Washington

PJ Washington: ‘I just hate losing. Even as a kid I was always like this’

Published

4 weeks ago

May 22, 2024

PJ Washington: ‘I just hate losing. Even as a kid I was always like this’

“I was in a restaurant with my wife when I found out,” PJ Washington tells me. “We were just happy and screaming.” This is surely not the typical NBA player’s recounting of the moment he finds out he’s been traded. But the Dallas Mavericks forward isn’t on the typical NBA player’s trajectory. Five years after he was drafted in the first round by the longtime cellar-dwelling Charlotte Hornets, Washington got a call at the trade deadline in February that was life-changing: he was headed home to Texas.

We sat down with Washington ahead of the Mavericks’ opening game against the red-hot Minnesota Timberwolves on Wednesday night in the Western Conference finals, a best-of-seven-games battle for a place in the NBA’s championship round. The 25-year-old Washington is actually a Dallas native, who says he grew up going to Mavericks games as a kid “all the time” and watching present-day coach Jason Kidd run the point alongside Dirk Nowitzki. Looking back on those formative years on Tuesday morning, shortly before boarding a plane to Minneapolis, Washington acknowledges that circuitously finding his way back to DFW – especially on a team with championship potential – is immensely fortunate. “It’s a full-circle moment,” he tells the Guardian. “Being able to come back home, play for the home team. Not a lot of guys get that opportunity.”

What Washington has done with the opportunity is remarkable. The 6ft 7in, 230lb power forward has been a seamless fit in Dallas, plugging effortlessly into the team’s newfound identity as defensive stalwarts and serving as an ideal supporting cast member for Luka Dončić, the runner-up in this season’s MVP balloting, and born-again-into-relevancy All-Star point guard Kyrie Irving. “I was a little nervous at first,” says Washington, having never dealt with the upheaval of being traded. “But when I got here, everybody welcomed me with open arms, encouraged me to be myself each and every day.” Soon enough Washington was comfortable, and finding himself with the opportunity every young, talented player in the league dreams of: to blossom. “When I got here, it was always my mentality to go out there and do anything I had to do to help my team win,” Washington says. “That’s just who I am as a player.” The winning for Dallas commenced almost immediately, as they won 31 of 49 games following the deadline to vault to the fifth spot in the West standings.

The Mavericks’ PJ Washington, right, high-fives Kyrie Irving during last week’s Game 5 win over the Thunder in the Western Conference semi-finals. Photograph: Joshua Gateley/Getty Images

While Washington has always possessed something of a pedigree, as a McDonald’s All-American and one-and-done at the vaunted University of Kentucky, some onlookers worried that four and a half years in a losing environment like Charlotte could spoil his winning habits. But for Washington, that was never a concern. “I just have a love and passion for the game. I’ve always wanted to go out and win every game I played.” That hasn’t wavered, he says. He’s just gotten a different opportunity in Dallas. “It was easy for me to go out and compete [even under the circumstances in Charlotte], because I just love being able to say I’m even in the NBA, playing against guys like LeBron, the better guys in the league.” He is quick to add that he wasn’t alone in his desire to win in Charlotte, that other players on the team had the same talent and hunger, but just simply weren’t lucky enough to be life-rafted to a better situation. “I feel like a lot of the younger guys there have that same mentality,” he says. “[Winning] just didn’t happen.”

That’s not to say that it wasn’t a relief for Washington to be back to playing consequential games. He’s proven to be among those special players who are able to ascend to their ultimate potential the brighter the lights become. He attributes this trait to his competitiveness – “I just hate losing. As a kid, even, I was always like this.” – and it shows. He’s been the Mavericks’ third-most important player through two rounds of postseason play. He was, in fact, the team’s second-leading scorer in their pivotal second-round series against the Oklahoma City Thunder, ahead of Irving, sealing the series with a pair of game-winning free throws.

Asked what was going through his mind then, feet on the stripe, seconds left in the contest, his hometown team’s ticket to the Western Conference finals hanging in the balance, Washington said his comfort and preparation awarded him the necessary calm called for by the moment. “I just thought about all the work I’d put in [up to that moment] trying to get better, being able to calm myself down, to just focus.” Another important factor? “I knew my team-mates would be happy with me either way.”

