“This is the part where you kind of wait and see,” said Mack, watching her phone.

She’s used a wheelchair since she was 10 — moved to D.C. after college, she said, because our city was trying to be more accessible. When the I-Team asked if the city was keeping its promise, she responded, “Here and there.”

D.C. does has a few options for passengers with wheelchairs.

Metro trains and buses are accessible. MetroAccess works too, but it requires setting up rides days in advance and being willing to wait.

The Transport DC program offers subsidized taxi rides, but only within the district.

When it comes to ride share companies like Uber and Lyft, the District does not require them to have wheelchair accessible vehicles — even though they account for 95% of all the for-hire rides here.

That leaves taxis, which make up just 5% of all for-hire trips in D.C. Taxis are District regulated and provided 23,000 trips for people who use wheelchairs last year.

“I call it the Yeti, because it’s rumored to exist, but, you know, I rarely ever see it,” exclaimed a frustrated Mack while waiting on a taxi she had reserved days before we met up.

The District has worked to increase service. D.C. has a law mandating 20% of large cab fleets be wheelchair accessible, but the I-Team couldn’t find it’s ever been enforced.

The head of the Department of For-Hire Vehicles (DFHV) told the I-Team, “we can’t punish them into compliance.”

Passenger Naomi Hess was hopeful last year when D.C. set aside $500,000 to incentivize cabdrivers to operate Wheelchair Accessible Vehicles -paying more per hour or to work late hours.

“There really, really needs to be progress,” said Hess.  The city even set up a  Wheelchair Accessible Vehicle (WAV) hotline for people to get connected.

“I tried that pilot line multiple times and they just couldn’t find one for me. Where is the money going?” asked Hess.

The city already spent $255,000 in that pilot program and told the I-Team it generated 435 taxi trips from June to December. That’s $586 per ride.

Jonathan Rogers — the Director of DFHV, which spearheaded the pilot — wouldn’t talk to News4 on camera, but said “Council encouraged us to experiment and figure out what would change behavior… so that’s what we did.”

He said he hoped it would build momentum, and that the six new drivers with accessible vehicles added, would stick with it.

The department just launched a new pilot program in March, and says it’s offering more incentives to taxi companies and drivers. Plus, a spokesperson said it would be sending letters to all taxi companies asking for their long-term plans to address the issue.

“Anyone without a wheelchair can get an Uber, Lyft or taxi, whatever they want. It’s just not fair. And it has put me in unsafe situations,” Hess told the I-Team. 

Last fall, she had all her travel planned out so she could attend the Sabrina Carpenter concert in Baltimore. But a delayed train back to D.C. got her to Union Station at 1 a.m., leaving her with few options.

“I was forced to walk home alone in the middle of the night.”

Both she and Mack say it isn’t like this everywhere. In New York City, there are more than 12,000 wheelchair accessible taxis and ride share vehicles, according to the NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission.

The city said 46% of its taxi fleet is wheelchair accessible. By law, anyone who now wants to start driving for ride shares has to use an accessible vehicle there.

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Back in D.C., Uber has some accessible vehicles, but did not respond to our questions about how many.

While Lyft offers accessible rides in nine other cities, it does not in the District. A spokesperson told the I Team it “will continue to push for solutions that make rideshare as accessible as possible for everyone.”

As for taxis, none of the larger companies in town would talk to News4 on camera. But they did admit it’s a challenge, saying wheelchair accessible taxis are both expensive to buy and costly to maintain due mostly to their weight and modifications.

That could explain why the I-Team found so many out-of-commission vehicles in taxi lots with markings that read “junk” and “need engine and transmission.”

Back at Mack’s apartment, she still waited for confirmation her taxi was on the way. It’s been so frustrating for her that she started keeping track of all her taxi calls for the last three years.

“I had 72 attempted trips,” she said. “I averaged those years and came out with a 71% failure rate.”

Which is exactly what happened on the day we hung out with her. 

“We’ll wait a few more minutes and then probably gear up, put on the coat, head out,” she said.

But that taxi never came.

Ella Robinson contributed reporting to this investigation.

Experts say the end of remote work could have ripple effects in the U.S. economy.

“I wasn’t caregiving for my child while working, but [remote work] allowed me to pick up my son on time, drop him off on time and just be able to work and have a career as a single mom,” one federal worker mom said.

After 14 years of serving the government while working remotely, President Donald Trump’s order to report to an office full-time changed her life and her career. Without the ability to work remotely or money to pay for afterschool child care, she didn’t see any way to keep her job and also care for her child.

When she received the now-infamous Fork in the Road email from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, pressuring federal workers to resign or risk being laid off, she decided taking the deferred resignation was her best option. She said she didn’t want to pull her son out of his school and move closer to D.C. amid threatened layoffs.

“I didn’t want this. I was forced to take this route,” she said.

‘Thought I would have to quit’

In Montgomery County, Maryland, another federal worker mom also found herself having to make a tough decision.

The Department of Homeland Security employee primarily worked from home for years. She thought the contract she signed protected her telework arrangement. Then Trump’s order said she needed to report to the office full time within weeks.

She and her husband had been able to avoid putting their son in day care thanks to help from family and her husband’s flexible work schedule. Suddenly, they were scrambling to find child care. The federal worker said she felt “unbelievably lucky” to find a day care spot for $1,600 per month. Her husband began working overtime to help cover the cost, they’re watching their household expenses and they’re feeling the loss of family time they once had together.

“I have to drop him off very early in the morning and then either leave early from work or just pick him up really late,” she said.

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She’s a fourth-generation civil servant proud of her years of government service. The return-to-office order made her and her colleagues feel degraded at work, but she plans to stay.

“I have no plans of leaving. I want to stick this job out. I just love it so much,” she said.

‘We might see a reduction in women’s labor force participation’

The return-to-office order is forcing caregivers to make difficult choices that could matter for the economy more broadly, said Kate Bahn, chief economist at the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, a nonpartisan nonprofit dedicated to sustaining a thriving economy that includes women.

“When you have really limited choices, you’re not necessarily making a good choice, you’re just making the best choice you can for yourself,” she said.

Bahn’s research shows that in over half of American families, women serve as the co-breadwinner or sole breadwinner.

“Not having those incomes, their families would not have adequate economic well-being,” she said.

Ending remote work isn’t just tough for many individual caregivers; it also may push sizable numbers of women out of the workforce altogether, said Bahn, who’s a new mom herself.

“We might see a reduction in women’s labor force participation. So, women just dropping out altogether because they can’t manage caregiving responsibilities alongside their jobs,” she said. “Or we’ll see women making really constrained choices when they do work, so, taking a job that’s maybe suboptimal for them, they don’t like as much, they don’t earn as much, but they just don’t have another choice because it’s the only thing that works with their caregiving responsibilities.”

Six in 10 women surveyed by Bahn’s group said job flexibility determines whether they’ll accept a job offer. Without flexibility, 4 in 10 said they would reduce their hours or leave their jobs altogether.

Data shows women are already underrepresented in the federal government, at 45%, compared to 58% in the private sector, according to federal data and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The White House said data was not available on how many women have resigned, retired or been laid off from the federal workforce since Inauguration Day.

Why Rep. Brittany Pettersen says policies supporting parents matter

The impact of workplace restrictions is being felt at the highest levels of government.

“These systems are not made for us. They’re made for, historically, for older, wealthier white men,” said Rep. Brittany Pettersen, a Democrat who represents Colorado’s 7th District.

Just four weeks after Pettersen gave birth to her second son, she found herself flying across the country with her newborn so she could vote on critical legislation. Congress required in-person voting. She championed a bill to allow proxy voting for new parents, but it hasn’t gained needed support.

“These are common-sense changes that we can do to make sure that people like me who have just given birth aren’t putting their health at risk and their newborn’s health at risk,” she said.

Pettersen argues creating policies to support parents in Congress will ultimately help the families they represent.

“When we start to change the people who are elected and the life experiences that they have, you’re gonna start to see policies change that are actually supporting the families that are struggling the most right now,” she said.

‘Taking a leap of faith’

In Loudoun County, the federal worker who decided to leave her career after over a decade packed up her son’s toys and considered how they would both adjust to the next chapter in their lives. Her son would make new friends at a new school, and she would look into starting her own consulting firm in her hometown.

“It’s scary. It’s really scary and overwhelming. But I’m taking a leap of faith,” she said.

She said the return-to-office order forced her to choose between showing up at the office and showing up for her son, and she chose her son.

“As a single mom, most importantly to me, I’ve been able to successfully and substantially provide for my son. I don’t want to cry,” she said, fighting tears. “For me, it means the world to provide for my son and not have to ask for any help.”

Reported by Tracee Wilkins, produced by Andrea Swalec and Katie Leslie, shot by Jeff Piper and Evan Carr, and edited by Jeff Piper

As rescuers worked to locate crash victims, Lenard and Tim Hutchison, of D.C.’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer, quickly deployed tools to tackle another monumental task: helping divers locate underwater debris and document what they found.

The men came up with an idea for a phone-based app that Hutchison developed within hours of the disaster, one that allowed divers to take images of recovered wreckage, confirm its location in the water and upload the data, which was instantly fed into a database they turned over to investigators.

“We were able to create a common operating picture within the first hours of this incident. That allowed everybody to try to be on the same page,” Lenard said.

As the rescue operation gave way to recovery, D.C. Fire and EMS deployed sonar technology to scan the bottom of the river with sound waves, building detailed maps of the riverbed just off Reagan National Airport. The technology was purchased years ago under a grant program now under nationwide review by the Trump administration.

With the sonar mapping tool, firefighters were able to swiftly deploy divers to retrieve what they found following the collision, cutting what they said could have been a weekslong operation into just days.

“The most important thing is being out there and finding every person who lost their lives in this crash – to bring them home to their family,” Lenard said. “If you have 100 exhausted divers, your searches are not going to be as effective.”

That early effort gave them a picture of what they couldn’t see: an underwater photo album of debris they said showed wreckage as large as 18 feet and as small as a cellphone.

“Seeing personal belongings being pulled up was definitely a moment of pause. It really hit home,” Hutchison said.

The technology was so precise, it may have also recovered parts of the Air Florida plane that crashed into the 14th Street Bridge in 1982, killing more than 70 people. Lenard said D.C. Fire turned over those artifacts to the FBI for examination.

D.C. Fire commissioned the sonar equipment through a federal port security grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency a few years back, never knowing it would be used to help recover loved ones for families in a plane crash.

But now, the program FEMA states is designed to bolster security at ports across the country is under review by the Trump administration, which has placed a freeze on federal spending, including on the Port Security Grant Program.

President Donald Trump has said he wants to eliminate FEMA. It’s unclear what would happen to those dollars.

“It’s people’s lives and livelihoods that are at stake,” said Cary Davis, president and CEO of the American Association of Port Authorities.

How port security funds are used

Davis said the port security program helps protect against increasing threats at the nation’s ports in ways people don’t realize, and that it’s already faced funding shortfalls for years.

“The needs far out outstrip the dollar levels that Congress in recent years has given for seaport security,” Davis said.

In fiscal year 2024, the grant program pledged $90 million in funds to ports and government authorities for maritime security plans. That’s down from $100 million in fiscal years 2021, 2022 and 2023, according to FEMA.

How D.C. Fire used the dollars on sonar technology, as well as night vision optics capabilities, and deployed them on the mid-air disaster response earned notice from top investigators.

Speaking to port leaders at a recent conference, the head of the National Transportation Safety Board praised D.C. Fire’s contribution to her investigation and commended their use of the federal funds.

“That just shows how critical those grants are,” NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy told the I-Team. “Not just for ports, but also for these lifesaving measures and for recovery after a tragedy.”

The I-Team reached out to FEMA to ask about the future of the port security grant program that funded D.C.’s sonar technology.

In a statement, a spokesperson didn’t directly address the program but acknowledged current grantees are in limbo, saying: “FEMA is conducting a careful review of all grant allocations before releasing funds” and as “individual program reviews are completed in the coming days, we will follow up with respective grant recipients.”

D.C.’s first responders, including CJ Isbell, said that, while the funds they received years ago helped create critical technology, it’s the people they used it for who matter most.

“Our entire goal was to bring those family members home,” Isbell said. “Our job was not finished until we had that.”

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Katie Leslie, shot and edited by Jeff Piper and Carlos Olazagasti, and edited by Jeff Piper

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“We have dramatically underestimated the risk that large ships pose to bridges across the country,” said Michael Shields, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins who led the study.

After mining data on decades of collisions, bridge construction information, ship traffic data and the rates at which ships go off course, Shields and his team said the Key Bridge would have been among the 10 most vulnerable bridges across the country.

His team predicted it likely would have been hit by a ship within 48 years. It was 46 years old at the time of the collision, according to the university.

They are now out with a list of 20 other bridges they say are most vulnerable to these strikes.

Despite a warning, officials say they have ‘no regulatory obligation to modify or upgrade’ the Chesapeake Bay Bridge

In the D.C. area, the Chesapeake Bay Bridge made the list, with Shields’ team suggesting a significant collision could occur there once every 86 years.

That makes it less vulnerable than those on top of the list, which include the Huey P. Long Bridge outside New Orleans, where researchers expect a collision once every 17 years, and the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, which researchers said could expect a collision every 22 years.

“Unless changes are made, I don’t see the risk going down, unless somehow ships get smaller and traffic gets less,” Shields told the I-Team.

When asked about Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay Bridge, Shields said he’d like to see collision avoidance and pier protection systems added to the existing bridge.

“There’s a very serious need to look at protections for bridges like the Bay Bridge,” he said.

In response to those concerns, the Maryland Department of Transportation told the I-Team it “has no regulatory obligation to modify or upgrade it,” but because of the Dali incident, “the MDTA is working with outside bridge experts to evaluate the pier protection systems and vessel transit procedures for both the new Key Bridge and the existing Bay Bridge.” 

The state added that if upgrades are needed, they will be “prioritized as appropriate.”

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Shields said he’s also concerned about the early renderings of the new Key Bridge, which has yet to be built. He said he would prefer it give ships even more space to maneuver than in the current redesign.

“I was a little disappointed that the span isn’t longer than it is,” Shields said.

The span under the old Key Bridge was 1,209 feet long, records show. The Maryland Transportation Authority told the I -Team the new Key Bridge will have a main span of 1,600 feet, 35% wider than before.

Shields suggested a main span of 2,000 feet. A longer span, he said, gives ships more room to correct mistakes and still avoid a collision.

The MDTA called it “premature” to make assumptions at this point in the design, which has many more safety features yet to be revealed.

In response, the MDTA told the I-Team, “It would be premature and inaccurate to make assumptions about the Key Bridge Rebuild when only 15% of the design has been released.”

After the deadly Sunshine Skyway Bridge collision near Tampa in 1980, it took 14 years to finalize new bridge design standards. Every bridge built after that is designed to ideally avoid ship collisions, but those new standards did little to protect bridges that were already standing.

In the wake of the Dali crash, some questioned whether anything could be done to protect aging bridges from a direct ship collision.

“It was going to be difficult for any infrastructure to be able to take on that that blunt level of impact,” Maryland Gov. Wes Moore told the Today Show following the collision.

Why the NTSB head criticized Maryland transportation officials

More recently, the head of the National Transportation Safety Board, Jennifer Homendy, criticized Maryland for not doing the work that she said might have prevented the tragedy.

“Had the MDTA conducted a vulnerability assessment of the Key Bridge based on recent vessel traffic, the MDTA would have been able to proactively identify strategies to reduce the risk of a collapse and loss of lives associated with vessel collision with the bridge,” Homendy said at a press conference last week.

In response to those findings, the MDTA said it maintains the Key Bridge catastrophe “was the sole fault of the Dali and the gross negligence of [its] owners.”

What’s more, the NTSB listed the Bay Bridge as among 68 they said have “unknown levels of risk of collapse from a vessel collision.” Fourteen of the bridges Shields’ team identified as most vulnerable also appeared on the NTSB’s list.

Shields agreed a boat that big hitting virtually any bridge would cause severe damage and said the key to avoiding another Key Bridge catastrophe is by protecting the bridge from ships to begin with, through concrete blockades and building bridge supports on islands.

“There are immediate investments that we can make,” Shields told the I-Team. “The investments, while not cheap, are much, much lower than the investments would be in the event of an accident.”

The nation’s most vulnerable bridges at risk of collision, according to Johns Hopkins University researchers, are:

• Huey P. Long Bridge, Louisiana: Collision expected once every 17 years.
• San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge: Collision expected once every 22 years.
• Crescent City Connection, New Orleans: Collision expected once every 34 years.
• Beltway 8 Bridge, Texas: Collision expected once every 35 years.
• Hale Boggs Memorial Bridge, Louisiana: Collision expected once every 37 years.
• Bayonne Bridge, N.Y./N.J.: Collision expected once every 43 years.
• Fred Hartman Bridge, Texas: Collision expected once every 47 years.
• Martin Luther King Bridge, Texas: Collision expected once every 64 years.
• Sunshine Bridge, Louisiana: Collision expected once every 71 years.
• Rainbow Bridge, Texas: Collision expected once every 71 years.
• Veterans Memorial Bridge, Louisiana: Collision expected once every 74 years.
• Chesapeake Bay Bridge, Maryland: Collision expected once every 86 years.
• Talmadge Memorial Bridge, Georgia: Collision expected once every 88 years.
• Veterans Memorial Bridge, Texas: Collision expected once every 94 years.
• Delaware Memorial Bridge, Del./N.J.: Collision expected once every 129 years.
• Dames Point Bridge, Florida: Collision expected once every 152 years.
• Horace Wilkinson Bridge, Louisiana: Collision expected once every 198 years.
• Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge, New York: Collision expected once every 362 years.
• Golden Gate Bridge, California: Collision expected once every 481 years.
• John A. Blatnik Bridge, Minnesota/Wisconsin: Collision expected once every 634 years.

Many of D.C. and Northern Virginia’s bridges were excluded from the study because they are not at risk of ship collision.

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Remona Antoine was among the first to share how her small consulting business has been upended since President Donald Trump took office and billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency began slashing staffing and spending.

Drip by drip, she saw more than a dozen of her leadership trainings canceled by multiple agencies. She was originally booked to lead training courses through August. Now, she said, her calendar is empty and tens of thousands of dollars she expected in income are gone.

“I felt like I was right on the cusp,” said Antoine, who entered the contracting field only a few years ago and hoped to turn a profit this year for the first time.

Now, she isn’t sure her business will survive and is worried about what that means for her household.

“Some of our leaders may think that they’re disrupting how the government has functioned, but they’re disrupting homes, and they’re disrupting families,” she said.

Antoine said her trainings didn’t fall under diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives the president has eliminated. Still, like other contractors who gathered at the Northern Virginia Black Chamber of Commerce, she said she feels especially vulnerable now.

“I think it’s hitting communities of color and small businesses, women minority-owned businesses, because it takes us so much longer to get these contracts,” she said.

Samuel Wiggins, president of the Virginia Minority Chambers, a nonprofit that serves and advocates for minority chambers of commerce across the commonwealth, called federal contracts the “holy grail” for many contractors of color.

“Every contractor, every federal contractor — their whole goal is to get that first government contract,” he said, explaining once a contractor develops relationships and a solid reputation, it can “lead to a whole lifetime of your business having government contracts.”

But the numbers show just how hard getting contracts can be.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, in 2021 minority-owned businesses represented 24% of eligible businesses for federal contract awards but were only awarded 3%.

Black business owners in particular accounted for nearly 12% of eligible contract recipients but were awarded fewer than 5%.

Under President Joe Biden, the Small Business Administration worked to increase the number of federal contract dollars awarded to small, disadvantaged businesses from 5% annually to as high as 15% by 2025.

But after Trump took office, the SBA rescinded Biden’s executive orders dealing with diversity, equity and inclusion, a move that reset the contracting goal to 5%.

Wiggins said his members are concerned about those changes and whether the so-called set aside programs through the SBA will become targets as well.

“That does bring associated fear. It does feel like they’re being abandoned or even targeted,” he said.

Attorney Kendra Perkins Norwood, a federal procurement attorney who represents both large and small government contractors, said federal contracts have been critical to the Black community in the D.C. region and beyond.

“Federal government contracting has been responsible for wealth generation in many communities, particularly the Black community. It has created the Black middle class, in many instances,” she said.

She argued there’s still a need for programs to help disadvantaged business owners get a seat at the federal contracting table.

“We know that minority-owned businesses don’t necessarily perform financially as well as majority-owned businesses. And so, until we see that sort of equity across the board, I would say that programs like this do need to continue,” she said.

Wiggins said while the path seems more challenging than ever, he encourages business owners to stay the course and pivot as necessary.

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New unemployment figures out of Virginia this week gave us a glimpse of the impact of Trump’s cuts on local jobs.

More than 4,000 unemployment insurance claims were filed for the week of March 8, according to the state, which was 40% higher than the prior week and more than 80% higher than the same week in 2024.

While the numbers may include some federal contractors, it doesn’t cover income lost by independent contractors like Antoine.

For now, she said she and others are exploring procurement opportunities outside of the federal space, while learning from and leaning on each other.

“I have a little bit more hope that our business may be able to partner with another business and at least sustain the business and not incur deeper losses,” she said after attending the Northern Virginia Black Chamber of Commerce event.

“But I don’t know,” she added. “For how long, right? It’s just a big unknown.”

News4 photographer Jerry Lawlor contributed to this report.

