Matter Plaza in 2020 following nationwide protests over Floyd’s death. Earlier this year, the city removed the mural.
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s office declined to comment on the bill, as did several members of the D.C. Council.
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