Washington, who is represented by Lift Sports’ Kevin Bradbury and in the first season of a three-year, $46.5m contract, says that the Mavericks have “great leaders” and a team full of guys who just want to win. Beyond that, the chemistry is off the charts. “We’re all excited for each other, we all want to see each other be happy,” he says. “We’re there for each other on the court and off the court.” Therein might lie the lesson for any team hoping to swipe their own PJ-in-the-rough on the trade market from a lottery team. Of course, it’s paramount to find someone like Washington, a player with innate passion, talent and fire. But bringing him into the right situation is what will ultimately differentiate the successes from the disappointments in the second-chances department.

Washington says he hasn’t had much time to reflect yet on his star turn. “Everything’s happened so fast, I’m still trying to soak everything in,” he says. “But if I do look back, right now, I think I would be proud of myself, as a kid. Just being able to reach this point in my career, in my life. A lot of people don’t get this opportunity, so just being able to say that I’ve been here, I’m forever grateful for that.”

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Washington

Deputy fatally shoots seven starving, abandoned dogs

Published

3 hours ago

June 15, 2024

Press Room

Deputy fatally shoots seven starving, abandoned dogs

Arriving at a rural property, an Arizona sheriff’s deputy approaches a group of starving dogs behind a chain-link fence. Some are sleeping, while others bark and wag their tails. The deputy lays out food and water to corral them, body-camera video shows.

“This is going to suck,” he says.

The deputy then pulls out a handgun and shoots the dogs one by one, killing seven, before dragging their bloodied bodies to his truck, according to the video. He later dumped the canines’ bodies near railroad tracks, an incident report says.

The Apache County Sheriff’s Office, which serves roughly 65,000 people, maintains that the deputy did nothing wrong that day in September. Chief Deputy Roscoe Herrera said that since the county has no animal control service, deputies have discretion to handle animal issues as they see fit. The deputy, Jarrod Toadecheenie, declined to comment.

But the incident in Adamana, Ariz. — an unincorporated community about 100 miles east of Flagstaff — has outraged local animal advocates who say that shooting the dogs was the wrong solution and that the area desperately needs to address animal hoarding and abandonment. Some residents have launched Facebook groups to try to find homes for abandoned dogs and to expose people who illegally hoard animals.

“The Apache County Sheriff’s Office won’t do anything to fix the problem,” said Teresa Schumann, founder of the nonprofit Northern Arizona Animal Search and Rescue. “Animals are dying everywhere in the county.”

Molly Ottman, executive editor of the Mountain Daily Star, first obtained the body-camera footage of the incident and shared it with The Washington Post.

The dogs who were shot were owned by a divorcing couple who had abandoned the property, Toadecheenie wrote in the incident report. He wrote that he visited the home several times over a span of three weeks after neighbors called to complain about the canines.

On the first visit, he counted 10 dogs, “all of which seemed to be in good health.” A few days later, the deputy wrote, he responded to a call that the dogs had chased a neighbor’s donkey.

Toadecheenie contacted Schumann, who said she was struggling to find new owners for the dogs when the deputy called and said he would “handle it.” Schumann said she told him the dogs may need to be euthanized if they were feral.

On Sept. 22, Schumann told Toadecheenie that she hadn’t been able to find new homes for the dogs. After telling his supervisor that he planned to shoot the dogs, the deputy bought dog food and a tray, and collected water from a fire station.

Then he went to the couple’s property, corralled the dogs with the food and water, put on headphones and began to shoot the canines, the body-camera footage shows. Toadecheenie shot one dog two additional times as it continued to move.

Two dogs ran away uninjured and hid under a shed. They were later brought to a local animal shelter by Schumann. One died of parvovirus shortly after arriving, and the other was adopted, said Brandon Smigiel, a supervisor at Holbrook Animal Care and Control.

In the incident report, Toadecheenie recommended that the couple who allegedly abandoned the dogs be charged with animal cruelty. No charges had been filed as of Friday, according to county records.

Herrera, the sheriff’s chief deputy, acknowledged that the situation had caused the community “distress.”

“This tragic decision was made under extremely difficult circumstances due to a combination of limited resources, the willful neglect and abandonment of the dogs by their original owners, and the considerable amount of time spent seeking assistance from outside resources,” he said in a statement to The Post.

In a separate statement provided to KPNX 12 News on June 6, the sheriff’s office seemed to blame a lack of funding.