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After hours of surveillance, a team the News4 I-Team witnessed made its third arrests of the day.

“We’re with immigration. We have a warrant for your arrest,” one of the agents told a 47-year-old Venezuelan man stopped as he approached his work van. ICE said he had a history of drug and weapons convictions, but no pending criminal charges.

“So, eventually he did end up leaving his house, and we were able to apprehend him before he took off,” explained Matt Elliston, Maryland’s ICE director. “We don’t have any reason to suspect the wife’s here illegally.”

They left the man’s car keys in the mail drop box because his wife didn’t open the door.

It already had been a busy day for ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations team. The I-Team watched as agents met up at 4 a.m. in a shopping center parking lot.

“Today we’re going to have three targets,” one of the agents said to the group, which was joined by
members of Homeland Security Investigations and members of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

“We look for public safety threats, right? Gang members, sex offenders, felons,” Elliston said.

According to ICE, all the targets on this day had final orders for removal, meaning an immigration judge ordered them to be deported. They used what is called administrative warrants to make the arrests.

“If we’re unable to arrest them in a public area, we’ll try to get a criminal warrant from the U.S. attorney’s office so we can break the door down,” Elliston said.

Elliston said early mornings are better for his team since most of the targets leave their homes early for work.

“Arresting someone where they’re half-asleep at 5 o ‘clock in the morning is less – there’s, statistically, there’s less likelihood they’re going to fight back,” he said.

As for who they target: “All we do is targeted enforcement. We use intelligence-driven leads. We know the targets that we’re going after. We don’t do dragnets. We don’t go door to door. That’s never something that ICE has done,” said Elliston.

But there is a difference from previous administrations: Elliston’s team can make what’s called collateral arrests of undocumented immigrants they come across who are not facing additional criminal charges.

“We’re still targeting that worst of the worst person, you know, except now if we come across someone who’s standing next to him, who’s also here illegally, we’re going to take that person too,” said Elliston.

That happened after agents waited for more than two hours near the home of a man from El Salvador. ICE said he was convicted of DUI and negligent manslaughter. The stakeout was something they could not have done last year due to a 2011 policy that limited them from targeting people near sensitive locations such as schools and churches. That policy was rescinded in January by DHS.

“This is a great example of why we changed the sensitive locations policy, because this building behind us is a Baptist church, you know. Despite us not doing anything at the church, like, we wouldn’t even be allowed to be parked in a parking lot. Really, anywhere within like a two-block radius of here,” said Elliston.

Elliston said he’s constantly fielding calls asking about possible ICE enforcements at schools. He said that has not happened in Maryland.

After agents pulled over the man from El Salvador, they also detained his brother, in a collateral arrest.

“We also know that his brother was prior deported. So, he’s been removed from the United States previously,” said Elliston.

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Immigrant advocates raise concerns

Some immigrant advocates tell the I-Team they’re worried these stepped-up arrests are unfair to some.

“This is a total change and an escalation in how immigrants are being treated,” said Michael Lukens with AMICA Center for Immigrant Rights, which works to help detainees know their rights.

“I think what really concerns me is, you don’t look at someone who was born in the United States, who had a criminal background, and say, ‘Well, they are a criminal forever.’ Right? You don’t label them a criminal and make them a second-class citizen. Why is it OK to do that for an immigrant?” he asked.

Ama Frimpong is the legal director of CASA.

“Tensions are definitely much, much higher. I think that there is there is a lot of concern within the immigrant community right now,” she said.

Part of that fear, according to Frimpong, is for families who might lose a parent or breadwinner to deportation.

“I see, you know, moms, right? Who are trying to console their kids. And, you know, trying to tell them that everything will be OK when truly they don’t know whether everything will be OK,” she said.

When asked by the I-Team why immigrants are willing to risk deportation, she answered: “Because for a lot of people, this is a better life.”

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“I think the real danger here is that immigration advocacy groups are telling people, don’t cooperate. Don’t come to the door. Don’t stop your vehicle. You know, all of these things that could then lead to criminal prosecutions,” said Elliston.

But advocates say immigrants do have the right to remain silent and not open their door unless the agents have a signed criminal arrest warrant.

“Correct. Correct. And now, the difference is … it is a much easier process for us to obtain that warrant signed by a judge,” said Elliston.

While Elliston hears the concerns about ICE, he said his team is following the law. During one of the arrests on the day the I-Team watched, a woman in a car drove by cursing at his agents.

“It’s really a lack of education. So, the average person, no matter where you fall on the political spectrum, if they would stop and say, ‘Hey, like, who is this person? Like, why did you guys arrest him?’ And I’d say, ‘He just did 12 years in prison for, you know, dealing narcotics here in Hagerstown. This guy’s spreading poison on the streets.’ This is not a political issue; this is a public safety issue. The people of Maryland are safer today because of what we did,” Elliston said.

Reported by Tracee Wilkins, produced by Rick Yarborough, shot by Steve Jones and Jerry Lawlor, and edited by Steve Jones

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has more than 100 facilities around the U.S., many of which are privately run. More than 43,000 immigrants are currently in ICE custody, according to TRAC, a nonpartisan data research organization at Syracuse University. The number has increased over the past month.

The News4 I-Team spoke with experts and those who have been on the inside about what it’s like to be in the system.

At ICE’s Baltimore Field Office, the I-Team got a glimpse of how detained immigrants are processed. Officials there aim to process immigrants quickly, Field Office Director Matt Elliston said.

“We don’t want anyone here more than 12 hours,” he said.

But that’s not always possible.

“Yesterday, you know, we had 40 people we had to send to Denver, Colorado. That’s something that these people are going to be here for a couple of days before we can make that change,” Elliston said.

Immigrants facing deportation are no longer housed in Maryland because of the 2021 Dignity Not Detention Act, which prohibits governments there from entering contracts with ICE for detainees.

“I’m forced to separate them from their family and their attorneys and send them elsewhere throughout the country,” Elliston said.

Locals who are detained are often sent to facilities in Virginia, including Farmville Detention Center and Caroline Detention Facility, or Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Pennsylvania, if there’s space.

Experts and immigration attorneys say those spots are at capacity or nearing capacity. The I-Team reached out to ICE for total numbers of immigrants being detained locally, but we have not heard back.

Michael Lukens with Amica Center for Immigrant Rights is often inside detention facilities.

“It is supposed to be civil detention, but if you ever go to an ICE detention center, it is a jail. It looks like a jail,” he said.

Lukens helps those in custody understand their rights and says conditions can be challenging.

“The living conditions are pretty rough,” he said. “The food is not great. There’s no privacy. There’s very little contact with the outside world. It’s overcrowded.”

He said what is supposed to be a civil detention can often feel more criminal to his clients.

‘It was hard psychologically’

Abdoulaziz Moussa Djibril, who is now a legal resident, spent close to five months inside Farmville after being detained at Dulles International Airport in 2019.

“They asked me to wear a yellow jumpsuit,” he said. “And to be honest, that’s where my brain just shut off.”

He said he came to the U.S. seeking asylum from his home country of Djibouti, in Africa, where he worked as an attorney, judge and legal advisor.

“It was hard psychologically,” he said about staying in Farmville. “It was like someone who’s living in a dark room.”

What inspections of ICE’s Farmville detention center found

Farmville is one of the largest detention facilities in the area, originally built to hold more than 700 people. ICE started housing detained immigrants there in 2010.

It was one of four facilities a group of senators called to be shut down last year due to “well-documented horrific conditions.”

In 2024, the Department of Homeland Security’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL) made several recommendations after doing an inspection due to complaints including alleged inappropriate use of force. The CRCL ended up making 33 recommendations; ICE agreed with 21 of them and agreed to provide Farmville with training for different types of use-of-force incidents.

However, when searching for that memo detailing those civil rights concerns on DHS’s site, it’s not available. A DHS spokesperson told News4 the reports are currently unavailable for a compliance review from the president’s executive orders.

The I-Team also found an inspection of Farmville from December, part of an ICE compliance inspection, which noted multiple violations, including incomplete mental health evaluations, irregular welfare checks for detainees on suicide watch and lack of reporting of communicable diseases.

The I-Team reached out to ICE and Abyon, which runs Farmville, about those complaints but is still waiting on a response.

‘Very limited detention space’

Mark Krikorian, executive director of the conservative think tank Center for Immigration Studies, says detention has been a part of federal immigration policy since the beginning.

“Detention has been something that’s required,” he said.

Holding undocumented immigrants is more necessary now because of the large number, he said.

“Because of mass illegal immigration, which really wasn’t possible before transportation and communications became so cheap and easy, the numbers, the scale of detention was not large. But it has become so, inevitably because of changes and really changes in technology, ” said Krikorian.

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“We have very limited detention space here on the East Coast. We are all sharing the same detention resources,” ICE Field Office Director Elliston said.

That overcrowding, along with the alleged poor conditions, leads some detainees to choose to leave the country on their own, according to Lukens with the Amica Center.

“It is not odd for us to hear from clients that they are getting what we call detention fatigue because they just can’t take the isolation,” he said.

Reported by Tracee Wilkins, produced by Rick Yarborough, shot by Steve Jones, Jeff Piper and Jerry Lawlor, and edited by Steve Jones

A process called Enumeration at Birth (EAB) allows new parents to submit applications for Social Security numbers for their newborns as part of the hospital birth registration process. EAB has been around since 1989. According to the agency, 99% of parents use it, rather than having to register in person at an SSA office.

Social Security Administration (SSA) Acting Commissioner Lee Dudek says he recently directed employees to end the contract that allows the program in Maine, although he did not provide any reason behind the decision.

At least five other states, including Maryland — but not Maine — show similar cancelled contracts on the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) website touting savings by Elon Musk’s team.

However, that decision has now been reversed, according to the agency.

After we reached out to the SSA, a spokesperson released a statement from Dudek saying: “I recently directed Social Security employees to end two contracts which affected the good people of the state of Maine. The two contracts are Enumeration at Birth (EAB), which helps new parents quickly request a Social Security number and card for their newborn before leaving the hospital, and Electronic Death Registry (EDR) which shares recorded deaths with Social Security. In retrospect, I realize that ending these contracts created an undue burden on the people of Maine, which was not the intent. For that, I apologize and have directed that both contracts be immediately reinstated.”

Dudek went on to say that EAB and EDR continue in place for every state and were not affected.

“As a leader, I will admit my mistakes and make them right,” he said.

However, the DOGE website still shows five states as having terminated contracts: Maryland, Arizona, Michigan, New Mexico and Rhode Island. It wasn’t immediately clear why these states were listed on the site.

News4 reached out to the White House for any comment.

A spokesperson for the Maryland Department of Health is also looking into the matter.

We’ll provide any updates as we get them.

News4 sends breaking news stories by email. Go here to sign up to get breaking news alerts in your inbox.

The issue began when the General Services Administration (GSA) published a list Tuesday of 443 properties it called “non-core assets” that had been marked for “divestment from government ownership.”

When announcing the list, the GSA explained in a statement: “Decades of funding deficiencies have resulted in many of these buildings becoming functionally obsolete and unsuitable for use by our federal workforce. We can no longer hope that funding will emerge to resolve these longstanding issues.”

The properties included such historic buildings as the Department of Justice in downtown D.C. and the newly renovated U.S. Census Bureau in Suitland, Maryland, as well as several other agency headquarters, courthouses, office buildings and even parking garages across the country.

But within hours, about 120 properties, including dozens in the District, were taken off the public list. By Wednesday morning, the list had been deleted from its website, with the GSA link instead saying the list of non-core assets was “coming soon.”

In a statement Wednesday, the GSA didn’t explain why the list disappeared but said: “Since publishing the initial list on March 4, 2025, we have received an overwhelming amount of interest. We anticipate the list will be republished in the near future after we evaluate this initial input and determine how we can make it easier for stakeholders to understand the nuances of the assets listed.”

The news comes as President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk have both ordered federal workers to return to the office while simultaneously taking steps to slash the workforce and cut government spending through canceling leases and contracts – moves that have sparked several legal challenges.

The News4 I-Team reviewed the initial list published Tuesday and found it included 14 properties in Virginia, such as a State Department field office in Arlington; 83 in Maryland, with dozens of properties in Silver Spring; and 41 in the District, including the FBI headquarters, Department of Labor and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser called the list “outrageous,” telling News4: “The biggest thing is, and this will be my ask to the president, is you cannot dump buildings on the market without preparation or a plan, because it would be antithetical to making this the most beautiful capital city in the world.”

Some properties on the list were previously identified as possibilities for sale by the Public Buildings Reform Board, a group Congress created years ago to study the issue and make real estate recommendations, but sources tell the I-Team the PBRB was not involved in Tuesday’s move.

Meanwhile, agencies are expected to begin reporting occupancy data under law passed by Congress last year to help them identify which buildings are underused and therefore should be sold.

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Real estate experts who have closely watched this issue told the I-Team they are as confused as many others are about which properties made the list and why it was made public.

The I-Team put those questions to the GSA, which has not responded to News4 but said in its public statement Wednesday that “just because an asset is on the list doesn’t mean it’s immediately for sale.” They will, however, “consider compelling offers.”

Mark Segraves contributed to this report.

“This is the part where you kind of wait and see,” said Mack, watching her phone.

She’s used a wheelchair since she was 10 — moved to D.C. after college, she said, because our city was trying to be more accessible. When the I-Team asked if the city was keeping its promise, she responded, “Here and there.”

D.C. does has a few options for passengers with wheelchairs.

Metro trains and buses are accessible. MetroAccess works too, but it requires setting up rides days in advance and being willing to wait.

The Transport DC program offers subsidized taxi rides, but only within the district.

When it comes to ride share companies like Uber and Lyft, the District does not require them to have wheelchair accessible vehicles — even though they account for 95% of all the for-hire rides here.

That leaves taxis, which make up just 5% of all for-hire trips in D.C. Taxis are District regulated and provided 23,000 trips for people who use wheelchairs last year.

“I call it the Yeti, because it’s rumored to exist, but, you know, I rarely ever see it,” exclaimed a frustrated Mack while waiting on a taxi she had reserved days before we met up.

The District has worked to increase service. D.C. has a law mandating 20% of large cab fleets be wheelchair accessible, but the I-Team couldn’t find it’s ever been enforced.

The head of the Department of For-Hire Vehicles (DFHV) told the I-Team, “we can’t punish them into compliance.”

Passenger Naomi Hess was hopeful last year when D.C. set aside $500,000 to incentivize cabdrivers to operate Wheelchair Accessible Vehicles -paying more per hour or to work late hours.

“There really, really needs to be progress,” said Hess.  The city even set up a  Wheelchair Accessible Vehicle (WAV) hotline for people to get connected.

“I tried that pilot line multiple times and they just couldn’t find one for me. Where is the money going?” asked Hess.

The city already spent $255,000 in that pilot program and told the I-Team it generated 435 taxi trips from June to December. That’s $586 per ride.

Jonathan Rogers — the Director of DFHV, which spearheaded the pilot — wouldn’t talk to News4 on camera, but said “Council encouraged us to experiment and figure out what would change behavior… so that’s what we did.”

He said he hoped it would build momentum, and that the six new drivers with accessible vehicles added, would stick with it.

The department just launched a new pilot program in March, and says it’s offering more incentives to taxi companies and drivers. Plus, a spokesperson said it would be sending letters to all taxi companies asking for their long-term plans to address the issue.

“Anyone without a wheelchair can get an Uber, Lyft or taxi, whatever they want. It’s just not fair. And it has put me in unsafe situations,” Hess told the I-Team. 

Last fall, she had all her travel planned out so she could attend the Sabrina Carpenter concert in Baltimore. But a delayed train back to D.C. got her to Union Station at 1 a.m., leaving her with few options.

“I was forced to walk home alone in the middle of the night.”

Both she and Mack say it isn’t like this everywhere. In New York City, there are more than 12,000 wheelchair accessible taxis and ride share vehicles, according to the NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission.

The city said 46% of its taxi fleet is wheelchair accessible. By law, anyone who now wants to start driving for ride shares has to use an accessible vehicle there.

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Back in D.C., Uber has some accessible vehicles, but did not respond to our questions about how many.

While Lyft offers accessible rides in nine other cities, it does not in the District. A spokesperson told the I Team it “will continue to push for solutions that make rideshare as accessible as possible for everyone.”

As for taxis, none of the larger companies in town would talk to News4 on camera. But they did admit it’s a challenge, saying wheelchair accessible taxis are both expensive to buy and costly to maintain due mostly to their weight and modifications.

That could explain why the I-Team found so many out-of-commission vehicles in taxi lots with markings that read “junk” and “need engine and transmission.”

Back at Mack’s apartment, she still waited for confirmation her taxi was on the way. It’s been so frustrating for her that she started keeping track of all her taxi calls for the last three years.

“I had 72 attempted trips,” she said. “I averaged those years and came out with a 71% failure rate.”

Which is exactly what happened on the day we hung out with her. 

“We’ll wait a few more minutes and then probably gear up, put on the coat, head out,” she said.

But that taxi never came.

Ella Robinson contributed reporting to this investigation.

The backlog is so severe one study suggests it would take 300 more immigration judges to manage all the cases, in addition to the 700 already on the job.

During our reporting, the News4 I-Team met Hassan, who came to the United States from Egypt in February 2020 seeking asylum. He asked us not to use his full name, out of fear about the current climate in the country and how tenuous his situation is.

He still remembers the day he landed at Dulles International Airport.

“February 25th, 2020, a CBP officer asked me, ‘What’s the reason for your visit?’” he said.

That day five years ago, he told the agent he was seeking asylum and leaving a country where he said he was receiving medical treatment bordering on torture.

He did not know what to expect, but said the agent told him it would not be long.

“He was very, like, encouraging to me,” Hassan told the I-Team. “After one year, you can get your permanent residency, green card and work and live in the United States.”

That was five years ago.

That night and for months afterward, Hassan was kept in ICE custody at facilities across Virginia and South Carolina as he tried to prove his asylum case. He did not know if any day he went back to court, it would be his last day in the United States. With each visit, that one-year window kept slipping.

“It’s very frustrating,” Katharine Gordon, Hassan’s attorney at the AMICA Center for Immigrant Rights, told the I-Team.

Gordon said today she sees new cases with even longer wait times than when Hassan entered the system.

“For a person who maybe has just filed their application for asylum … there are court proceedings that have a 2028 deadline right now,” she said.

That’s more than three years away.

Gordon did tell the I-Team migrants already in the system might not have to wait that long.

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US-Mexico Border Mar 1

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Millions of immigration cases waiting

Across the country, 3.7 million cases are currently backlogged in U.S. immigration courts, according to TRAC, a data research organization at Syracuse University.

The backlog has nearly tripled since 2020, when 1.3 million cases were waiting to be resolved.

Nearly 2 million of the cases are people seeking asylum in the U.S. who say they’re fleeing violence, war, hunger, pain, or persecution.

As part of President Donald Trump’s newest immigration crackdown, he is pledged to deport millions of people. When they are picked up, those people are put into an already-backlogged system.

Retired immigration judge James Fujimoto told the I-Team, “You can’t just say we’re going to deport you and put you on a plane or a bus.”

Fujimoto served as an immigration judge for 29 years. He left the bench in 2019 as Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy for immigration cases was taking hold.

The effects of ‘zero tolerance’ policies

Under “zero tolerance,” U.S. attorneys had no choice but to prosecute every immigrant without legal status, whether they faced other criminal charges or not.

Statistics from TRAC analyzed by the I-Team show the dramatic increase in the backlog since. During Trump’s first full year of “zero tolerance” in 2018, with no way to filter out those who faced violent charges first, the backlog grew by a third. Last year, it grew by another 30%.

“You can only do what you can do,” Fujimoto told the I-Team as he considered the current backlog. “But it is very, very difficult to grapple with the numbers when they when they get that high.”

Those we spoke with fear “zero tolerance” and the delays it brought the first time are coming back and that the backlog will grow even longer.

“I think it will just increase substantially so that 2028, I’m not sure if that will go even further on than that,” Gordon, the immigration attorney, told the I-Team, “it will just mean more people who are living in the shadows who do have very, very strong claims for relief.”

Local immigration backlogs

There is no immigration court in D.C..

In Maryland, at most recent check, the backlog stood at 55,038 cases. That’s up 51% since 2020.

In Virginia, it was 59,428 cases, which is slightly down since 2020.

Courts in the DMV are far from the worst backlogged in the nation, but even here, the average immigration caseload is 1,258 cases per judge.

Trying to explain the impact on judges, Fujimoto said, “It’s not the fault of the people that are there. They’re trying, but there’s just not enough.”

Immigration judges fired

As part of the effort to reshape the federal workforce, the Trump administration recently fired 28 immigration judges. At least three of them were assigned to Virginia and Maryland.

Matt Biggs is president of the International Federation of Professional & Technical Engineers, the union representing immigration judges.

“It makes no sense whatsoever for a president to campaign on this on the one hand and then go and fire the very judges that hear the deportation cases on the other,” Biggs said.

Speaking directly to the president, Biggs added, “Congratulations! You just increased the backlog by firing these judges.”

The I-Team asked the White House about the firings and any plan to shrink the backlog but has not heard back.

Experts say migrants hoping to call America home will potentially put their lives on hold for years, not knowing if this country they have dreamed of living in is willing to have them or not.

Hassan’s wait has been full of “a lot of uncertainty,” he said.

His American journey that started on that day at Dulles finally changed last July, when his asylum claim was granted after more than four years of waiting.