“Apache County does not have an animal care and control department. In the unincorporated areas that responsibility is left up to the deputies and actions taken vary and are considered on a case-by-case basis. We do not have the infrastructure or budget to support such a department.”

Schumann, who runs the rescue nonprofit, said she never thought the deputy would shoot the animals.

“It infuriates me when the sheriff’s office says they don’t have the resources” to handle animal situations differently, she said. “There are plenty of people who are trying to help.”

The Arizona Humane Society called the situation “entirely preventable” and lamented that the sheriff’s office had not asked it for help.

“This awful incident lacked all compassion and judgement,” Jennifer Armbruster, a spokeswoman for the humane society, said in a statement. “And what is most clear is that establishing an animal care and control service in Apache County is an absolute necessity to prevent something like this from happening in the future.”

Animal hoarding is at “epidemic levels” in Arizona, creating dangerous situations, said Terri Hoffman, founder of Animal Rights Champions of Arizona. Last summer, three mixed-breed pit bulls mauled a 2-year-old Apache County girl to death. Still, Hoffman said that she wants the deputy to be held accountable and that killing abandoned dogs is not an appropriate solution to hoarding.

“I’ve been to homes where there’s over 53 dogs,” Hoffman said. “Some people hoard horses and goats out here, too. I’ve seen dogs with open wounds, severe infections. Animals are dying.”

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Washington

Woman dies after dog attack, Baltimore police say

Published

10 hours ago

June 15, 2024

Press Room

Woman dies after dog attack, Baltimore police say

A woman reportedly died after being attacked by dogs in Baltimore on Friday night, the city’s police department said.

Preliminary information indicated that a 50-year-old woman died of injuries suffered in an attack by two stray pit bulls, according to an emailed statement from a police spokesman.

Officers went to the 2000 block of N. Pulaski Street about 9 p.m. in response to a report of a dog bite, the brief statement said.

On arriving, officers “were informed” that the stray pit bulls had attacked three victims and that one, the 50-year old woman, “succumbed to her injuries,” the statement said.

No information was available about the condition of the other two victims.

Two officers fired shots, and one dog was hit, the police said.

Both dogs were seized by the police and by the city’s animal control department, the police said.

The site is a residential street, lined with many two-story rowhouses with the traditional white marble steps leading from the sidewalk to their front doors. It is in the Mondawmin neighborhood, five or six miles northwest of the Inner Harbor.

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Washington

Man sentenced to over 9 years in prison after robbing Washington Square Mall stores at knifepoint

Published

17 hours ago

June 15, 2024

Press Room

Man sentenced to over 9 years in prison after robbing Washington Square Mall stores at knifepoint

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — A man was sentenced to more than nine years in prison after being convicted of robbery and other charges when he stole from multiple stores at knifepoint inside the Washington Square Mall last year.

Jesus Esteban Flores was sentenced to 109 months in prison and three years of supervised release for the crimes, the Washington County District Attorney’s Office announced on Friday.

Officials said Flores began a spree of crimes in a short period of time after he entered the Southwest Portland mall on September 17, 2023. Placing a large kitchen knife on a shoe counter, he asked a department store clerk for a pair of shoes in his size. Flores took them without paying, shoplifted a hat from an adjacent store then went outside to slip the shoes on.

He re-entered the mall, went to a different store, tried to steal multiple shirts by hiding them under his clothes, and was confronted by an employee. The employee backed off after Flores showed the person a knife in his waistband and stepped toward them. Flores verbally threatened the victim and brandished the knife in hand as he exited the store.

Soon, the security officers of the Washington Square Mall began to take action. One followed Flores throughout the mall. Noticing he was being trailed, Flores threatened the security officer, pointing his knife and making threats on their life outside a main mall entrance. The security officer backed off but other security officers watched from afar and alerted law enforcement.

What ensued was a confrontation between Flores on a bicycle and the Tigard Police Department that ultimately ended in his arrest. As the Washington County District Attorney’s Office explained in a release:

“Tigard police officers confronted the defendant as he attempted to leave the area on a bike. They identified themselves and ordered him to drop the knife. After the defendant refused multiple orders, they fired 40mm less lethal foam rounds at the defendant. Officers then seized the knife, returned the merchandise, and took the defendant to jail.”

Last week, a Washington County jury convicted Flores of two counts of first-degree robbery, two counts of unlawful use of a weapon and second-degree theft. He will serve his sentence at the Oregon Department of Corrections.

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