“It was like happiness mixed with hopeful, as a future hopeful to start a new life,” Hassan told the I-Team through a smile.

But seven months later, Hassan is still waiting for the system to finish his paperwork so he can legally work. His dream to be an interpreter or peer counselor.

The News4 I-Team wants to hear from federal workers, government contractors and local viewers impacted by the upheaval in federal government.

To reach us, you can email tips@news4iteam, call 202-885-4444 or find us on Signal. Reporter Ted Oberg can be found on Signal at tednbc4.06. Producer Rick Yarborough can be found on Signal at RickonTV.24. Producer Katie Leslie can be found on Signal at kleslienbc4.52.

The offer was then re-sent after 1 p.m. without explanation, the News4 I-Team has learned.

The email, which came from the Education Department’s chief human capital officer, Jacqueline Clay, states the offer will expire at 11:59 P.M. on Monday, March 3 and is a “one-time offer in advance of a very significant reduction in Force for the U.S. Department of Education.”

A spokesman for the Department of Education confirmed it was re-sent Friday afternoon but has not responded to multiple questions about details of the offer.

The offer includes a contract and stipulations, among them that people who take the payment can’t work for the federal government for the next five years unless they pay the $25,000 back. According to the email, eligible employees include those who have worked there for at least three years.

According to the Office of Personnel Management, the “Voluntary Separation Incentive Payment Authority, also known as buyout authority, allows agencies that are downsizing or restructuring to offer employees lump-sum payments up to $25,000 as an incentive to voluntarily separate.”

The OPM website goes on to state it’s typically used so “agencies can minimize or avoid involuntary separations through the use of costly and disruptive reductions in force (RIFs).”

On the campaign trail, Trump pledged to eliminate the department, which he has called a “con job.”

The president can’t abolish the department, which has the smallest staff count among the Cabinet agencies, without Congressional approval. Experts tell the I-Team, however, he can weaken its operations.

Since assuming office, he and billionaire Elon Musk have taken steps toward that by slashing staff – eliminating at least 70 workers and placing 75 more on leave, according to union reps – and slashing millions of dollars’ worth of contracts.

The offer also arrived as the U.S. Senate is poised to vote on the nomination of Linda McMahon as Education Secretary next week.

The News4 I-Team wants to hear from federal workers, government contractors and local viewers impacted by the upheaval in federal government.

To reach us, you can email tips@news4iteam, call 202-885-4444 or find us on Signal. Reporter Ted Oberg can be found on Signal at tednbc4.06. Producer Rick Yarborough can be found on Signal at RickonTV.24. Producer Katie Leslie can be found on Signal at kleslienbc4.52.

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“I had the greatest job in the world,” said Wexler, of Maryland.

For more than three decades, the former public school teacher worked at the U.S. Department of Education, overseeing grants to build a much-needed pipeline of special education teachers and service providers across the country.

“For them to do good things for children with disabilities and their families, what could be more fun? What could be more rewarding?” he said.

Wexler retired last year but still feels deeply tied to his former mission, which is why he’s so concerned about President Donald Trump’s plans to potentially gut the federal government’s smallest department.

On the campaign trail, Trump pledged to eliminate the agency, which he has called a “con job.” Now in office, he and billionaire Elon Musk have taken steps toward that by slashing staff and millions of dollars’ worth of contracts.

According to an employee union, they’ve eliminated at least 70 workers and placed 75 more on leave. They’ve also reportedly cut nearly $900 million in contracts that, according to a list reviewed by the I-Team, were to help accelerate math learning, improve outcomes for English learners, and track student performance, among other goals. Despite Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency boasting of the savings, it’s unclear how much of those funds may have already been spent.

Wexler, who served under every president since George H.W. Bush, acknowledged there’s room for improvement, but said not in the way Musk and DOGE are going about it.

“My experience is that it takes about six months for an incoming administration and all of their political appointees to understand that federal workers are not lazy and stupid and that, in fact, they are passionate to make the policies of each new administration successful,” he said. “Are there things that could be cut? Perhaps should be cut? Unquestionably. But you have to assess first.”

The conversation about abolishing the Department of Education began as soon as it was created by President Jimmy Carter in 1979.The effort has picked up steam in recent years, however, due to cultural wars over issues such as gender and diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, said Rick Hess, founder and chairman of American Enterprise Institute’s Conservative Education Reform Network.

“The reason this is so heated is because a lot of folks on the right feel like the Department of Education took their children for granted and wound up supporting cultural agendas that were hostile to their children [and] hostile to their values,” he said.

He supports the Trump and Musk-led shake-up, but admits it’s imperfect.

“They’re moving even more aggressively than some of us had expected. I think there’s a lot of furniture getting broken, a few pieces of mom’s china along the way, but I’m pretty happy with it,” he said.

President Trump has said repeatedly he’d like to see education controlled “by the states,” but individual states already control about 90% of their education budget and set their school system’s educational priorities. Only about 10% comes from the Department of Education.

With its $79 billion budget for discretionary programs, the department helps fund the Title 1 program to supplement the needs of low-income students and insures supports for students with special needs. The department also oversees billions in annual federal student aid.

“Nobody is suggesting those programs get cut,” Hess said.

But some are suggesting moving them to other agencies.

A lot of the president’s actions so far have mirrored a plan laid out in the conservative Project 2025, which proposes sending special education funding to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for oversight; its statistical office to the Department of Commerce’s Census Bureau; and its Office for Civil Rights to the Department of Justice. 

Experts tell the I-Team that doing so would require an act of Congress — as would abolishing the agency altogether. While it’s unlikely the president could overcome the 60-vote hurdle in the U.S. Senate, a former Education official under President Joe Biden warned doing so would weaken the department’s cohesive focus on the nation’s schools.

“If you take it apart and one piece goes here, one piece goes there, one piece goes someplace else, then you don’t have a collection of people who are all working together on education,” said Catherine Lhamon, who served as assistant secretary overseeing civil rights at the department under the Obama and Biden administrations.

While there, she received both praise and criticism, especially on the right, for her handling of how campuses investigate sex assault. That policy was rescinded during Trump’s first term.

“We’ve seen tremendous polarization in the country about the various issues that come to the Office for Civil Rights,” Lhamon acknowledged.

But that was just part of her office’s work. Her team of roughly 600 people investigated complaints of civil and disability rights violations in K-12 schools across the country, too.

In her last fiscal year, she said her office received nearly 23,000 complaints of state-run school systems violating access to free and fair education, with as many as 15,000 cases still pending. The News4 I-Team found nearly 1,000 of those cases remain open in D.C., Maryland and Virginia.

Lhamon said she’s worried that, if civil rights investigations are moved to the Department of Justice, it will pick and choose which complaint it pursues — instead of investigating each one.

“Every single one of the cases that comes into the office represents a family’s deepest hurts,” she said.

The I-Team asked the Department of Education if it’s taken steps toward relocating functions of the department to other agencies; how many workers have been terminated, placed on administrative leave or have taken the buy-out; and what will come of the pending civil rights investigations. The I-Team has not heard back.

Meanwhile, the Office for Civil Rights under Trump has announced it’s investigating several Northern Virginia schools on whether their transgender policies that allow students to use facilities in accordance with their gender identity violate federal law.

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Former U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who served under President Barack Obama, is among those speaking out against the potential changes, telling the I-Team what he’s seeing now is a departure from past Republican administrations.

“There’s nothing left or right or ‘R’ or ‘D’ about helping our babies get off to a good start in life or teaching kids how to read … These are nation-building goals. It’s in our nation’s interest,” he said. “Every president has seen that. Trump is the absolute anomaly.”

Wexler said he worked for former President George W. Bush when the Republican leader enacted No Child Left Behind — a landmark law that required schools to account for students with disabilities in their assessments.

The former federal worker said he’s worried too many kids could be left behind now, depending on what becomes of the department.

“There needs to be a check and balance in there to ensure that children get the services that they need to be successful,” he said.

News4 photographers Evan Carr and Jerry Lawlor contributed to this report.

But the News4 I-Team found the White House and federal agencies have been anything but transparent when it comes to saying how many federal workers they have terminated since Jan. 20.

The White House said a total of 75,000 federal workers said they will take the “Fork in the Road” deferred resignation offer. But it’s still unclear which agencies these employees work for or how many of the resignations were accepted by agencies.

The I-Team went looking for answers. We asked every Cabinet-level agency how many employees in the agency took the deferred resignation offer; how many they laid off; how many of the layoffs were of workers who were not probationary employees and how many layoffs were of employees in the D.C. area.

In these times of “radical transparency,” we haven’t received many answers; of the 16 agencies we contacted, 11 didn’t respond at all.

Here’s what the four agencies that responded to the I-Team said

The Defense Department, which said it’s cutting more than 5,000 jobs, told the I-Team to ask the Office of Personnel Management for details. A spokeswoman there had no direct answers and referred us to individual agencies.

The State Department said they’re “fully complying with all executive orders” but would not offer any numbers, saying they don’t speak about personnel matters.

The Department of Health and Human Services told the I-Team they’re taking action to support the president’s efforts. They didn’t say how many people were laid off or retired but said even after layoffs and resignations, the department still has more people than it did when President Joe Biden was in office.

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The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was the only department to give the I-Team an actual number. They said 405 people were laid off and almost all were probationary employees. They said the cuts will “result in roughly $50 million in savings for American taxpayers and incalculable value toward accountability and cutting red tape.”

Firing those 405 people cut DHS’ budget by 0.05%.

We have some idea of the number of employees who lost their jobs only because the media is trying to keep count. The New York Times is reporting as many as 28,000 people have been fired, laid off or are expected to be. The Associated Press put that number at 4,000.

The I-Team will keep pressing the offices ordering these job cuts for the final tally.

To share what’s happening at the agency where you work, you can send us an email at tips@news4iteam.com or message the I-Team on Signal at TedNBC4.06.

Sign up for our free deep-dive newsletter, The 4Front, to get standout News4 stories sent right to your inbox. Subscribe here.

The Metropolitan Police Department also is investigating its own handling of the incident, which did not result in an arrest.

Police reports obtained by News4 show the alleged incident started at a penthouse in a luxury apartment building in The Wharf area of Southwest at 1 p.m. Wednesday.

Mills’ office told NBC News: “This week, law enforcement was asked to resolve a private matter at Congressman Mills’ residence. Congressman Mills vehemently denies any wrongdoing whatsoever, and is confident any investigation will clear this matter quickly.”

The I-Team also reached out Thursday afternoon to the alleged victim, who we’re not naming, but who is not the congressman’s wife. In text messages she said: “Yesterday, I contacted law enforcement to address a personal matter… Although the argument was emotionally charged, there was no physical abuse involved.”

She said bruises were from medical conditions and activities from a recent overseas trip.

But that’s likely not the end of the investigation.

DC police have three police reports on what happened

News4 obtained multiple copies of the police report, showing varying levels of detail about what allegedly happened inside the apartment and when police arrived.

The first police report, provided to News4 by a source and confirmed by a second source familiar with the investigation, said: “(Her significant other for over a year) grabbed her, shoved her, and pushed her out of the door.” The report says she showed the officer “bruises on her arm which appeared fresh.”

The first report goes on to note that during a phone call between the significant other and alleged victim, she “let officers hear Subject 1 [now identified by MPD as Mills] instruct her to lie about the origin of her bruises … Eventually, Subject 1 made contact with police and admitted that the situation escalated from verbal to physical, but it was severe enough to create bruising.”

When police arrived, the woman was in the lobby of the Salamander hotel next door. The report says an officer was “able to immediately identify [the alleged victim] out of all other patrons in the lobby by her demeanor: physically shaking and scared.”

According to the report, the responding police officer told the subject he would be placed under arrest. But then the woman approached police and recanted the details, including where the bruises came from. News4 reached out to the responding officer but has not heard back.

D.C. law says officers shall arrest someone if there is probable cause to believe they committed an intrafamily offense resulting in physical injury, including pain.

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A second version of the police report obtained by News4 a day after the alleged incident says only that officers responded for a family disturbance and there was no probable cause for an arrest.

When News4 reached out to D.C. police for comment, they provided a third version of the report Thursday night, which had changed once again, saying officers responded for a report of an assault and that the assault is being investigated.

D.C. police told News4 the focus of the internal investigation is why officers made no arrest and why the incident was reclassified as a family disturbance and not an assault.

In a statement, the department told News4, “Once MPD leadership became aware of this matter there was an immediate review of our initial response to ensure all procedures were followed. MPD’s Internal Affairs Bureau is currently investigating this matter.”

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser told News4 an internal investigation is underway into “making sure that all of our members did what they’re supposed to do, according to MPD policy.” She said she couldn’t immediately comment on the investigation into Mills or the police reports.

D.C. police told the I-Team they sent an arrest warrant to the U.S. attorney’s office on Friday. The warrant has not been signed. Police said the case was sent back to them for further investigation. The U.S. attorney’s office said it does not comment on uncharged cases.

Sources familiar with how cases are handled say this type of back-and-forth is not uncommon and may never result in charges.

Mills’ office did not respond to an inquiry from News4 on Monday.

Mills is a two-term congressman. Online bios have said he is married and has two children.

Previously, Mills said he might run for the Senate seat left vacant by Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Jensen is research director at the University of Maryland’s START center, which studies terrorism and ways to fight it. He and his team found hundreds of connections between extremist criminal acts and military members since 1990.

“I describe it as a small but very big problem,” Jensen said.

The man who committed the ISIS-inspired attack in New Orleans on New Year’s Day was an Army veteran. More than 200 of those charged in the Jan. 6 insurrection, now pardoned, had military backgrounds too. Court records show a neo-Nazi convicted this month of plotting a hate-filled attack on Baltimore’s power grid is a former member of the National Guard.

“This is a concern that was growing before January 6th and has continued since then,” Jensen said.

The group’s latest report found a rising number of extremists with connections to the U.S. military.

In the first 20 years of the START study, about seven individuals with military backgrounds were involved in extremist crimes each year. Since 2011, that number jumped to 40. In most recent years, from 2018 to 2023, it jumped to 75 per year.

While the number is small, its growth is concerning, Jensen said.

Jensen told the News4 I-Team his research and recent incidents around the country lead him to believe, “That threat in the last month or so has been emboldened, in many ways.”

His research shows extremists with military backgrounds are often more dangerous once they’re radicalized.

“They have spent years in the armed forces, where they learned all of the skills and techniques necessary to be highly lethal if they choose to be,” he said. “Military members or veterans were far more likely to engage in mass-casualty plots and attacks than those without a similar skill set.”

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Neither researchers nor the News4 I-Team is suggesting veterans are likely to be extremists; there’s no evidence of that. But there is evidence veterans are sought out by extremist groups.

“From a leadership point of view, they prize their organizational abilities. They like the credibility that it gives them. So, it is absolutely an issue,” said Cody Zoschak, an extremism researcher at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue.

“The Pentagon has a very difficult job ahead of itself,” Zoschak added.

What the Defense Department has said and done about extremism

Extremist connections have been banned in the military for years. After Jan. 6, new recommendations to identify and address extremism in the ranks were adopted.

But Congress specifically prohibited funding efforts to counter extremism efforts in the past two National Defense Authorization Acts.

At his confirmation hearing, new Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth played down the issue of extremism in the ranks.

“Things like focusing on extremism, senator, have created a climate inside our ranks that feel political when it hasn’t ever been political. Those are the types of things that are going to change,” he said. “It was a made-up boogeyman to begin with.”

START’s report found most extremist criminals with military ties, 85%, were veterans and not active duty. Jensen said that shows the need to not only combat the issue in the ranks, but also as troops retire and return to civilian life.

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“You can’t pretend a problem away. You can’t pretend that something doesn’t exist and then hope that you’re right. We have the data. We have the evidence. We know that there’s a problem there,” he said.

The News4 I-Team reached out to the Department of Defense about any efforts to identify extremism.

Experts tell the I-Team there are still efforts to screen out recruits with extremist ideologies. Our questions to the department included what is done for those in the active ranks and transitioning out. The I-Team did not receive a response by our deadline. We will update this report if spokespeople reply.

That source knew of no federal agency that was exempt.

The Department of Veterans Affairs then announced it was letting go of 1,000 probationary employees.

There are at least 216,000 probationary employees that could be impacted, the I-Team confirmed. That is 9.4% of the total federal workforce.

Federal workers can be on probation anywhere from one to two years — before all their civil service protections kick in.

“The probationary period is a continuation of the job application process, not an entitlement for permanent employment,” an OPM spokesperson said. “Agencies are taking independent action in light of the recent hiring freeze and in support of the president’s broader efforts to restructure and streamline the federal government to better serve the American people at the highest possible standard.”

“This administration has abused the probationary period to conduct a politically driven mass firing spree, targeting employees not because of performance, but because they were hired before [President Donald] Trump took office,” American Federation of Government Employees President Everett Kelley said in a statement.

He said AFGE will fight the firings.

“These firings are not about poor performance — there is no evidence these employees were anything but dedicated public servants,” Kelley said. “They are about power. They are about gutting the federal government, silencing workers and forcing agencies into submission to a radical agenda that prioritizes cronyism over competence.”

Johanna Hickman, senior litigation counsel at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau since 2023, lost her job when the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was shuttered Tuesday.

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“Around nine o’clock on Tuesday night, all the probationary employees, as far as we know, folks in their first year of two depending what type of job they have, all probationary employees lost access to their computers, and then around 9 p.m., the termination notices started going out.”

The union representing CFPB employees filed a request for a temporary restraining order.

Less than 5% of the federal workforce took the deferred resignation offer, OPM said. The Trump administration set a higher expectation, hoping that 5% to 10% of the federal workforce would accept its offer.

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Amid the chaos, a small bipartisan group of advisors appointed by former presidents to study the federal office space portfolio hope now may also be the time to achieve a decade-old goal: shedding government buildings they say are too big and too costly to maintain.

Dong said it’s long been clear some of D.C.’s pre-war federal office buildings are too old and too big to meet modern demands. These include many flagship historic buildings housing the major agencies.

“The systems are beyond their useful life … they’re going to take some significant investment to bring up to the modern office standard,” he said.

According to estimates from the Public Buildings Reform Board – an independent group tasked with making recommendations about unused federal property – the estimated cost of modernizing the 25 federal buildings in most need of repair is roughly $8.6 billion.

“You really need to make the tough decisions in terms of: What am I going to keep and what am I going to get rid of?” Dong said. “Because you don’t have the money that you need to maintain all the buildings that you currently own.”

The conversation about what to do with outdated federal buildings began long before Trump ordered federal workers to return to the office and Musk inserted himself into core agency functions. It reflects a rare point of agreement between District leaders – who are keen to eliminate economic dead zones and spur downtown revitalization – and budget hawks who say these buildings no longer best serve the government’s mission, and prefer the ease, cost and flexibility of leased office space.

“The intent is really to preserve the historic character of the district in the Federal Triangle and the [National] Mall, but to look at buildings that are …  totally underutilized,” said David Winstead, a PBRB boardmember.

Nearly a decade ago, Congress created the bipartisan PBRB to analyze the federal real estate portfolio across the country and make recommendations about what to keep or sell.

Their work became more complicated when the pandemic sent many workers home and offices were suddenly empty. At one point, a 2023 analysis by the PBRB showed the Department of Labor building had so few people coming to work, it cost taxpayers about $180,000 per employee, just to keep the heat and lights on.

Bringing workers back to the office may lower that cost-per-person number, but Winstead and others said many of these buildings would still cost far too much to modernize to justify the number of workers there.

In 2021, the PBRB issued its first round of recommendations for properties nationwide, but so far has not made official recommendations about properties in the D.C. area. That said, at a recent public hearing, the PBRB said it’s analyzing about two dozen properties in the District, including the General Services Administration, IRS, Ronald Reagan Building and the Department of Commerce.

Winstead notes 50% of the federal government’s properties in D.C. are historic and cannot be torn down, but those could be sold for redevelopment. Like many, he points to the conversion of a former USDA property called the Cotton Annex that now houses luxury apartments as an example of what’s possible.

The I-Team found there’s widespread agreement the Department of Energy’s Brutalist headquarters, which looms over parts of L’Enfant Plaza, should be considered for demolition in an effort to revitalize the area stretching from the National Mall to the Wharf.

Winstead said none of their recommendations, however, are related to the mission of any agency.

“These are all based on workspace need, based on utilization of buildings, based on cost effectiveness of how to house that federal employee,” he said.

Like Dong, his group says some departments should give up or share some of their property with other agencies, but for years, federal bureaucracies have been reluctant to do it.

That could change as Congress recently passed a law – signed by former President Biden in his final days in office — that establishes a timeline and benchmark for agencies to report how many people come to the office, making any building with less than 60% occupancy a potential target for sale.

Some moves are already underway in the District, with Congress recently placing the Wilbur Cohen federal building for sale. The historic and massive building on Independence Avenue houses Voice of America, but is reportedly largely empty. 

“The decision making at the federal level on what buildings to keep and what buildings to dispose of will happen much more quickly, probably within the next year or two because of the clear timeline that the Congress has established,” Dong said.

It’s unclear what role Trump or Musk could play in how that unfolds, or whether they will wait for agencies to report occupancy data now required by law before making decisions about federal office space.

At last week’s PBRB meeting, newly tapped public buildings commissioner Michael Peters acknowledged the government could see up to a 50% reduction in square footage across its portfolio in coming years. And this week, Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” took to his social media platform “X” to say it has already cancelled 22 leases for office space.

The I-Team has asked GSA how many leases have been terminated since Trump took office, its plans for housing each returning worker in the short-term and whether it currently has enough office space between leased and owned properties. So far, it has not heard back.

This story was reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Katie Leslie, shot and edited by Jerry Lawlor and Jeff Piper.

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“This is the part where you kind of wait and see,” said Mack, watching her phone.

She’s used a wheelchair since she was 10 — moved to D.C. after college, she said, because our city was trying to be more accessible. When the I-Team asked if the city was keeping its promise, she responded, “Here and there.”

D.C. does has a few options for passengers with wheelchairs.

Metro trains and buses are accessible. MetroAccess works too, but it requires setting up rides days in advance and being willing to wait.

The Transport DC program offers subsidized taxi rides, but only within the district.

When it comes to ride share companies like Uber and Lyft, the District does not require them to have wheelchair accessible vehicles — even though they account for 95% of all the for-hire rides here.

That leaves taxis, which make up just 5% of all for-hire trips in D.C. Taxis are District regulated and provided 23,000 trips for people who use wheelchairs last year.

“I call it the Yeti, because it’s rumored to exist, but, you know, I rarely ever see it,” exclaimed a frustrated Mack while waiting on a taxi she had reserved days before we met up.

The District has worked to increase service. D.C. has a law mandating 20% of large cab fleets be wheelchair accessible, but the I-Team couldn’t find it’s ever been enforced.

The head of the Department of For-Hire Vehicles (DFHV) told the I-Team, “we can’t punish them into compliance.”

Passenger Naomi Hess was hopeful last year when D.C. set aside $500,000 to incentivize cabdrivers to operate Wheelchair Accessible Vehicles -paying more per hour or to work late hours.

“There really, really needs to be progress,” said Hess.  The city even set up a  Wheelchair Accessible Vehicle (WAV) hotline for people to get connected.

“I tried that pilot line multiple times and they just couldn’t find one for me. Where is the money going?” asked Hess.

The city already spent $255,000 in that pilot program and told the I-Team it generated 435 taxi trips from June to December. That’s $586 per ride.

Jonathan Rogers — the Director of DFHV, which spearheaded the pilot — wouldn’t talk to News4 on camera, but said “Council encouraged us to experiment and figure out what would change behavior… so that’s what we did.”

He said he hoped it would build momentum, and that the six new drivers with accessible vehicles added, would stick with it.

The department just launched a new pilot program in March, and says it’s offering more incentives to taxi companies and drivers. Plus, a spokesperson said it would be sending letters to all taxi companies asking for their long-term plans to address the issue.

“Anyone without a wheelchair can get an Uber, Lyft or taxi, whatever they want. It’s just not fair. And it has put me in unsafe situations,” Hess told the I-Team. 

Last fall, she had all her travel planned out so she could attend the Sabrina Carpenter concert in Baltimore. But a delayed train back to D.C. got her to Union Station at 1 a.m., leaving her with few options.

“I was forced to walk home alone in the middle of the night.”

Both she and Mack say it isn’t like this everywhere. In New York City, there are more than 12,000 wheelchair accessible taxis and ride share vehicles, according to the NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission.

The city said 46% of its taxi fleet is wheelchair accessible. By law, anyone who now wants to start driving for ride shares has to use an accessible vehicle there.

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Back in D.C., Uber has some accessible vehicles, but did not respond to our questions about how many.

While Lyft offers accessible rides in nine other cities, it does not in the District. A spokesperson told the I Team it “will continue to push for solutions that make rideshare as accessible as possible for everyone.”

As for taxis, none of the larger companies in town would talk to News4 on camera. But they did admit it’s a challenge, saying wheelchair accessible taxis are both expensive to buy and costly to maintain due mostly to their weight and modifications.

That could explain why the I-Team found so many out-of-commission vehicles in taxi lots with markings that read “junk” and “need engine and transmission.”

Back at Mack’s apartment, she still waited for confirmation her taxi was on the way. It’s been so frustrating for her that she started keeping track of all her taxi calls for the last three years.

“I had 72 attempted trips,” she said. “I averaged those years and came out with a 71% failure rate.”

Which is exactly what happened on the day we hung out with her. 

“We’ll wait a few more minutes and then probably gear up, put on the coat, head out,” she said.

But that taxi never came.

Ella Robinson contributed reporting to this investigation.

The figure caught the attention of the News4 I-Team, which has been digging into the numbers.

As the Trump administration rolled out their return-to-work plan, an unnamed senior administration official told reporters: “We’re five years past COVID and just 6 percent of federal employees work full-time in office. That is unacceptable.”

The I-Team traced the 6% number to a report Sen. Joni Ernst, Department of Government Efficiency caucus leader, published last month called “Out of Office.” Tucked in the footnotes, the I-Team found she got the figure from a “non-scientific” survey of workers done last spring by Federal News Network.

According to the outlet, it received about 6,300 responses from people who “self-reported information to verify their status as current federal employees.” Of those respondents, 6% said they work “entirely in-person,” while 64% said they worked a hybrid schedule.

Exact data on how many federal employees go to the office is hard to find.

A study last year from the Office of Management and Budget, however, reports that of the 2.28 million civilians working for the federal government, 54% work fully on site.

Of those who had permission to telework, they spent about 61% of their time in the office.

Experts in federal real estate tell the I-Team federal agencies have been slow to get reliable data on return-to-office numbers too.

That will change in coming months and years as Congress will now require agencies to report how many people are working at the office or risk buildings being sold.

“If you’re not using taxpayer dollars wisely and you have all this space that you’re paying for and it’s not being used, it’s time to do something different,” Norm Dong said.

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The I-Team reached out to the White House and Ernst’s office for clarification but did not hear back.

Even if everyone comes back to work and no one takes the resignation offer, some experts tell the I-Team the government will still own too much office space in certain areas. On Thursday, the I-Team will show how much you’re paying for empty and unworkable space and which buildings could be headed for sale.

Immigration attorneys and advocates spend hours in deportation detention facilities talking with people who have been detained. They aim to make sure they are aware of their rights and know what to expect as the process unfolds. If needed, they can assist in getting an attorney.

As President Donald Trump ramps up mass deportation efforts, immigration rights advocates say they’re worried they’re being blocked from informing people of their rights under the law, making the process less fair.

The News4 I-Team sat down with Michael Lukens, executive director of the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights. The group works in Immigration Detention and Enforcement facilities in Virginia, where people detained in the D.C. area are often taken.

“I think what a lot of Americans don’t realize is it’s not like on the criminal legal system where you get a free attorney. If you are an immigrant in detention, facing deportation, if you can’t afford an attorney, you’re going alone, and you may not speak the language. You probably don’t know the intricacies of U.S. immigration law,” he said.

Lukens said last week DOJ told organizations that receive federal funding to provide legal services to immigrants to stop work immediately.

“Some of these folks that we meet with, they don’t know why they were picked up. They don’t know what happens next,” he said. “So, this is just like the smallest piece of due process. At Amica Center, that is something that we do in ICE detention centers in Virginia. And the Department of Justice put a stop to that program, funding wise.”

That included the work Amica Center and other nonprofits were doing to inform people of their rights in detention centers, Lukens said.

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“Our staff were in the detention center because we would continue doing this without getting paid, because that’s our mission,” he said. “Our staff were told to leave, that we could not even go into a detention center and tell people what’s happening and give them an ability to figure out what’s going on their case and find an attorney. And this is going to just destroy due process in the system.”

The I-Team reached out to DOJ with questions about the stop work orders but have yet to hear back.

Amica Center is planning to join other organizations and file a lawsuit as early as this week challenging the stop work order, Lukens said. He said his team is putting pressure on congressional offices to try to get back into detention centers and also to talk by phone with people in detention, as they try to help as many people as possible.

As of 5 p.m. Wednesday, all federal workers and contractors who served in diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility (DEIA) offices or provided related trainings were placed on paid leave and will soon be laid off.

Trump called the programs discriminatory.

“Our country’s going to be based on merit,” Trump said.

The president’s effort includes every website, social media account, office and potentially worker who made an effort to ensure diversity and equity for protected groups across the government and beyond. According to his order, Trump wants agencies to monitor and report back to the White House if his directive is not followed.

The experts who spoke with the I-Team said the president’s order falsely equates DEI efforts with preference and the selection of unqualified workers. They said that’s a misinterpretation and what DEI efforts instead try to do is make sure all voices are heard and make government serve all communities.

‘The idea behind the DEIA efforts was to reduce barriers to federal opportunities’

Rob Shriver, the immediate past acting director for the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) under President Joe Biden, spoke with the News4 I-Team about the goals of DEIA work.

“The idea behind the DEIA efforts was to reduce barriers to federal opportunities for all communities,” he explained.

The current acting director of OPM under Trump sent a memo to department heads on Tuesday ordering them to notify “all employees of DEIA offices that they are being placed on paid administrative leave effective immediately.”

Several hundred to a few thousand workers could be impacted, Shriver said. He believes Americans will feel the loss of these employees.

“What’s lost is a specific emphasis on evaluating barriers that are preventing communities from across the country from accessing the benefits that they need, and that might be a rural community. It might be a community in a small town or in a city,” he said.

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Robert Tobias, of American University, is an expert in public policy implementation, including DEIA and programs focused on training the workforce and managers to be more inclusive of all groups. He said he believes Trump’s order goes too far. He said Trump has the right to abolish DEIA programs.

“I don’t think he has the right to punish federal employees by putting them on administrative leave and abolishing their jobs for doing the work they were assigned and doing it well,” Tobias said.

Republican lawmakers said Trump is doing what the American people want.

What’s next for DEIA employees

Trump’s order directs department heads to develop a plan by the end of the month for terminating DEIA employees.

Jacqueline Simon, policy director with AFGE, the largest federal worker labor union, said it’s not clear what will happen to these employees. She said some, but not all, are protected by collective bargaining agreements.

“They may or may not have an opportunity to apply for other federal jobs or be placed in other federal jobs. We really don’t know yet,” Simon said.

Few people know more about Jan. 6 cases and the evidence against defendants than Matt Graves, D.C.’s outgoing U.S. attorney. Graves led the prosecution effort. He resigns his post Thursday.

The News4 I-Team sat down with Graves and discussed Jan. 6 pardons, D.C. crime and calls for political prosecutions. He described his more than three years on the job as the “honor of a lifetime.”

Graves said he’s proud of his accomplishments. Violent crime in D.C. dropped 35% last year and could be down more this year.

“We are seeing substantial reductions in our total violent crime numbers,” he said.

But he knows there’s more to talk about at the D.C. U.S. attorney’s office as he prepares to leave.

On Graves’ watch, the office oversaw charges against nearly 1,600 people accused of crimes from the Jan. 6 insurrection. He was quick to note the office declined to charge 400 others who were on Capitol grounds that day but didn’t enter the building.

Trump has promised pardons on his first day in office to those he has called “hostages.”

Graves, not surprisingly, doesn’t agree.

“I do not believe that anyone deserves a pardon,” he told the I-Team.

Over the weekend, on “Fox News Sunday,” Vice President-elect JD Vance suggested Trump-era J6 pardons would be evaluated depending on the crime.

“If you protested peacefully on January 6th and you’ve had Merrick Garland’s Justice Department treat you like a gang member, you should be pardoned. If you committed violence on that day, obviously you shouldn’t be pardoned,” he said.

Graves said it shouldn’t matter.

“The reason it worked was because so many people were involved, many of them using violence and many of them riding the coattails of those using violence, such that they were able to get into the Capitol,” he said, adding, “When we’re talking with individuals who are not personally charged with nonviolent crimes, they were part of a mob that overtook a federal building, a federal building that happened to be the Capitol building, and many did so with the intent of stopping business that was occurring that day. Now, my personal view is whenever someone tries to take over a federal building, they should be held criminally accountable for that. But particularly so when you’re talking about the seminal federal building, the Capitol, and they were motivated to do so because they wanted to stop the functioning of government.”

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Even as Graves spoke, trials against J6 defendants were moving ahead.

“We are going to continue to charge cases that we believe should be charged,” he said.

Out of respect for the next administration, Graves wouldn’t say if the Trump transition team has talked to his office about J6 cases.

What Matt Graves said about political prosecutions

He cautioned the next U.S. attorney for D.C. to avoid calls for political prosecutions.

“If everyone understands that the new way of doing business is we’re just going to make up a bunch of things because we don’t like the current administration and we are going to look to go after career people who are trying to do the right thing and make up things about them, it is going to make it harder to attract qualified people to these jobs,” he said. “And that’s a really bad place for us to be as a country.”

Graves said he’s not worried about being a target for leading the J6 prosecutions and didn’t even consider asking President Joe Biden for a pre-emptive pardon.

“I’ve just never entertained that idea. There’s nothing to be pardoned for,” Graves said.

During the campaign, Trump made various statements about possibly targeting people who had upset him, including potentially using the Department of Justice to prosecute people he thought were corrupt. The D.C. U.S. attorney’s office could be saddled with any of those potential prosecutions.

Graves said he’s confident about a smooth transition and that his view is there will be so much for the next U.S. attorney to focus on, prosecuting politicians may not rise to the top of the list. Asked if that was wishful thinking, Graves only said it’s his view of what will happen.

The probe will look at crashes involving the Tesla app that allows drivers to remotely move their vehicles using their phone without being in the car.

Consumer Investigative Reporter Susan Hogan and the I-Team broke the story in October after hearing from a Maryland woman who said a car without a driver crashed into her vehicle in a parking lot.

Now, NHTSA will investigate any connections between crashes and the high-tech app Smart Summon — and a newer version launched in September, Actually Smart Summon — which are supposed to summon vehicles to drivers without anyone in the car. It is in more than 2 million Teslas.

“They’re releasing them too early, before they’ve been, you know, validated as safe, before they’ve been validated to work properly,” said Michael Brooks of the Center for Auto Safety, who spoke to the I-Team last year after hearing from Tamara Meyer, who said a driver using an earlier version of the App hit her car.

“I saw no one in the car,” she said. “There was no driver, no passenger. It was an empty car that was driving itself into my car.”

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With Jan. 6 pardons expected, lawyer for 43 defendants talks about her role

The I-Team visited the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety last year to see how the Smart Summon app is supposed to work and saw mixed results with the driverless car turning into a curb and almost hitting other vehicles.

NHTSA says it launched an investigation after media reports and a crash complaint to the Office of Defects Investigation where four cars using the feature allegedly crashed after failing to detect posts or parked vehicles.

The agency added, “ODI is aware of multiple crash allegations, involving both Smart Summon and Actually Smart Summon, where the user had too little reaction time to avoid a crash, either with the available line of sight or releasing the phone app button, which stops the vehicle’s movement.”

NHTSA said it plans to investigate how fast a vehicle can go when using the Actually Smart Summon app, use on public roads and any line-of-sight requirements.

On its website, Tesla says the features are only meant to be used in parking lots and driveways on private property and that the operator must always have a clear line of sight to monitor the vehicle.

NHTSA said Tesla has not reported any Smart Summon or Actually Smart Summon crashes through the Standing General Order for crashes involving ADS or Level 2 ADAS (advanced driver assistance systems including features like Summons or cruise control), which requires reporting of crashes on publicly accessible roads.

The I-Team reached out to Tesla about the probe but did not receive a response.

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They say these are their vigil’s final days. They insist President-elect Donald Trump, the man who brought them to D.C. on Jan. 6 four years ago, will keep his promise to pardon those who have come to be known as J6ers.

More than 1,100 defendants have been sentenced, and Jan. 6 investigations are ongoing. More than 200 people have been identified but not yet arrested for alleged crimes that day, NBC News reports.

The News4 I-Team spoke with three men convicted of J6 crimes, plus their supporters. Each believe some of those charged or convicted in a J6 case will see pardons just days from now. Trump has referred to J6 inmates as hostages and Jan. 6, 2021, as a “day of love.”

In an op-ed published in Monday’s Washington Post, President Joe Biden warned, “An unrelenting effort has been underway to rewrite – even erase – the history of that day. To tell us we didn’t see what we all saw with our own eyes. To dismiss concerns about it as some kind of partisan obsession. To explain it away as a protest that just got out of hand.”

Former Capitol Police officer and assault victim Aquilino Gonell told NBC News, “Instead of praising the rioters who fought us, the officers, [Trump] should remember the police that died fighting his minions because of his actions inactions in his attempt to remain in power by force.”

Whether J6ers deserve pardons is a tough question to answer for many people with a connection to the Capitol attack – even for some of the Capitol’s most ardent defenders that day.

“I think on Day 1, January 20th, when President Trump gets into office, he’s going to address the situation regarding January 6th immediately,” Gregory Purdy, who was convicted of Jan. 6 crimes, said on speakerphone to the I-Team from inside the D.C. jail.

Purdy and Robert Turner, who also spoke with the I-Team, were convicted in June by a D.C. jury of 21 crimes committed on Jan. 6. The most serious was assaulting police officers.

Video entered as evidence in court shows Purdy and Turner at the Capitol that day. Purdy called himself a “leader in peaceful pushes” against police barricades. Prosecutors did not call his actions peaceful, and a jury convicted him on two counts of assaulting an officer.

“Nobody had a fair trial,” Purdy argued.

Rep. Jamie Raskin and former U.S. Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund weigh in

Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin was at the Capitol that day too and served on the Jan. 6 committee.

“I haven’t seen that there was any miscarriage of justice or any breach of due process. On the contrary, these people got every right afforded to people in our system,” he told the I-Team.

Raskin said he opposes mass pardons.

“A mass pardon without any explanation sends the message that if you participate in an insurrection incited by Donald Trump, you will be pardoned for it if Donald Trump has the opportunity to pardon you,” he said.

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With Jan. 6 pardons expected, lawyer for 43 defendants talks about her role

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The question of whether to pardon, or who to pardon, is not so cut and dry – even for the man in charge of security at the Capitol that day, former U.S. Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund.

“I think about that day every day,” he said, calling what he saw on Jan. 6 “some of the most brutal attacks on law enforcement I’ve seen.”

“I think if he goes in and does a blanket pardon, I think that’s that raises a lot of concerns about people that are really involved in violence,” Sund said.

Neither Raskin nor Sund told the I-Team they think all of the nearly 1,600 J6 defendants deserve clemency from the president.

“There are people who are in there for nonviolent offenses. They trespass, they disobey the lawful order. Maybe they destroy property. That’s different from people who violently assaulted officers. So, I think there are distinctions that can be drawn, but we need to talk about it at that level of specificity,” Raskin said.

‘I think a pardon is a wonderful idea’

Attorney Heather Shaner knows more than most about J6 cases. She said she’s represented 43 defendants so far.

“I don’t think you can pardon people who tried to destroy America. I mean, there’s a difference between people who walked peacefully, more or less in and around the Capitol, and people who violently attacked the police,” she said.

The longtime D.C. resident said she has turned down any case that involved violence.

“My function as an attorney was not to convert them politically; my function was to make them understand,” she said.

From her home office in Dupont Circle, Shaner sent her jailed clients copies of the Constitution, “The Federalist Papers” and videos of her clients inside the Capitol, trying to ensure they understood the gravity of that day.

All 43 of her J6 clients pleaded guilty. Shaner said none have asked for a pardon or even a delay until Trump takes office.

“I think a pardon is a wonderful idea,” she said. “Not for people who knowingly and intentionally tried to destroy our democracy, because I think the standard for a pardon there should be a little higher. But for schmucks who walked in and took pictures next to photographs of presidents and the statues in Statuary Hall and then walked out, I think it’s fine if they get a pardon.”

Which brings the I-Team back to that frigid corner outside the D.C. jail.

“I didn’t break anything. I didn’t hurt anybody,” said Dominic Box. He has been in the jail for a year-and-a-half for nonviolent crimes on Jan. 6: civil disorder and disorderly conduct.

Box repeatedly entered the Capitol that day. He doesn’t deny it and there are plenty of photos in his indictment to prove it.

Box said he expects to be pardoned.

“I take President Donald J. Trump at his word,” he said. “If it doesn’t happen on day one and if it’s not soon, I know it will come eventually.”

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Rick Yarborough, shot by Jerry Lawlor and Jeff Piper, and edited by Jeff Piper

“I was horrified. I mean, how could you not be horrified?” she recalled.

Less than two months later, Shaner found herself representing a woman who was at the Capitol that day. Her client pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor of parading, demonstrating or picketing at the Capitol.

Since then, Shaner has represented 42 other J6 defendants, she said. They all pleaded guilty.

“I’ve said no to cases where people injured the police. I’ve said no to cases where people desecrated the Capitol. Other than that, everybody deserves a lawyer,” she said.

“Do they deserve you?” the News4 I-Team asked.

“They’re damn lucky if they get me,” she replied with a laugh.

Nearly 1,600 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the Jan. 6 insurrection and more than 1,000 have been sentenced. As Donald Trump prepares to return to the White House, discussions are underway about whether Trump will soon pardon many of those who have come to be known as J6ers.

Shaner said she hasn’t taken on J6 cases because she believes the presidential election was stolen; there’s no evidence of that. She doesn’t believe due process was denied and isn’t a MAGA supporter. In fact, she’s far from it.

“My function as an attorney was not to convert them politically. My function was to make them understand what our foundation documents are, what our constitutional rights are, what our civic responsibilities are,” she said.

Shaner said she sent each of her clients at the D.C. jail copies of the Constitution, “The Federalist Papers,” Thomas Paine’s writings and videos of their own actions on Jan. 6.

“I mean, if you start out with a whole bunch of baloney and you don’t know it’s baloney, you’re going to keep exercising your choices based on incorrect information,” she said.

Shaner’s experience with J6 cases is now the centerpiece of a documentary called “Public Defender.” It chronicles her work with some clients and their journey to take and sometimes wrestle with their own culpability.

“I wanted the world to know that we can reach out to each other and we can love each other and we can educate each other,” she said.

Why Ashli Babbitt’s mother says she doesn’t think Trump will ‘leave these men behind’

That hasn’t been the path for many of the J6 defendants not represented by Shaner, who cling to their innocence even after jury verdicts to the contrary.

Outside the D.C. jail, supporters have held a nightly vigil for more than two years for J6 inmates, who Trump has referred to as “hostages.”

Micki Witthoeft’s daughter, Ashli Babbitt, died on Jan. 6 after she was shot by U.S. Capitol Police as she tried to climb through a window onto the House floor. Witthoeft is a near-constant presence at the rallies, where protesters think Trump will soon pardon each of the people charged.

“Any time I’ve ever spoken with him and he said he’s going to do something, he does it,” Witthoeft told the I-Team. “I don’t think he’s going to leave these men behind.”

Shaner doesn’t see the events of Jan. 6 the same way or believe every case should be treated the same.

“I think a pardon is a wonderful idea. Not for people who knowingly and intentionally tried to destroy our democracy, because I think the standard for a pardon there should be a little higher,” she said. “But for schmucks who walked in and took pictures next to photographs of presidents and the statues in Statuary Hall and then walked out, I think it’s fine if they get a pardon.”

“Public Defender,” the award-winning documentary featuring Shaner, is currently streaming and the filmmakers will host a screening at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library in downtown D.C. the night of Jan. 9. Go here for info.

Reported by Ted Oberg; produced by Rick Yarborough; shot by Jerry Lawlor and Jeff Piper; and edited by Jeff Piper

In a briefing with reporters including the News4 I Team on Friday, Graves attributed a large percentage of that crime drop to his office’s relentless focus on the few hundred people committing the most serious gun crimes in the District.

“What you see … in 2022, 2023 and 2024 is crew after crew – five people, 10 people, 15 people – being taken off the street at a time. The reason those crews were picked was because in our estimation, they were the ones that we would get the most positive benefit to the community from removing in terms of the violence we were seeing.”

Graves told reporters prosecutors in his office “can influence but not control” violent crime trends, insisting the drop in crime was not solely timing but a result of the work done by the U.S. attorney’s office and their law enforcement partners.

In previous years, there was great concern over what was perceived as a low “papering rate,” the number of arrests that end up being prosecuted. While Graves insists that concern was overblown, statistics from his office now show the rate is twice as high as it was two years ago for violent crime and gun crimes.

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Graves also gave credit to enhancements made by the new Secure D.C. law. More people are held in jail. Graves said it’s now easier to hold people in custody awaiting trial and easier to prosecute gun cases, including cases involving so-called Glock switches and cases in which a suspect drops a weapon while running from police.

Looking ahead, Graves said he believes investigations are already underway that will drive down violent crime in 2025. He insisted he is not worried the change in federal administrations could impact the progress being made.

“The future is always uncertain,” Graves told the I-Team. “All I can say is I saw great cooperation when I came in between the Metropolitan Police Department and our law enforcement partners. We continued that trend line and even increased the amount of cooperation. All of the local officials are committed to that cooperation, and I’m cautiously optimistic that it will continue.”

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Homicides dropped by 35% in 2024, a decrease of 80 killings. Graves is predicting another drop in homicides in D.C. in 2025. He said he is worried, however, about how long it’s taking to prosecute those cases. Some murder cases are now being set to go to trial in 2027, which he blamed on the D.C. judicial vacancy crisis that will take Senate action to cure.

A day after the verdict on former Culpeper County Sheriff Scott Jenkins, the News4 I-Team spoke with a federal prosecutor and FBI agent who investigated him for years.

The case surprised even some of the most experienced prosecutors.

“This was not a case that was close to the line or close to the edge. This really struck in the heartland of corruption,” Chris Kavanaugh, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Virginia, told the I-Team.

He said his team suspected early on that Jenkins was taking bribes for badges. What they heard on undercover recordings was eye-opening.

“That was some of the most devastating recordings that I have ever seen in my 18-year career with the Justice Department,” Kavanaugh said. “It was so explicit.”

“That did not work out for him,” said Stanley Meador, the FBI special agent in charge of the Richmond field division.

“This particular case is a public corruption case because you had a corrupt individual taking advantage of the situation to line his own pockets,” Meador said.

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Jenkins always insisted he did nothing wrong. He had explanations for the payments, denied some rules or laws applied to him, and at one point on the stand claimed he had just 10 weeks of law enforcement training decades ago.

“Even though he may have humble beginnings, he knew right from wrong and was the leader of an entire law enforcement department,” Kavanaugh said.

Jenkins did not speak with the I-Team after the verdict and his attorneys didn’t say much either.

“We’re disappointed in the verdict and we intend to keep fighting,” defense attorney Phil Andonian said outside the courthouse.

Months before the trial, Jenkins’ lawyers said in an online fundraiser that Jenkins was a victim of the Justice Department under President Joe Biden, suggesting his outspoken support of gun rights made him a target.

“Did anyone ever tell you to bring this case because he was a strong Second Amendment supporter?” the I-Team asked Meador, the FBI agent.

“Absolutely not,” he replied.

It’s possible Jenkins could be angling for a pardon from President-elect Donald Trump.

Kavanaugh, the prosecutor, pushed back against the notion.

“That is not appropriate for a pardon, given how egregious the conduct was here and that there’s absolutely no evidence this was a political prosecution,” he said.

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Kavanaugh, who leaves office this week, says his team will recommend a lengthy prison sentence for the former sheriff when he’s sentenced in March. He said he hopes the case will remind public servants of the oath they take.

At the end of the weeklong trial in Charlottesville, prosecutors described the evidence against Jenkins as “abundant and devastating.” Jurors appeared to agree, taking less than two-and-a-half hours to find him guilty on every count.

The former sheriff sat stoically as the verdict was read, his family sitting behind him.

Federal prosecutors said Jenkins took more than $75,000 in bribes from people he made auxiliary deputies, claiming their badges would allow them to carry concealed weapons in all 50 states. Donors said they also wanted the badges to help them get out of speeding tickets. Jenkins’ defense said the funds were legal campaign contributions and a “provocative” and “creative response” to defending gun rights by building up the auxiliary program.

Jenkins, who pleaded not guilty, could face significant jail time, according to prosecutors.

The testimony heard at trial confirmed many of the allegations against Jenkins the News4 I-Team has reported for almost two years. The I-Team learned in April 2023 that the FBI seized $10,000 from Jenkins’ campaign account that January, amidst signs of a larger investigation. Jenkins was indicted nearly a year-and-a-half later.

While prosecutors argued to have Jenkins taken into custody, the judge allowed him to remain on bond until sentencing. Jenkins left the courthouse with his family and didn’t address the verdict.

“We’re disappointed in the verdict and we intend to keep fighting,” defense attorney Phil Andonian told the I-Team.

The I-Team asked if Jenkins’ team would seek an appeal or pardon.

“I don’t know. We’re considering all of our options,” Andonian said.

The case against Jenkins

Jenkins first attracted national attention in late 2019, as the Virginia General Assembly considered changes to the commonwealth’s gun laws. At the time, Jenkins repeatedly said he would deputize thousands of auxiliary deputies to circumvent any possible new Virginia firearms restrictions.

Jenkins ran the Culpeper County Sheriff’s Office from 2012 to 2023. Federal prosecutors said for many of those years, he gave auxiliary deputy badges to people who paid him thousands of dollars in checks and cash. Prosecutors said some of the money was deposited in Jenkins’ campaign accounts, while much of it was deposited directly into his personal accounts.

Court records filed in final preparation for the trial alleged “the origins of the bribery scheme” went back to 2011, when Jenkins was first running for office. A donor to that campaign gave $5,000 and was later sworn in as auxiliary deputy in 2012, according to records. Jenkins was not charged with any crime connected to that payment, but the same court records alleged Jenkins and that donor worked since 2015 to find other “wealthy Northern Virginia businessmen who wanted to be sworn as auxiliary deputies in exchange for campaign contributions.”

“Scott Jenkins used his position as sheriff to line his pockets and benefit himself. You will hear the same story again and again. Instead of serving people, the only people he chose to serve was himself,” a prosecutor told the jury at the trial’s start.

Three co-defendants pleaded guilty to paying bribes to Jenkins.

Kevin Rychlik told jurors he was a trusted aide to Jenkins for almost a decade. He said he turned the FBI onto Jenkins’ alleged scheme and went on to record hours of conversations between himself and Jenkins.

Rychlik testified that in 2011 he gave Jenkins a $5,000 donation and got an auxiliary deputy badge in return, giving him the same rights as a sworn deputy.

Rychlik said he ended up becoming a key campaign fundraiser for Jenkins, recruiting Rick Rahim to donate to Jenkins and calling him a “big fish” in text messages the jury saw. There were others, including Fred Gumbinner, Rychlik testified, with Rychlik telling jurors he was usually there himself when money and badges changed hands.

Prosecutors say when the IRS came knocking on Rychlik’s door in 2019, asking about millions in taxes Rychlik hadn’t paid on his businesses, Rychlik turned on his longtime friend. He told the FBI Jenkins was “taking money for bribes for credentials.”

The FBI turned Rychlik into an informant and set him up to record meeting after meeting between himself and Jenkins.

Prosecutors say a recording captured Jenkins speaking to Rychlik about Rahim, a convicted felon who pleaded guilty to bribing Jenkins and in return getting a badge and restored firearm rights.

“You got a felony record, you got a clean record and can carry a firearm, and we followed it up by swearing you in. Name another sheriff in the State of Virginia that would do that,” Jenkins said in the recordings presented by prosecutors.

On cross-examination, Jenkins’ defense worked to discredit Rychlik, reminding jurors he was the person who brought the donors, including two undercover FBI agents, to Jenkins and that Rychlik’s tax problems could be helped by his cooperation in the case.

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‘It’s perfectly OK’: What Jenkins testified in his defense

Jenkins’ defense lawyers said his actions were a “provocative” defense of Second Amendment rights. They said donors “supported his idea with time, their service. They supported it with their money,” a lawyer said. “They gave and they gave big.”

An online fundraiser for Jenkins compares him to President-elect Donald Trump and includes a post by one of his attorneys saying, “Sheriff Scott Jenkins is under attack from the Biden DOJ and needs your help.” It’s raised just over $9,000 to date.

Jenkins himself took the stand Tuesday and explained to the jury why he says he’s innocent. It marked the first time we heard Jenkins respond to the allegations.

In a Charlottesville courtroom packed with Jenkins’ relatives, the former sheriff told jurors he did not take bribes; instead, he said the money was funding for a political campaign.

“Accepting donations for your campaign is perfectly OK,” he said.

Jenkins’ defense lawyers have maintained throughout the trial that Jenkins was worried about building what he called his campaign war chest. They said the alleged-bribes-for-badges scheme was not what it seemed.

“I understand in hindsight how it appears,” Jenkins told the jury.

He later said the repeated lunches and money for provided badge captured on FBI undercover cameras were nothing more than political glad-handing,

“If you’re an elected official with a brain, you’d try to meet them,” he said.

“It looks like something it isn’t,” he added. “It’s perfectly OK.”

On cross-examination, Jenkins told the jury he had the authority to appoint anyone he saw fit as an auxiliary deputy. He said auxiliary deputy ordinances in Culpeper didn’t apply to him as an elected constitutional sheriff. He said he never read his own general order on the auxiliary deputy program.

Jenkins seemed frustrated under cross-examination and told prosecutors there were several questions he couldn’t answer or didn’t understand. He questioned whether texts found on his phone in government searches were actually his.

“I took an oath to tell the whole truth,” he said. “[…] You’re tearing me apart over the least little things […] you don’t understand.”

Verdict follows years of I-Team reporting on Jenkins

The News4 I-Team first learned of the investigation into then-sheriff Jenkins in April 2023, when the FBI filed a notice it had seized $10,000 from Jenkins’ campaign account on Jan. 31, 2023. A few weeks earlier, the I-Team learned several Culpeper County employees had been subpoenaed to offer testimony to a federal grand jury.

The I-Team learned of a large number of auxiliary deputies appointed by Jenkins. In searches of Culpeper County court records, the I-Team found 46 auxiliary deputies appointed by Jenkins and sworn in by a circuit court judge. That is more than double the number of auxiliary deputies authorized by a Culpeper County ordinance that says auxiliary deputies are “not to exceed fifteen (15) percent of the paid force.”

The program seemed to violate state law and county ordinance. The I-Team raised those questions in April 2023. Jenkins never responded until he testified Tuesday, saying those rules and laws didn’t apply to him.

The number of deputies is far from the only question the I-Team had about the program. According to the sheriff’s general order, auxiliary deputies are supposed to be trained. According to the results of a Virginia Freedom of Information Act request, the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services only had training records for three of the 46 auxiliaries. There was no evidence background checks were conducted. Rahim, one of the auxiliary deputies, had felony convictions in his past. In court, Jenkins said he never read that general order and would have redrafted it had he seen it.

Jenkins and three co-defendants were indicted on June 28, 2023. All three co-defendants later pleaded guilty.

That July, the I-Team learned one auxiliary deputy was found in Texas with a pricey assault rifle owned by the people of Culpeper County. The I-Team asked Jenkins why the man had the gun but didn’t get a response. The question of how many other county-owned guns were in Culpeper and elsewhere wasn’t mentioned in the indictment and didn’t come up during the trial, but the current sheriff confirmed he got guns from all over the country, including the one from Texas.

During the trial, former Culpeper County Sheriff’s Office employees testified that working under the former sheriff could be stressful, with one describing a culture of fear and bullying.

Back in 2017, the I-Team talked to former deputies who accused Jenkins of creating a hostile atmosphere for law enforcement employees. Jenkins rebutted the criticism and questioned why the deputies sought to remain anonymous, calling them disgruntled ex-employees and politically motivated. Agency records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act confirmed staff resignations, terminations and retirements in sheriff’s office far outpaced those in other local sheriff’s departments.

In 2019, the I-Team reported a charity operated by the sheriff’s office potentially violated federal tax rules by helping support the sheriff’s re-election campaign with campaign signs posted at an annual Halloween event, according to a two-year investigation by the I-Team.

The sheriff’s office also drew scrutiny from citizens and a taxpayer watchdog group for using county jail inmates to work at the home of the sheriff’s brother to support one of the charity’s fundraisers.

At the time, a spokesperson for the then-sheriff said there was nothing inappropriate happening.

After Wednesday’s verdict, Jenkins is scheduled to be sentenced March 31.

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“Kind of like trustworthy,” a student responds.

A new pilot program with the DC Office of the State Superintendent of Education aims to arm kids with tools to identify online misinformation. The News4 I-Team got a look at the lessons inside Inspired Teaching Public Charter School, in Northeast.

Students were learning tools such as lateral reading. Instead of trusting one website, they were instructed to visit several sites and research who’s publishing the information to determine potential motives or bias.

“The kids are already so much more aware of what they’re consuming,” seventh and eighth grade teacher Brie Wattier said.

The lessons were developed with help from the University of Maryland.

“It’s critical that schools teach them how to deal with that flood of information that’s coming at them when they consult the internet to learn more about issues,” said Sarah McGrew, UMD assistant professor. She helped design the civics course and train its teachers.

Eighth graders often learn about the world from Google, followed by TikTok, Instagram or Snapchat.

Younger generations have never known a world without social media or the internet. A third of adults get their news from social media, research by the Pew Research Center showed, making them potential targets for disinformation.

Studies on students’ knowledge on identifying online misinformation have shown students who have this skill not only use it but can tell the difference between fact and fiction online.

A researcher’s warning about propaganda

What’s spreading online is often more insidious than disinformation or misinformation, said Renée DiResta, professor and author of “Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies into Reality.”

“When people are talking about social media misinformation, particularly the media, what they’re more often referring to are propaganda campaigns,” she said.

Propaganda spread online can have dangerous consequences.

During the 2016 presidential campaign, an online conspiracy theory alleging Democrats were leading a child trafficking ring inside a D.C. pizza restaurant got millions of views. It led one man to open fire inside the business. He said he was trying to save the children.

“It’s very disturbing,” Mayor Muriel Bowser said at the time. “It speaks to how irresponsible rhetoric can have significant consequences.”

During this last election cycle, unfounded claims of Haitian migrants in Ohio eating dogs and cats began on Facebook then quickly spread, even becoming a Republican talking point during the presidential debate.

“That’s a propaganda campaign,” DiResta said. “This is a rumor that’s used in service to political propaganda, and just fact checking it is not going to correct the record or sway the hearts and minds of the people who are sharing it.”

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The I-Team asked DiResta what she expected to see next in propaganda or disinformation.

“My fear is that people are exhausted and that they’re not going to fight and that they’re not going to try to find out the truth,” she replied.

“What are your thoughts when you hear that there are kids who are learning how to tell the difference between fact and fiction?” the I-Team asked DiResta.

“I think it’s fantastic. I think it needs to be more than kids,” she replied.

How students say the class changed how they use the internet

McGrew, the UMD professor, also said she hopes more schools will teach online literacy, and at younger ages.

“I think in terms of building those habits of critically evaluating online sources, those can start in elementary school,” she said.

At Inspired Teaching Public Charter School, students said their class on internet literacy already has changed what they do online.

“I think background research is very, very important,” student Sifan Abu said.

“Everyone should know, like, to check other sources and check other websites to see if the source that they’re looking at is actually true,” student Nardo Belete said.

The I-Team asked: Do you think some grownups could use some of the lessons you all have learned?

“Yeah,” Nardo said with a smile.

Fourteen schools across D.C. are participating in the civics course pilot this school year. All D.C. schools will begin “action civics” for eighth graders next year. Fifty will teach the online literacy course, and the hope is more teachers will be trained soon.

Rychlik went on to record hours of conversations between himself and Jenkins, making up much of the prosecution’s case.

Rychlik testified that in 2011 he gave Jenkins a $5,000 donation and got an auxiliary deputy badge in return, giving him the same rights as a sworn deputy.

Rychlik said he ended up becoming a key campaign fundraiser for Jenkins, recruiting Rick Rahim to donate to Jenkins and calling him a “big fish” in text messages the jury saw. There were others, including Fred Gumbinner, Rychlik testified, with Rychlik telling jurors he was usually there himself when money and badges changed hands.

Jenkins has pleaded not guilty and is expected to take the stand Tuesday.

Prosecutors say when the IRS came knocking on Rychlik’s door in 2019, asking about millions in taxes Rychlik hadn’t paid on his businesses, Rychlik turned on his longtime friend. He told the FBI Jenkins was “taking money for bribes for credentials.”

The FBI turned Rychlik into an informant and set him up to record meeting after meeting between himself and Jenkins. With Jenkins sitting nearby in court, jurors heard recordings of Jenkins talking about the alleged scheme.

Prosecutors say a recording captured Jenkins speaking to Rychlik about Rahim, a convicted felon who pleaded guilty to bribing Jenkins and in return getting a badge and restored firearm rights.

“You got a felony record, you got a clean record and can carry a firearm, and we followed it up by swearing you in. Name another sheriff in the State of Virginia that would do that,” Jenkins said in the recordings presented by prosecutors.

Jenkins added: “I feel like we were very equitable … I truly feel what support Rahim gave me, I more than made up for by doing more than I told him originally.”

As jurors listened to Jenkins’ voice – and in other moments watched him take envelopes and gift bags prosecutors said had checks and cash inside – the former sheriff took notes but showed little emotion.

On cross-examination, Jenkins’ defense worked to discredit Rychlik, reminding jurors he was the person who brought the donors, including two undercover FBI agents, to Jenkins and that Rychlik’s tax problems could be helped by his cooperation in the case.

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News4 I-Team Nov 14, 2024

Culpeper ex-sheriff's trial postponed after panic attacks, judge says

Rychlik “needed to work something out,” Jenkins’ defense said earlier in the trial. “He needed to save himself. He came to government and spun a tale … of conspiracy and bribery.”

The case against Jenkins is expected to wrap up this week.

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Prosecutors showed jurors the personal attention Jenkins allegedly lavished on Rick Rahim, who already pleaded guilty to paying for a badge. Jenkins has pleaded not guilty.

Rahim, a convicted felon, admitted on the stand Thursday he bribed Jenkins with $25,000 cash, gave thousands in a loan he said he was never paid back and bought the sheriff’s office an expensive drone.

“I participated in bribing Mr. Jenkins to obtain things like obtaining gun permits and being sworn in as an auxiliary deputy,” Rahim told jurors.

He testified Jenkins gave him a lease on a Jenkins family property, allowing Rahim to fake his residency in Culpeper, though he said on the stand he never lived there.

Jenkins defense called the alleged bribes campaign donations and told the jury Jenkins never accepted a bribe.

Jurors were led through Jenkins’ official campaign finance filings on Friday. Payments from two of the men who pleaded guilty and admitted bribing Jenkins $20,000 or more were not listed on the forms, according to testimony.

Culpeper courthouse staffers testified Jenkins himself took Rahim to the clerk’s office to drop off paperwork to restore his firearms rights and personally pushed a judge and commonwealth’s attorney to fast-track the process in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Those same staffers told the jury deputies repeatedly visited the clerk’s office to check on firearms paperwork for Rahim, the only time most of them could recall that happening.

A former deputy told the jury Jenkins asked him to make a special sheriff’s office identification card identifying Rahim as a member of the office, as a helicopter pilot. Rahim said he owned a helicopter. But that former deputy said the Culpeper County Sheriff’s Office did not.

News4 I-Team Dec 13, 2024

Culpeper ex-sheriff's defense cites ‘provocative' gun rights plan, not bribes

News4 I-Team Nov 14, 2024

Culpeper ex-sheriff's trial postponed after panic attacks, judge says

News4 I-Team Nov 11, 2024

Culpeper ex-sheriff accused of giving badges for $70K+ in bribes to face jury

A second former auxiliary sheriff’s deputy, Fred Gumbinner, said on the stand Friday he used his auxiliary badge to get a COVID vaccine in Florida as a first responder, get through TSA PreCheck and drive around a traffic jam.

He testified he paid $20,000 for a badge because he thought it would be cool and would help him get out of speeding tickets. Like Rahim, he also already pleaded guilty to bribing the sheriff.

The defense is expected to argue their case next week.

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Making their case for the first time in federal court in Charlottesville, Jenkins’ attorneys told jurors his actions in support of Second Amendment rights were a “creative response” and “provocative.” They said donors “supported his idea with time, their service. They supported it with their money,” a lawyer said. “They gave and they gave big.”

“You won’t hear any credible evidence that Mr. Jenkins accepted a bribe,” the defense said. “Scott Jenkins did no such thing and committed no crime.”

The testimony confirmed much of what the News4 I-Team has reported about the case since April 2023. Jenkins is accused of taking bribes from people who allegedly wanted law enforcement badges making them auxiliary deputies.

“It really is pretty simple,” prosecutors told the jury. “Scott Jenkins used his position as sheriff to line his pockets and benefit himself. You will hear the same story again and again. Instead of serving people, the only people he chose to serve was himself.”

Auxiliary deputies had no training and were not vetted, prosecutors said.

“There was no expectation they would assist the people of Culpeper County,” an attorney said. “Their only duty was to get bribe money to the sheriff.”

They said Jenkins needed money, was spending more than he had and was in debt.

Former auxiliary deputy Rick Rahim, who pleaded guilty to bribery, testified. He told the jury he wanted his right to own a gun restored. He lost those rights decades earlier after a felony conviction and wanted the benefits of a badge.

“I drive too fast,” he said. “Cops don’t write cops tickets.”

News4 I-Team Nov 14, 2024

Culpeper ex-sheriff's trial postponed after panic attacks, judge says

News4 I-Team Nov 13, 2024

Judge: Culpeper ex-sheriff must appear for corruption trial after anxiety attack

News4 I-Team Nov 11, 2024

Culpeper ex-sheriff accused of giving badges for $70K+ in bribes to face jury

Jenkins’ defense said three co-defendants who pleaded guilty to paying bribes made deals with the government, and questioned their truthfulness. They alleged the main witness against Jenkins “spun a tale” of bribery and conspiracy.

Jenkins himself was quiet as he walked into court to finally begin fighting the charges.

Gunfire affects nearly every school in D.C. Just two of the District’s 566 public and charter schools went 10 years without a single shooting nearby, a joint investigation by the News4 I-Team and The Trace Gun Violence Data Hub found. Science and residents’ own lived experience show the violence young people see, hear and have to cope with is taking a toll.

A 5-year-old girl named Shilo is in kindergarten at Ketcham Elementary School in the Anacostia neighborhood. Her mom, Sam, picks her up every day, then she only plays indoors. When the kindergartener and her mom hear gunshots, “I tell her it’s fireworks,” her mom said.

“I don’t want her to feel afraid,” she said.

An analysis of every shooting in D.C. from 2014 to 2023 by The Trace’s Gun Violence Data Hub calculated how close each shooting was to D.C.’s public and charter schools. The I-Team and the Trace examined shootings within 500 yards of a school, which is about four blocks in any direction.

The Trace’s analysis led the I-Team to the neighborhood around Ketcham Elementary, at Marion Barry Avenue and 15th Street. No school in D.C. had more shootings nearby in that time period than Ketcham Elementary, with 195 shootings from 2014 to 2023.

A little more than a third of these shootings occurred during daytime hours.

That’s 195 times that children studying, playing, eating or sleeping likely heard gunshots. Maybe they walked past a crime scene. Maybe they asked their mom a nervous question. Or they just swallowed the uncertainty and didn’t say a thing.

Encounters with gun violence are familiar to many D.C. children, said Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Jamila White, who represents the area around Ketcham Elementary.

“They notice the police activity. They notice everything that’s happening. They have to walk through it. They have to drive through it. They have to experience it,” she said.

How shootings affect almost every DC school

Gun violence might be easier to try to solve if it just affected one part of D.C. or one group of children. But virtually every school and family is affected.

There are 566 D.C. public and public charter schools in the data the I-Team examined with The Trace.

Only two schools went 10 years without a single shooting nearby: Key Elementary School in the Palisades and Stoddert Elementary School in Glover Park. Just two out of 566 campuses.

“It’s a citywide issue that everyone is dealing with,” said White.

How shootings uniquely affect DC school communities

Data from The Trace shows shootings near schools increased in D.C. in recent years even as they fell in similar cities.

Gun crimes are down this year in D.C. compared to last year, but there still have been hundreds of shootings.

Virginia experienced about three school-adjacent shootings per 100,000 residents. Maryland had about nine school-adjacent shootings. In D.C., that number was 90 shootings per 100,000 residents.

Use this map from The Trace Gun Violence Data Hub to look up shootings near any school in the United States.

‘We should be upset’ by the effects shootings have on kids, pediatrician says

Studies show kids who see, hear or live near chronic violence have more anxiety, more health issues and lower math and reading scores. Proximity to violence in a community disrupts learning, a 2010 study by three Johns Hopkins University professors found.

“Increasing neighborhood violence was associated with statistically significant decreases from 4.2% to 8.7% in math and reading achievement, the researchers found.

Children coping with gun violence also can be faced with depression, anxiety, trouble sleeping, a feeling of hyper vigilance and an inability to trust people, said Jo Richardson, a gun violence researcher at the University of Maryland’s PROGRESS Center.

Pediatrician Dr. Woodie Kessel is Richardson’s research partner at UMD. He said he also has seen the profound effects gun violence has on children.

“It’s showing up in just the basic concerns about not retaining things, their cognitive ability, their attention spans,” he said.

News4 asked him, should we be surprised by that?

“We should be upset by it,” he replied.

The I-Team reached out to DC Public Schools numerous times asking for interviews with experts who could talk about how the school district handles the issues community violence creates for students. DCPS never agreed to an interview.

But gun violence isn’t a problem schools can handle alone, Richardson said.

“The school is not responsible for all the social problems that impact this community. It’s part of the fabric and DNA in this community,” he said.

A lack of investment to improve the community and a lack of follow-through by the adults in charge of cutting crime are hurting D.C. kids and changing daily life, White said.

“There’s so many parents who drop their kids off and it’s like, you live two blocks away. But they know that you’re not guaranteed to make it those two blocks,” she said.

How DC gun violence unequally affects school communities

The I-Team and The Trace found shootings near schools don’t affect every D.C. community equally. The 10 schools with the most shootings nearby account for 25% of all shootings in the time we examined. Nine of the 10 schools are Southeast D.C. Eight of the schools are east of the Anacostia River, in a burden these communities shoulder more than others.

“Communities are suffering from harm that could have been prevented,” said Richardson.

Nationally, 1 in 20 white students experienced at least one shooting near their schools in the 2022-2023 school year, The Trace found. One in four Black students experienced a shooting near their school in that period.

Searching for solutions

We know how to reduce the gun violence that has lasting effects on children, Richardson said.

“We understand the problems. There are so many people who are social scientists, behavioral scientists in the city, policymakers. We get it. And that’s what makes it so violent, is that we totally understand the problem to prevent it,” he said. “We’re responsible. We’re culpable in that.”

Five-year-old Shilo and thousands of other kids are growing up with the impacts of problems adults still haven’t solved.

“Sometimes when you’re sleeping, do you hear fireworks?” her mom asked her.

She nodded yes in response.

“A lot of them?” her mom asked.

“Yeah,” she replied.

“It’s heart-wrenching,” Shiloh’s mom told the I-Team. “But, you know, what can you do?”

When White recently asked middle school students for their biggest wish, the answer was heartbreaking.

“The number one answer from the youth was to stop the killings and kidnappings,” she said.

That plea came from 12-year-olds growing up in a part of D.C. too familiar with gun violence. White said Ward 8 kids notice a “lack of investment” in their community.

“They notice the lack of food. They notice people in need, people whose basic needs aren’t being met. People who are using substances to help cope,” she said.

Like White, Richardson also called for renewed investment in communities.

“We need to create an infrastructure where kids feel safe both within school, outside of school and within their households. But if we continue to engage in disinvestment, pulling back the resources, this will be the outcome,” he said.

When the I-Team reached out to the city for this story, a spokesperson for the city administrator said in an email: “The Bowser Administration is committed to building safe communities in all eight wards. That’s why we have invested historic funding levels for Anacostia and Ward 8 focusing on public safety, creating jobs, making housing more affordable, and building pathways of opportunity for our residents.”

Without greater investment in communities in crisis, residents and researchers worry we’ll be telling the same story again.

The I-Team asked White, how confident are you that if we have this conversation in 10 years, we’ll look back and say we got it right?

“I’m not very confident,” she replied.

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Rick Yarborough and Andrea Swalec, shot and edited by Steve Jones and Jeff Piper. Animations by Erin Panell. With Olga Pierce, data editor and reporter at The Trace, and Ava Sasani, assistant editor at The Trace’s Data Hub

The News4 I-Team has been covering D.C.’s efforts to replace tens of thousands of dangerous lead water pipes that go to homes and businesses. DC Water has already replaced 7,000 lead pipes. But that’s just 16% of those that need to be removed.

What DC Water says in boil water advisories – like the advisory issued in Northeast on Tuesday – is especially important for customers with lead pipes, the I-Team found.

If there’s any lead in your water, the lead level increases when you boil it, according to the CDC and EPA.

Advocates say there’s a solution: Filter the water and then boil it. DC Water sometimes misses that crucial part of instructions to the public, the advocates say.

“It’s really critical that people understand that filtering is absolutely necessary,” said Paul Schwartz with the Campaign for Lead Free Water.

Boiling your water will kill any waterborne pathogens present after a decrease in water pressure, Schwartz said. But for customers with lead pipes, there is still cause for concern if they don’t also filter their water, he said.

“If you’re using the water for cooking or drinking or reconstituting formula, after you’ve boiled it and you haven’t filtered it, then you could be really adding harm upon harm,” Schwartz said.

DC Water said in a statement to News4: “The EPA has clear guidance regarding the use of filters during a precautionary Boil Water Advisory. DC Water is closely following those recommendations, while avoiding additional instructions that may create confusion.”

News4 I-Team Nov 21, 2024

As DC Water replaces lead pipes, some residents are left with bills for damage

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What the I-Team found in DC Water’s boil water advisories

DC Water’s advisories have been inconsistent in addressing when customers should filter their water.

In a boil water advisory for parts of Northeast on Tuesday, DC Water said customers should run their cold water for two minutes if known sources of lead are present and then boil the water. But they did not suggest filtering the water.

DC Water gave the same instructions after a loss of water pressure in some Upper Northwest communities on Jan. 19.

But the next day, after advocates say they contacted the utility, DC Water released a new advisory saying, “Do not drink the water without first filtering the water [if a source of lead is present] and then boil it.”

DC Water should consistently include in boil water advisories that water needs to be filtered as well as boiled, Schwartz said.

“We just need to make sure that that’s embedded in every boil water advisory that comes out. This one for Northeast should be changed today and reflect the earlier language that DC Water has used in Ward 4,” he said.

DC Water said in their statement to News4 that there’s no harm if a customer chooses to filter their water before boiling it or after it has cooled.

Some D.C. residents have lead pipes but don’t know it. That’s why the Campaign for Lead Free Water would like to see DC Water advise customers to use lead-certified filters, which greatly reduce or eliminate lead. Go here to learn about lead-reducing water filters.

News4 sends breaking news stories by email. Go here to sign up to get breaking news alerts in your inbox.

Here’s DC Water’s full statement: “When providing information to the public about a precautionary Boil Water Advisory, it is important to be consistent with the EPA’s guidance in the interest of clarity and public health. The EPA has clear guidance regarding the use of filters during a precautionary Boil Water Advisory. DC Water is closely following those recommendations, while avoiding additional instructions that may create confusion. Additionally, the drinking water supplied by DC Water remains below lead exceedance levels and lead levels do not increase following water main breaks given that our large water mains contain no lead. There is no harm if a customer chooses to filter their water before boiling or once cooled. However, customers should be aware, until the precautionary Boil Water Advisory is lifted, water must be boiled to ensure it is safe to use and filtering alone (without boiling) does not conform to EPA standards following water main breaks and loss of pressure.”

Amazon Prime customer and Southeast D.C. resident Sere Mickel said she isn’t getting the speedy shipping she pays for, so D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb filed suit to get her and her neighbors a better deal. 

The attorney general alleges that since 2022, Amazon has secretly excluded two D.C. ZIP codes, 20019 and 20020, from expedited delivery – that same-day, one- or two-day delivery option shoppers often see on Amazon Prime.

“If I pay for something, I should be treated fairly no matter what my ZIP code is, no matter what my area is,” Mickel said. “I want what I pay for.”

Mickel showed the News4 I-Team some of the many items she’s bought on Amazon: a wind chime, rocking chairs, a pillow, a welcome sign, a Ring camera. She’s a really good Amazon shopper.

“I got my door on Amazon,” she said.

Mickel said she’s been a Prime member for years, paying $139 per year for the membership program that offers free e-books and hours of shows and movies to stream, but the one benefit Amazon lists first is free two-day delivery.

“Millions of items delivered fast and free,” Mickel said. “That’s not happening. Not to this ZIP code, anyway.”

A few years ago, she noticed none of those Amazon trucks ever came to her Benning Ridge neighborhood, and it was taking longer than two days to get her purchases.

She said she tested Amazon, buying three copies of the same book. One sent to Arlington, Virginia, arrived the same day. One sent to Upper Marlboro, Maryland, arrived the next morning. It took three or four days to reach her home, she said. 

Amazon told her they were using the postal service to deliver to her neighborhood, Mickel said.

“Why are you sending my packages at this particular ZIP code through USPS and not giving me my Prime service that I pay for?” she questioned.

She complained to the D.C. attorney general in 2022. Now, that office has filed a lawsuit against Amazon.

The ZIP codes in the lawsuit cover large swaths of Wards 7 and 8. About 90% of residents in those ZIP codes are Black or African American, according to data from the 2020 Census. 

The lawsuit demands Amazon stop what the attorney general calls Amazon’s unfair and deceptive practices, along with paying restitution and damages to the 48,000 customers like Mickel in those two ZIP codes, along with penalties to the District.

Here’s how Amazon responded

Amazon says the attorney general’s claims about “discriminatory or deceptive” practices are “categorically false.” Amazon said it changed some operations in those ZIP codes to protect drivers. The company also said it’s transparent with customers about delivery times during checkout.

“In the zip codes in question, there have been specific and targeted acts against drivers delivering Amazon packages,” an Amazon spokesperson said. “We made the deliberate choice to adjust our operations, including delivery routes and times, for the sole reason of protecting the safety of drivers. And we’re always transparent with customers during the shopping journey and checkout process about when, exactly, they can expect their orders to arrive.”

Police districts 6 and 7, which cover ZIP codes 20019 and 20020, do report a higher level of violent crimes than the District overall, according to D.C. police data.

Amazon said it has offered to “work together with the Attorney General and their office in an effort to reduce crime and improve safety in these areas.”

An Amazon delivery van was carjacked near one of the ZIP codes in 2023. On Sunday, a driver in an Amazon delivery vehicle was carjacked at gunpoint in the 2300 block of Tunlaw Road NW, blocks from the vice president’s official residence and miles from the affected ZIP codes.

D.C.’s attorney general says more than 72% of packages are delivered within two days District-wide, but in those two ZIP codes, it is 25% or less.

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Mickel showed the I-Team her full Amazon shopping cart.

“I have toothbrushes, things,” Mickel said. “A humidifier, a comfort gift for a friend…”

She hasn’t given up on the company. She just wants the giant retailer to pay attention to one great customer in her small corner of D.C. and thousands of neighbors just like her.

“I take it personally when my little ZIP code, my little piece of the pie, is left out,” she said. “But you want my money to keep it going.”

Mickel said Walmart and Target both deliver faster to her. If the lawsuit doesn’t bring change, she might change the way she shops.

Here’s Amazon’s full response to the lawsuit: “The claims made by the Attorney General, that our business practices are somehow discriminatory or deceptive, are categorically false. We want to be able to deliver as fast as we possibly can to every zip code across the country, however, at the same time we must put the safety of delivery drivers first. In the zip codes in question, there have been specific and targeted acts against drivers delivering Amazon packages. We made the deliberate choice to adjust our operations, including delivery routes and times, for the sole reason of protecting the safety of drivers. And we’re always transparent with customers during the shopping journey and checkout process about when, exactly, they can expect their orders to arrive. What we’d like to do, and have offered, is to work together with the Attorney General and their office in an effort to reduce crime and improve safety in these areas. Nevertheless, we will proceed in the process and demonstrate that providing fast and accurate delivery times and prioritizing the safety of customers and delivery partners are not mutually exclusive.”

Since DC Water launched its Lead Free DC initiative in 2019, 7,000 new service lines have been installed. The goal is to replace another 35,000 service lines by 2037.

Michael and Brooke Taylor are proud of the work they put into renovating their basement apartment in Southeast D.C.

“This is not a big place – very small – but it’s built just for us,” Michael Taylor said.

In February, the couple returned home from a trip and found a flooded mess throughout the apartment. They said it happened after their landlord agreed to let DC Water replace the lead pipes leading to the home while they were gone. They initially weren’t sure where to turn.

“Doing the research, trying to figure out, well, who do I call? Who do I talk to? How do I make a claim?” Brooke Taylor recalled asking.

She said DC Water’s contractor returned and fixed the pipe that burst, but later that same day, she said another leak flooded the bathroom.

Video they provided shows soggy floorboards and water pouring from a pipe right onto the bathroom floor.

“So, now it’s like damage on top of damage. And at that point, DC Water never returned. None of the DC Water employees returned,” Brooke Taylor said.

The Taylors got an estimate for the damage to the apartment and their property totaling about $30,000. They filed a claim to DC Water’s insurance, which started months of going back and forth to see who would pay for what. The insurer told them they suspected the flooding occurred because of faulty plastic tubing on a sink.

“While this may have been a residual effect of added water pressure due to your service line being replaced, this presents a question of fact as to whether or not the subcontractor was liable for negligent work,” a message from the insurer said.

Three months after the flooding, the Taylors were offered $8,000 by the insurer, which said: “This offer was made as a courtesy to assist with the cleanup and it not intended as an admission of liability. It has been our determination that the contractors were not negligent in their actions and there is no evidence that supports that they did do anything wrong.”

The insurer later added: “Sometimes accidents occur without the existence of legal liability.”

Since DC Water’s lead pipe replacement project started in 2019, the utility company has settled and paid more than $320,000 in damage claims, the I-Team found.

Southeast D.C. resident Andrew Interdonato said lead pipe replacement left him with expensive damage to his home.

In November 2022, he agreed to have lead pipes replaced in his 100-year-old house. Something went wrong after he said contractors plugged construction equipment into an outlet in his home instead of a generator, causing a power outage.

“The stove smelled like it was burning and there was smoke,” Interdonato said.

Documents provided to the I-Team by Interdonato show DC Water agreed to pay to get the power turned back, but only would pay for half of the costs to permanently fix the home’s electrical system, saying the repairs needed were not a direct result of the work the crew did.

“They chose to use my power. I suffered consequences. And they’re just walking away, and that’s not right,” he said.

‘We’re going to make you whole’: How DC Water responded

DC Water said it couldn’t comment on individual cases that were in the claims process. Chief Communications Officer Kirsten Williams said, though: “In each one of those situations, it’s something that we take very seriously.”

Williams said the number of customer complaints involving lead pipe replacement are small compared to the magnitude of the project, and that questions and complaints have dropped from 5% to just 1% this past fiscal year.

“If you look at the lead service line replacements nationally that are happening, these are standard instances that happen, especially when you look at the age and condition of some of the homes,” Williams said. “What I would tell those customers is that you have our commitment to know that we are going to go through this claims process with you. We’re going to have our investigators come out, understand, and we’re going to make you whole if we have been in error.”

When it comes to the frustration some DC Water customers experienced with back-and-forth about who is responsible for damage, Williams said: “You know, we go through a claims process, and that’s where we rely on our partners who are in the insurance business.”

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What an advocate says DC Water should change

There’s ample room for improvement, said Paul Schwartz, co-founder of the Campaign for Lead Free Water, a nonprofit that advocates for safe drinking water.

“We need DC Water and their customer service folks to be better trained and supported to deal with these real concerns that people have in our communities,” he said.

Schwartz said DC Water’s program needs to improve customer relations, starting with making sure homeowners know their rights and what they might be responsible for before allowing work to be done on lead service lines.

“The contract that’s going out in front of people right now is clearly written by lawyers, folks who have a hard time understanding it, and it tries to offload the liability and the concerns on the public,” Schwartz said. “That script needs to be flipped.”

Williams responded, saying, “We don’t want this to be something where you feel like you’re signing away your rights. We want you to understand why that is, and that’s good feedback for us to take away that some of our customers are feeling as though the claims process may need some enhancements.”

Williams said providing superior service is important to DC Water.

“What I want you to understand is that we are taking every effort to ensure that the incidents that have arisen are mitigated and don’t happen again, and that you are our number one importance. Our customer is critically important to us,” she said.

Neither the Taylors nor Interdonato agreed to the claim settlement for partial payment, saying they didn’t want to sign the waiver the insurer required.

“We’re not looking for payout – we’re looking for normalcy. And when we realized that wasn’t going to happen, it just was a gut punch for us, honestly,” Michael Taylor said.

Interdonato said he’s grateful for his new waterline, which he said is working fine, but he’s still frustrated by the damage to his home.

“They’re the ones who would get the credit if it was done well, and they should be the ones to get the blame for problems that occurred as a result of their own work,” he said.

If you have any questions or concerns involving the lead pipe replacement program, call DC Water’s lead service hotline at 202-787-4044 or email lead@dcwater.com. Residents can file complaints to the Office of the People’s Counsel.

Reported by Tracee Wilkins, produced by Rick Yarborough, shot and edited by Jeff Piper

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“This is the part where you kind of wait and see,” said Mack, watching her phone.

She’s used a wheelchair since she was 10 — moved to D.C. after college, she said, because our city was trying to be more accessible. When the I-Team asked if the city was keeping its promise, she responded, “Here and there.”

D.C. does has a few options for passengers with wheelchairs.

Metro trains and buses are accessible. MetroAccess works too, but it requires setting up rides days in advance and being willing to wait.

The Transport DC program offers subsidized taxi rides, but only within the district.

When it comes to ride share companies like Uber and Lyft, the District does not require them to have wheelchair accessible vehicles — even though they account for 95% of all the for-hire rides here.

That leaves taxis, which make up just 5% of all for-hire trips in D.C. Taxis are District regulated and provided 23,000 trips for people who use wheelchairs last year.

“I call it the Yeti, because it’s rumored to exist, but, you know, I rarely ever see it,” exclaimed a frustrated Mack while waiting on a taxi she had reserved days before we met up.

The District has worked to increase service. D.C. has a law mandating 20% of large cab fleets be wheelchair accessible, but the I-Team couldn’t find it’s ever been enforced.

The head of the Department of For-Hire Vehicles (DFHV) told the I-Team, “we can’t punish them into compliance.”

Passenger Naomi Hess was hopeful last year when D.C. set aside $500,000 to incentivize cabdrivers to operate Wheelchair Accessible Vehicles -paying more per hour or to work late hours.

“There really, really needs to be progress,” said Hess.  The city even set up a  Wheelchair Accessible Vehicle (WAV) hotline for people to get connected.

“I tried that pilot line multiple times and they just couldn’t find one for me. Where is the money going?” asked Hess.

The city already spent $255,000 in that pilot program and told the I-Team it generated 435 taxi trips from June to December. That’s $586 per ride.

Jonathan Rogers — the Director of DFHV, which spearheaded the pilot — wouldn’t talk to News4 on camera, but said “Council encouraged us to experiment and figure out what would change behavior… so that’s what we did.”

He said he hoped it would build momentum, and that the six new drivers with accessible vehicles added, would stick with it.

The department just launched a new pilot program in March, and says it’s offering more incentives to taxi companies and drivers. Plus, a spokesperson said it would be sending letters to all taxi companies asking for their long-term plans to address the issue.

“Anyone without a wheelchair can get an Uber, Lyft or taxi, whatever they want. It’s just not fair. And it has put me in unsafe situations,” Hess told the I-Team. 

Last fall, she had all her travel planned out so she could attend the Sabrina Carpenter concert in Baltimore. But a delayed train back to D.C. got her to Union Station at 1 a.m., leaving her with few options.

“I was forced to walk home alone in the middle of the night.”

Both she and Mack say it isn’t like this everywhere. In New York City, there are more than 12,000 wheelchair accessible taxis and ride share vehicles, according to the NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission.

The city said 46% of its taxi fleet is wheelchair accessible. By law, anyone who now wants to start driving for ride shares has to use an accessible vehicle there.

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Back in D.C., Uber has some accessible vehicles, but did not respond to our questions about how many.

While Lyft offers accessible rides in nine other cities, it does not in the District. A spokesperson told the I Team it “will continue to push for solutions that make rideshare as accessible as possible for everyone.”

As for taxis, none of the larger companies in town would talk to News4 on camera. But they did admit it’s a challenge, saying wheelchair accessible taxis are both expensive to buy and costly to maintain due mostly to their weight and modifications.

That could explain why the I-Team found so many out-of-commission vehicles in taxi lots with markings that read “junk” and “need engine and transmission.”

Back at Mack’s apartment, she still waited for confirmation her taxi was on the way. It’s been so frustrating for her that she started keeping track of all her taxi calls for the last three years.

“I had 72 attempted trips,” she said. “I averaged those years and came out with a 71% failure rate.”

Which is exactly what happened on the day we hung out with her. 

“We’ll wait a few more minutes and then probably gear up, put on the coat, head out,” she said.

But that taxi never came.

Ella Robinson contributed reporting to this investigation.

Prosecutors had asked if the defense was trying to delay the trial, which Jenkins’ attorneys denied.

Jenkins’ trial in Charlottesville had been scheduled to begin Tuesday. It was delayed two days in a row after his attorneys said he had a medical condition that landed him at an emergency room.

Jenkins is accused in a federal indictment of accepting more than $70,000 in bribes from people he allegedly made auxiliary deputies, claiming their badges would allow them to carry concealed weapons in all 50 states. He pleaded not guilty and his defense will have the chance to try to prove it.

The question Thursday, when jury selection was set to begin, was whether Jenkins would show up.

On what was supposed to be the third day of his trial, Jenkins emerged from an SUV, walked slowly and said nothing in response to the News4 I-Team’s questions about how he was feeling and what he wants the jury to know.

In court, Jenkins’ attorneys said the former sheriff had been back at a hospital overnight because of high blood pressure and dizziness. They said he hadn’t slept and ER doctors hold him to take his blood pressure medication and Advil.

His attorneys again asked the judge for a delay in the case.

The judge said from the bench there was nothing in the record that met the legal standard for a trial delay, with any threat to Jenkins’ life or health. However, he delayed the trial out of concern any additional panic attacks might disrupt the trial after a jury was seated.

In court, News4 learned that during Jenkins’ ER visit Wednesday, he only made it to the hospital parking lot, where he monitored his blood pressure. He headed home when it dropped, without ever going inside.

Jenkins lost consciousness Wednesday night and his blood pressure was at “critical levels,” a defense attorney said Thursday morning in a letter to the judge.

“We are concerned that because Mr. Jenkins has not slept all night, he is not going to be able to effectively participate in jury selection and/or is going to either fall asleep or have another incident in front of the jury, which would be to his prejudice,” the lawyer wrote.

Over the repeated objections of federal prosecutors, who worked with nearly two dozen witnesses to prepare for trial, the judge granted a delay until Dec. 11, meaning jurors could be deliberating just days before Christmas.

News4 I-Team Nov 11, 2024

Culpeper ex-sheriff accused of giving badges for $70K+ in bribes to face jury

News4 I-Team Nov 12, 2024

Culpeper ex-sheriff's federal corruption trial delayed due to medical condition

In the meantime, Jenkins’ doctor is expected in court in the coming days. The judge wants to hear the doctor explain Jenkins’ health condition. The judge asked from the bench if Jenkins needs to be put in a jail medical unit prior to trial to monitor his condition and make sure he shows up ready to proceed.

As he left court with the delay his lawyers sought, Jenkins was quiet as he got back into an SUV.

A second emergency room visit in two days kept Jenkins away from the courthouse in Charlottesville, after his trial had been scheduled to begin Tuesday.

Judge Robert Ballou had asked for proof of Jenkins’ medical condition and said he must show it poses a substantial threat to his health or life. Those medical records were sealed.

According to Ballou and federal prosecutors, Jenkins had an anxiety attack Tuesday morning. His wife took him to a hospital, and he was sent home after a brief visit.

Jenkins’ personal doctor recommended two weeks to stabilize his condition, which would delay the trial.

Prosecutors, who aren’t talking to News4, told the judge a temporary spike in high blood pressure on the morning of trial isn’t enough for a delay. They argued two days of symptoms with Jenkins’ chronic high blood pressure should not keep the trial from proceeding, since the condition can be managed with medication.

They even suggested it’s just the latest delay tactic from the former sheriff. Jenkins’ attorneys denied that accusation to the judge and to News4.

Ballou seemed insistent on trying to start, pointing out that standing trial will be stressful and anxiety-producing for Jenkins no matter what happens.

“This [being a defendant in a federal trial] is a stressful event. That stress will occur … anytime someone is a defendant in a criminal trial,” Ballou said.

Jenkins is accused in a federal indictment of accepting more than $70,000 in bribes from people he allegedly made auxiliary deputies, claiming their badges would allow them to carry concealed weapons in all 50 states.

Jenkins has pleaded not guilty to conspiracy, fraud and bribery charges. Neither he nor his lawyer have replied to repeated questions from the I-Team about the case and the allegations. His three co-defendants have all pleaded guilty and are expected to testify.

If Jenkins’ trial is delayed, the judge suggested one option in inauguration week.

The judge cited appeals court decisions that lay out standards for a trial delay for health reasons. According to the judge, being at the trial must be a substantial threat to the defendant’s health or life. Otherwise, defendants can be forced to come to court.

Go here to learn more about the accusations against Jenkins and what the I-Team has learned.

Jenkins is accused in a federal indictment of accepting more than $70,000 in bribes from people he allegedly made auxiliary deputies, claiming their badges would allow them to carry concealed weapons in all 50 states.

He was suffering from a medical condition that arose Tuesday morning, the judge said.

Jurors and prosecutors arrived at the courthouse early. Jenkins’ defense team and his brother all showed up on time. But the 8:30 a.m. start time passed without Jenkins there. Just before 10 a.m., the judge announced the delay.

No details were released on the nature of Jenkins’ condition. Neither prosecutors nor his defense offered a comment.

At a hearing late Tuesday, the judge asked for proof of the medical condition that kept Jenkins away from court and said he must show it is a substantial threat to his health or life. If he can’t do that and still doesn’t show up, prosecutors said they will secure his appearance. Another hearing was scheduled for Wednesday morning.

Jenkins has pleaded not guilty to conspiracy, fraud and bribery charges. His three co-defendants have all pleaded guilty and are expected to testify.

Undercover FBI agents who said they gave Jenkins bribes are expected to testify. Unindicted businesspeople who prosecutors claim gave Jenkins money also are expected to testify.

In 2023, federal judges allowed the government to tap the phones of people related to the alleged payments, and court records show a confidential informant recorded hours of audio and video of some of the transactions. All of that awaits Jenkins inside the courthouse when the trial begins.

Neither Jenkins nor his lawyer have replied to repeated questions from the I-Team about the case and the allegations.

Jenkins’ lawyers claim he’s the victim, invoke Trump

On Nov. 6, Jenkins’ lawyers posted a statement on an internet fundraising site for his legal defense.

“Scott needs your help now more than ever! Trial begins next week and we’re in the fight of our lives. Don’t let Scott become another victim of liberal political prosecution,” they said.

The next day, the lawyers posted: “We’ve seen how political operatives have treated Donald Trump and those close to him, like Scott. Many in Trump’s orbit have been charged with crimes or have had their lives and reputations ruined by leaks and accusations from a weaponized Biden DOJ. These people lose everything fighting for their lives against the full weight and power of a weaponized federal government. Sadly, Scott Jenkins is now one of these victims.”

Jenkins first attracted national attention in late 2019, as the Virginia General Assembly was considering changes to the commonwealth’s gun laws. At the time, Jenkins repeatedly said he would deputize thousands of auxiliary deputies to circumvent any possible new Virginia firearms restrictions.

Jenkins ran the Culpeper County Sheriff’s Office for more than a decade, from 2012 to 2023. Federal prosecutors said for many of those years, he was giving auxiliary deputy badges to people who paid him thousands of dollars in checks and cash. The feds said the alleged payments were bribes.

A federal indictment and the supporting documents allege Jenkins took more than $70,000 in bribes. Prosecutors said some of the money was deposited in Jenkins’ campaign accounts, while much of it was deposited directly into his personal accounts.

Court records filed in final preparation for the trial allege “the origins of the bribery scheme” go all the way back to 2011, when Jenkins was first running for office. A donor to that campaign gave $5,000 and was later sworn in as auxiliary deputy in 2012, according to records. Jenkins is not charged with any crime connected to that payment, but the same court records allege Jenkins and that donor worked since 2015 to find other “wealthy Northern Virginia businessmen who wanted to be sworn as auxiliary deputies in exchange for campaign contributions.”

In text message conversations, Jenkins and someone listed in court records as Individual 1 referred to Individual 1’s recruits as “money guys.” The “money guys” were motivated to purchase sheriff’s badges primarily because Jenkins and Individual 1 told them that the badges gave them authority to carry a concealed weapon in all 50 states without obtaining a concealed carry permit.

Culpeper County Apr 11, 2023

FBI Seizes Culpeper Sheriff Campaign Cash

Culpeper County Jan 11, 2024

Surprise badges, guns and expenses greet new Culpeper County sheriff

Culpeper County Apr 22, 2024

Third guilty plea in bribery case involving former Culpeper County sheriff

In addition, according to a preview of the trial filed by prosecutors, Jenkins and Individual 1 allegedly told the “money guys” if they were pulled over by law enforcement while driving, they could show their badges and credentials to request “professional courtesy” and avoid a ticket.

In court records, prosecutors tell the court, “At trial, the government intends to offer evidence that, dating back to at least 2015, Jenkins accepted campaign contributions from Northern Virginia businessmen recruited by Individual 1 in exchange for auxiliary deputy badges.”

The investigation begins

In June 2022, court records indicate the FBI signed up “Individual 1,” a “confidential human source.” As part of his cooperation, he “agreed to arrange meetings between Jenkins and prospective bribe payors at the direction of the FBI, and to record those meetings using hidden audio and video recording devices.”

Those recordings are expected to be part of the trial. A timeline of alleged bribes shows Jenkins allegedly accepting payments from two businessmen and two undercover FBI agents after the informant agreed to record meetings.

The investigation becomes public

The News4 I-Team first learned of the investigation into then-Sheriff Scott Jenkins in April 2023 when the FBI filed a notice it had seized $10,000 from Jenkins’ campaign account on Jan. 31, 2023. A few weeks earlier, the I-Team learned several Culpeper County employees had been subpoenaed to offer testimony to a federal grand jury.

The I-Team learned of a large number of auxiliary deputies appointed by Jenkins. In searches of Culpeper County court records, the I-Team found 46 auxiliary deputies appointed by Jenkins and sworn in by a circuit court judge. That is more than double the number of auxiliary deputies authorized by a Culpeper County ordinance that says auxiliary deputies are “not to exceed fifteen (15) percent of the paid force.”

The number of deputies is far from the only question the I-Team has about the program. According to the sheriff’s own general order, auxiliary deputies are supposed to be trained. According to the results of a Virginia Freedom of Information Act request, the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services only has training records for three of the 46 auxiliaries. There was no evidence background checks were conducted. Rick Rahim, one of the auxiliary deputies, had felony convictions in his past.

Jenkins and three co-defendants were indicted on June 28, 2023. All three co-defendants have since pleaded guilty.

Feds offer explanation for alleged bribes

Jenkins has never talked about the payments; his lawyers have not either. But prosecutors lay out a possible motive for Jenkins to accept the money: In a motion filed to preview the trial, prosecutors allege Jenkins couldn’t afford his lifestyle.

Prosecutors promise an FBI agent will explain on the stand that, “Jenkins was overextended financially, thus demonstrating the need for him to solicit and accept the bribes.”

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Rick Yarborough and Andrea Swalec, shot and edited by Jeff Piper

Jenkins has pleaded not guilty to conspiracy, fraud and bribery charges. His three co-defendants have all pleaded guilty and are expected to testify.

Undercover FBI agents who said they gave Jenkins bribes are expected to testify. Unindicted businesspeople who prosecutors claim gave Jenkins money also are expected to testify.

In 2023, federal judges allowed the government to tap the phones of people related to the alleged payments, and court records show a confidential informant recorded hours of audio and video of some of the transactions. All of that awaits Jenkins inside the courthouse.

Neither Jenkins nor his lawyer have replied to repeated questions from the I-Team about the case and the allegations.

Jenkins’ lawyers claim he’s the victim, invoke Trump

On Nov. 6, Jenkins’ lawyers posted a statement on an internet fundraising site for his legal defense.

“Scott needs your help now more than ever! Trial begins next week and we’re in the fight of our lives. Don’t let Scott become another victim of liberal political prosecution,” they said.

The next day, the lawyers posted: “We’ve seen how political operatives have treated Donald Trump and those close to him, like Scott. Many in Trump’s orbit have been charged with crimes or have had their lives and reputations ruined by leaks and accusations from a weaponized Biden DOJ. These people lose everything fighting for their lives against the full weight and power of a weaponized federal government. Sadly, Scott Jenkins is now one of these victims.”

Jenkins first attracted national attention in late 2019, as the Virginia General Assembly was considering changes to the commonwealth’s gun laws. At the time, Jenkins repeatedly said he would deputize thousands of auxiliary deputies to circumvent any possible new Virginia firearms restrictions.

Jenkins ran the Culpeper County Sheriff’s Office for more than a decade, from 2012 to 2023. Federal prosecutors said for many of those years, he was giving auxiliary deputy badges to people who paid him thousands of dollars in checks and cash. The feds said the alleged payments were bribes.

A federal indictment and the supporting documents allege Jenkins took more than $70,000 in bribes. Prosecutors said some of the money was deposited in Jenkins’ campaign accounts, while much of it was deposited directly into his personal accounts.

Culpeper County Apr 11, 2023

FBI Seizes Culpeper Sheriff Campaign Cash

Culpeper County Jan 11, 2024

Surprise badges, guns and expenses greet new Culpeper County sheriff

Culpeper County Apr 22, 2024

Third guilty plea in bribery case involving former Culpeper County sheriff

Court records filed in final preparation for the trial allege “the origins of the bribery scheme” go all the way back to 2011, when Jenkins was first running for office. A donor to that campaign gave $5,000 and was later sworn in as auxiliary deputy in 2012, according to records. Jenkins is not charged with any crime connected to that payment, but the same court records allege Jenkins and that donor worked since 2015 to find other “wealthy Northern Virginia businessmen who wanted to be sworn as auxiliary deputies in exchange for campaign contributions.”

In text message conversations, Jenkins and someone listed in court records as Individual 1 referred to Individual 1’s recruits as “money guys.” The “money guys” were motivated to purchase sheriff’s badges primarily because Jenkins and Individual 1 told them that the badges gave them authority to carry a concealed weapon in all 50 states without obtaining a concealed carry permit.

In addition, according to a preview of the trial filed by prosecutors, Jenkins and Individual 1 allegedly told the “money guys” if they were pulled over by law enforcement while driving, they could show their badges and credentials to request “professional courtesy” and avoid a ticket.

In court records, prosecutors tell the court, “At trial, the government intends to offer evidence that, dating back to at least 2015, Jenkins accepted campaign contributions from Northern Virginia businessmen recruited by Individual 1 in exchange for auxiliary deputy badges.”

The investigation begins

In June 2022, court records indicate the FBI signed up “Individual 1,” a “confidential human source.” As part of his cooperation, he “agreed to arrange meetings between Jenkins and prospective bribe payors at the direction of the FBI, and to record those meetings using hidden audio and video recording devices.”

Those recordings are expected to be part of the trial. A timeline of alleged bribes shows Jenkins allegedly accepting payments from two businessmen and two undercover FBI agents after the informant agreed to record meetings.

The investigation becomes public

The News4 I-Team first learned of the investigation into then-Sheriff Scott Jenkins in April 2023 when the FBI filed a notice it had seized $10,000 from Jenkins’ campaign account on Jan. 31, 2023. A few weeks earlier, the I-Team learned several Culpeper County employees had been subpoenaed to offer testimony to a federal grand jury.

The I-Team learned of a large number of auxiliary deputies appointed by Jenkins. In searches of Culpeper County court records, the I-Team found 46 auxiliary deputies appointed by Jenkins and sworn in by a circuit court judge. That is more than double the number of auxiliary deputies authorized by a Culpeper County ordinance that says auxiliary deputies are “not to exceed fifteen (15) percent of the paid force.”

The number of deputies is far from the only question the I-Team has about the program. According to the sheriff’s own general order, auxiliary deputies are supposed to be trained. According to the results of a Virginia Freedom of Information Act request, the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services only has training records for three of the 46 auxiliaries. There was no evidence background checks were conducted. Rick Rahim, one of the auxiliary deputies, had felony convictions in his past.

Jenkins and three co-defendants were indicted on June 28, 2023. All three co-defendants have since pleaded guilty.

Feds offer explanation for alleged bribes

Jenkins has never talked about the payments; his lawyers have not either. But prosecutors lay out a possible motive for Jenkins to accept the money: In a motion filed to preview the trial, prosecutors allege Jenkins couldn’t afford his lifestyle.

Prosecutors promise an FBI agent will explain on the stand that, “Jenkins was overextended financially, thus demonstrating the need for him to solicit and accept the bribes.”

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Rick Yarborough, shot and edited by Jeff Piper

D.C. Fire blames the explosion in Columbia Heights on a gas leak from a stove inside an apartment. The woman using that stove was sent to the hospital. No one else was hurt, but D.C.’s Department of Buildings said no one could live in the building at 1433 Columbia Road NW until repairs were made and 41 building code violations found after the explosion were fixed.

Following the explosion, D.C.’s Office of the Tenant Advocate, a city-funded office, snapped into action and spent more than $250,000 on emergency housing for the tenants. It’s money it would get back with liens on the building, but that’s a court process and the building already has been tied up in court for years. Additionally, the OTA supplied rental vans to help tenants move to new housing.

More than a month later, District-funded emergency housing for the residents has run out but needed repairs haven’t even begun, according to the city. The I-Team found it’s not the only obligation the building’s owners, Helenia and John Steininger, a mother and son, have ignored.

A lawsuit filed last year claims the Steiningers owe D.C. Water $81,019.33 in delinquent water bills. D.C. Water asked the court to appoint a receiver but kept the water on. Property tax records show the family owes $206,655.68 in property taxes. The records show they haven’t paid taxes in the past three years, possibly longer. A tax sale is pending.

Maybe most concerning, the property has no insurance to pay for repairs. Court records in the property tax case show Ms. Steininger and her son told the court they had no insurance on the building and according to court records, “repairs will be expensive.” There is no law in D.C. requiring landlords to have insurance.

The News4 I-Team called and emailed the owners and attorneys who represented them in the past. We didn’t get any response to our questions. A visit to Ms. Steininger’s Northwest D.C. home didn’t yield answers either. A caregiver for the elderly owner wouldn’t let our team speak with her and didn’t say when she could.

Minutes after our visit, the owner’s son emailed, not to answer our questions but referring us to an attorney who indicated she doesn’t represent them on these issues. Her son didn’t reply to our questions either.

Residents had described substandard conditions for years

The conditions are no surprise to Abel Núñez, executive director of the aid group Carecen. Núñez said the group has tried for years to help the tenants deal with the conditions and a landlord who they said didn’t insist on safe repairs.

“The conditions are horrible,” Núñez told the I-Team. “This is a place that you would consider being run by a slumlord. But it wasn’t that black and white because the owner wasn’t necessarily exploiting them, more than just allowing them to do what they would do.”

He explained tenants told him they were allowed to do illegal sublets and make their own repairs to the building. One tenant told us, “We were very worried because they don’t say nothing about the lights, about their repairs, because they don’t do nothing.”

The building was last inspected in 2018, when 30 violations were found. Online records don’t show if repairs were made. City law makes it the landlord’s responsibility to maintain a safe building.

Speaking last week, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser told reporters, “I am not sure what the viability of that building is at this point. It’s in really bad shape.”

As he was helping his aunt move out of the building, part-time resident Stanley Valencia told the I-Team he felt D.C. officials could have forced the owners to do more.

“They definitely should have done more,” he said.

Carecen’s Núñez said, “The city should create mechanisms to identify the owners, to either help them get right with the law and do what they need to do for their property or transition them out.”

Núñez told the I-Team, “They were willing to sacrifice good standard of living because they could afford to live in a neighborhood that they wanted to live.” In doing so, Núñez said, they sacrificed their own safety.

After the explosion, the D.C. Department of Buildings ordered the owners to submit a plan to fix the building and start repairs by mid-November. They still haven’t submitted a plan, let alone fixed anything.

DC’s Department of Buildings turned down an interview offer from the I-Team but explained “since day one … the District government has been working with residents. The Department of Buildings is ready to issue the permits to the landlord to do the necessary repairs and, until that happens, the building unfortunately must stay closed. In the interim, the District government is working with the tenants on removing their belongings if they desire and is also connecting them with community resources.”

The Department’s written statement didn’t say anything about the years before and it’s unclear if the residents, who were paying below-market rent, complained – seemingly trapped by low rent in a high-cost city.

“That is the tragedy,” Núñez told the I-Team, “because if they’re saying, ‘If I fight, but in the end, I win, but lose my apartment… I really lost.’”

“Not just middle class but, like, rich Black people,” she said.

Like many in her community, Robinson is a federal worker. She’s a social science analyst for the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and spoke with the News4 I-Team as a union representative. She said she feels lucky to have a job with strong meaning to her and knows many federal workers feel the same way.

HUD’s mission is to ensure fair, safe and affordable housing for all Americans. Tucked inside the Project 2025 document of more than 900 pages, former HUD Secretary Ben Carson calls for putting political appointees in top positions and scaling back affordable housing.

The Project 2025 conservative plan for any incoming Republican president was penned by the right-wing think tank The Heritage Foundation. The guidebook has been published every four years since President Ronald Reagan.

National civil rights organizations from the NAACP to the ACLU have spoken out against Project 2025 and the sweeping changes the document proposes for the federal government. The groups are opposed to calls to reverse civil rights protections and privatize or dismantle agencies including the Department of Education.

These groups also warn Project 2025 would have a disproportionate effect on African Americans.

The nation’s largest population of wealthy Black people live in the D.C. area, especially in majority-Black Maryland counties such as Prince George’s County and Charles County. Many of the region’s middle-class and upper-middle-class Black families have been built around federal work, and the government is the area’s largest employer.

Of more than 2 million full-time federal workers across the U.S., more than 300,000 are concentrated in the D.C. metro region.

The News4 I-Team asked experts on both sides of Project 2025 how the dismantling could affect the D.C. area’s Black middle class.

What Project 2025 could do to federal job protections

The document lays out the return of former President Donald Trump’s Schedule F executive order, which was reversed by President Joe Biden. It would strip job protections from career officials in policy roles, make it easier to fire civil servants and require loyalty to the president.

“People shouldn’t have to sell their souls to do a job,” Robinson, the HUD employee, said.

Horace Cooper is chairman of Project 21, a program for Black conservatives at the National Center for Public Policy Research, which supports Project 2025.

“Prior to the adoption of these civil service rules, people were appointed and when elections changed, they lost their jobs,” he said.

Cooper said bringing back Schedule F would make Trump more effective if elected, even if that means some workers would lose their jobs.

“I watched in the first Trump term, seeing how many government employees announced that they did not agree with the priorities of this administration and stymied them as a consequence,” he said.

The Heritage Foundation declined the I-Team’s request for an interview. The project’s leader has since left the foundation.

‘What’s going to happen to my household?’

Though former Trump officials helped craft Project 2025 and the plan praises Trump’s administration, the former president has distanced himself from it. He said in his debate with Vice President Kamala Harris that he had not read the document and will not read it.

That hasn’t washed away the concerns of unionized federal workers like Aleseia Saunders, a mother of three who works for the Department of Education – which Project 2025 says should be entirely dismantled.

“What’s going to happen to my household? What’s going to happen to my paycheck? What’s going to happen to my career?” Saunders asked.

Many of Saunders’ relatives also work for the federal government, including her parents and siblings. She said they constantly worry and talk about what will happen.

How government jobs helped build the DMV’s Black middle class

Eric Bunn, the national secretary of AFGE, the largest union for federal employees, is fighting Project 2025 and informing members of potential job loss if the plan is implemented. He said government jobs helped build the Black middle class that thrives in the DMV.

“The migration of employed workers coming from the South to Washington, D.C., or this area here was to get a good government job, just like the migration to Detroit in that area was auto workers,” he said.

More than 18% of federal workers are Black, according to the most recent statistics from the Office of Personnel Management. That’s higher than the proportion of Black Americans that make up the country’s population, at just over 12%.

Black Americans have been drawn to federal jobs in part because of benefits that have often eluded Black employees in private workplaces, Howard University political science professor Marcus Board said.

“They have worker protections, federal worker protections, that are guaranteed by the federal government, and so it’s one of the few places where they can be sure that they’re going to be supported, protected and taken care of,” he said.

Some federal workers see Project 2025 as a direct attack on Black Americans and members of the Black middle class affiliated with the federal government.

“I think that’s an accurate read,” Board said.

Why Rep. Ayanna Pressley calls Project 2025 ‘policy violence’

Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts is a member of a Democratic-led task force that held hearings earlier this year challenging Project 2025.

“It is their pathway to enact widespread, wholesale policy violence,” she said.

In an interview with the I-Team, Pressley called federal jobs “a ladder up and a pathway to the middle class, to self-sufficiency and economic progress for Black Americans.”

Project 2025 threatens the lives many Black federal workers have built, Pressley said.

“You’re talking about deep budget cuts, hiring freezes. It’s just a damning document. And I have every reason to believe that they would make good on it,” she said.

Why a Black conservative says ‘Do not rely on the government’

Cooper, of Project 21, was senior counsel to former House majority leader Dick Armey. He argues African Americans can’t rely on federal jobs and says more Black federal workers need to shift to the private sector.

“How can you count on government employment being around forever?” he asked.

“Do not rely on government. Why? Because you can’t rely on government. Is it a decade? Is it a century? At some point, it’s going to be government that you’re sitting there relying on that pulls the rug right out from under your feet,” Cooper said.

Leaving the federal workforce is not an option some employees want to consider.

“It has created such a stability. People talk about my ‘good government job.’ My good government job has paid for a lot of things,” Robinson, the HUD worker, said.

Reported by Tracee Wilkins, produced by Caroline Tucker, shot by Jeff Piper and Steve Jones, and edited by Steve Jones

Like so many parents we’ve met, first lady Suzanne Youngkin admits she didn’t know enough about fentanyl until tragedy struck.

“My interest in fentanyl was really born out of grief,” Youngkin told the I-Team during a visit to the NBC Washington studios.

In 2020, before her husband, Glenn, was elected Virginia’s governor, Greyson Mazich, a close family friend, died of fentanyl poisoning. Mazich was just 21 years old.

“I had a lot of learning to do. I didn’t really understand the fentanyl crisis,” Youngkin said. “We see across the commonwealth that very few communities are immune from this issue.”

In January 2024, the first lady launched the It Only One Takes One initiative. She has traveled Virginia sounding the alarm just one pill with a few specs of fentanyl can kill even a first-time user. As she met with the I-Team, Youngkin noted how similar stories of tragedy can be.

“I watched the series that NBC and Telemundo were doing on fentanyl. I was just torn up inside about the family whose young son had graduated and yet his diploma was delivered to them instead of him.”

That young man is Malcolm Kent, he was just 17 when he died of fentanyl poisoning.

“When I went in to check on him the next morning,” his father, Absolon Kent, told News4’s Tracee Wilkins, “that’s when we found out that he had passed away during the night.”

His mother Thurraya said, “He never saw his diploma. They came and presented it to us.”

“These sorts of stories, I hope, will motivate people to take action, will motivate people to talk to their young people about this problem,” Youngkin said.

Youngkin talked to her own college-age son about the risks of fentanyl. She reminded him 7 of 10 pills of any kind seized by the Drug Enforcement Administration contain fentanyl, and she’s doing more.

Youngkin knows, even with a slight dip in Virginia’s fentanyl overdose deaths, it’s still too hard for families to get help. She’s adding her powerful voice to the chorus of people pushing for more.

News4 I-Team Oct 15, 2024

Fighting fentanyl: What this powerful drug is taking from DC-area families

News4 I-Team Oct 18, 2024

‘Have the conversations': How to talk with your kids about fentanyl

News4 I-Team Oct 14, 2024

‘He never saw his diploma': How fentanyl is devastating DC-area families and schools

“I don’t think we can keep up with the demand [for treatment]. I’m being perfectly honest,” Youngkin told News4. “One of the things that practitioners tell us all of the time is that they are semi-designed for substance use disorder among 16, 17, and 18-year-olds. Never before have they seen demand for 10, 11 and 12-year-olds. That’s what we’re experiencing in Virginia. We’ve got to do a much, much better job of figuring out how we can meet the needs of young people where they are, with the right help at the right time.”

We’ve added a link to Youngkin’s It Only Takes One initiative to our resources page on fentanyl and families. We know finding help can be hard. We’ve collected resources from across the DMV hoping to at least make the first step a little easier.

If you need help for a young person struggling with fentanyl use in the D.C. area, many resources are available. Go here for information on how to find help.

Sitting on the back porch of her home in Potomac, Maryland, Meyer recalled what happened this summer as she visited a mall in Montgomery County.

“All of a sudden I was jolted,” Meyer said.

She was parked in the mall parking lot when another car crashed into hers.

“I couldn’t believe what I was seeing,” she said. “I saw no one in the car. There was no driver, no passenger. It was an empty car that was driving itself into my car.”

She said the Tesla scraped the back of her car as it pulled out and “kept going after impact.”

Photos of the Tesla given to the I-Team by the driver showed it had more extensive damage. As for the Tesla driver, “He was shocked as I was,” Meyer said.

“It’s not supposed to do this!” she recalled him saying.

The operator of the Model Y Tesla told News4 he was using a feature on the app he had never used before called Summon. With the push of a button, the car is supposed to come to you and park itself.

Tesla put out an updated version called Smart Summon, which allows the car to steer itself and find the driver within 200 feet using the phone’s GPS.

But there have been some roadblocks. Searching online, the I-Team found drivers trying it out with some bumpy results – from running stop signs to hitting signs to getting into close calls with other cars.

‘Not ready for prime time’

On its website, Tesla points out the apps are a beta feature, meaning they’re still in development.

“They’re just not ready for prime time,” said Michael Brooks with the Center for Auto Safety.

Brooks told the I-Team he believes releasing any beta feature to the public is dangerous.

“They’re releasing them too early before they’ve been, you know, validated as safe – before they’ve been validated to work properly,” he said.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) labels the Summon apps as “Level 2 advanced driver assistance systems,” which also include features like cruise control and lane centering.

Companies are required to report crashes with vehicles that have the technology.

There have been 932 crashes since 2023 with vehicles that had Level 2 features, though the data doesn’t include which feature, according to the NHTSA’s most recent standing general order. Tesla greatly outnumbered other manufacturers with reports.

The I-Team saw Smart Summon in action

The News4 I-Team wanted to see how the Smart Summon feature works. We traveled to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, the organization known for safety ratings and crash testing vehicles.

David Aylor, vice president for active safety testing, demonstrated using one of their Tesla Model 3 vehicles.

“I’m going to open the app and open the summon feature,” explained Aylor. “I’m going to hit ‘Come to me.’ As long as I hold this button down, the vehicle will move. If I want the vehicle to stop, I need to release the button.”

On that first try, the car, in a parking space located about 200 feet from the I-Team, came without any issues. When Aylor added a simulated pedestrian, the car drove around it.

But not all the demonstrations went as smoothly. During one try, the Tesla turned toward another car as it made its way between two rows and didn’t seem to know which way to go.

Another time, Aylor stopped the vehicle when it turned toward an SUV. On the final try, the Tesla hit the curve.

“The whole concept of beta is, it’s still learning, Tesla is still learning, right? It’s using these scenarios to learn from that,” Aylor said.

Tesla did not respond to the I-Team’s emails. But online the company says when owners use the apps, they must familiarize themselves with limitations of Smart Summon, that the app is intended for use only in parking lots and driveways on private property, and that the operator must maintain a clear line of sight and continually monitor the vehicle.

‘There’s just no replacing an attentive and engaged driver’

Meyer’s crash in the mall parking lot was a first for her insurance agent and the Tesla driver’s insurance agent. Crashes like these are raising questions, especially in the insurance industry, when there’s no one physically behind the wheel.

“We’re sort of in dress rehearsal for that now because of all these different features that are there,” said Bob Passmore with Property Casualty Insurers Association of America.

Something every expert told the I-Team is even as technology improves our experience on the road, the driver must be in control.

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“There’s just no replacing an attentive and engaged driver, whether you’re holding an app in your hand or something in the car or you’re sitting in the driver’s seat,” said Passmore.

The Summon and Smart Summon apps in older models uses ultrasonic sensors and cameras to bring your car to your location. In September, Tesla released a newer version of the Summon app called the Actual Smart Summon. It uses just the vehicle’s cameras, since it no longer uses the sensors.

Reported by Susan Hogan, produced by Rick Yarborough, and shot and edited by Jeff Piper

Family after family has told News4 and Telemundo 44 that fentanyl changed their lives forever. Every loved one we spoke with whose child struggled with fentanyl use or even was killed by it said they never imagined the drug would enter their home.

Every parent needs to talk with their child about fentanyl. The News4 I-Team sat down with Dr. Marc Fishman, a Maryland psychiatrist who specializes in addiction treatment, on how to have the crucial conversations. Here are his tips.

Is there a particular age at which we need to start talking about fentanyl with our kids?

“I would say it’s not just talking about fentanyl. Back up a minute and talk about risks writ large, including other substances I think of as pre-fentanyl or pre-opioid … So, that’s nicotine, that’s alcohol, that’s cannabis … So, starting early – 11, 12, 13, before they’ve even met those risks is when to talk about it.”

I had a conversation with my kids, one 9, one 21, and said ‘Don’t take anything from other people. Don’t take pills. Don’t take gummies. Don’t take candy. Don’t take anything because of things being laced.’ How much of an issue is this?

“We don’t know what’s on the street. And what we do know is that things are marketed, as you say, as Adderall, as Xanax, as oxycodone, as Percocet, as whatever. And it’s often, if not always, pressed fentanyl … This is 50 times more powerful than heroin, 100 times more powerful than morphine.”

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What warning signs should we look out for that suggest to us that our kids are using drugs?

“We know from the data that parents are notoriously bad at recognizing and knowing when their kids have started to get into substance-use problems. So, the thing to get better at is looking for signs of change and deterioration … What’s the decline in the trajectory? They used to be into such and such fun thing – art, sports, school, friends – and now they’re losing it?”

What do you do? Who do you call for help?

“I would start with whatever trusted health caregiver you have access to. Is it the pediatrician? … Don’t stop until you get connected with somebody. Maybe it’s not a doctor. Maybe it’s a school counselor. Maybe it’s a member of the faith community who’s connected to a network of advice. But keep asking and don’t give up until you get a yes.”

What do you say to parents who say, this can’t happen to my kid?

“Well, that’s an error. It can happen to anybody. It is a common, tragic event … Don’t assume that you have some force field because of class, because of social standing … Pay attention. Talk to the kids. Have the conversations … It is an equal-opportunity evil.”

What if you try to talk to your kids about fentanyl and they put up a wall? How do you break through, especially with teenagers?

“You don’t need to be their best friend … Have a listening ear. Be sympathetic … Never make the mistake that they don’t carry your voice around in their heads, even if they don’t follow it immediately … You told them to be careful who you fall in love with and maybe wear a condom. You’ve given them all of that risk behavior all along. This is the same kind of thing. Stick to your guns.”

Can you offer some hope? Does treatment work?

“Treatment works … One of the best things I can say to kids and their families is, don’t give up on this.”

“There is light at the end of the tunnel. We have effective treatments. Stay engaged. And if it’s three steps forward and two steps back, that’s OK. Keep connected. Keep coming back. Never give up.”

If you need help for a young person struggling with fentanyl use in the D.C. area, many resources are available. Go here for information on how to find help.

Reported by Susan Hogan, produced by Rick Yarborough and Andrea Swalec, edited by Perkins Broussard

Edith Montalvan bought a birthday cake for her daughter Ashleigh, but the teen wasn’t there to make a wish.

“I miss you so much. I miss you, baby. The house is not the same,” the Silver Spring mother said through tears.

Ashleigh died two years ago, at just 15. She was found in her bedroom after she accidentally overdosed on a drug laced with fentanyl.

“When I see her, I say, ‘Ashleigh, please, mami! Wake up!” Montalvan recalled.

Esteban López Cortés, of Laurel, copes with the heartbreak of fentanyl too. His daughter started using the drug at age 14. Despite treatment, she has relapsed three times, he said.

“I don’t see a future. You no longer have hope,” he said in Spanish.

Overdose rates in the Hispanic community nationally increased almost 290% from 2010 to 2021, according to a study published by the National Institutes of Health. Fentanyl was one of the top three drugs to blame. The synthetic drug killed almost 75,000 people in the U.S. last year, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data says.

A memory of young teens cooking up fentanyl in Montgomery County

In Montgomery County, the nonprofit organization Identity offers free support to families with children addicted to fentanyl. Program Director Nora Morales has seen first-hand the chaos the drug creates in Hispanic families.

“I will never forget my first time doing street outreach. There was a group of maybe 12, 13-year-olds, and they were on the street, and they were cooking up fentanyl,” she said.

A 2023 report from the county’s health department says about 42% of emergency room visits for opioid overdoses were for Latino youth.

How trauma can relate to young immigrants’ drug use

Many of the affected families already grappled with other challenges and trauma.

“Those families have experienced a lot of loss,” Morales said. “When you add the immigration traumas, that is a recipe for a lot of isolation and depression, and so drugs seem very appealing.”

Some young immigrants are pushed to drugs as they seek relief from trauma they suffered in coming to the U.S., said University of Maryland professor Amy Lewin, who specializes in the study of family health.

“The journey overland that many of them went through to arrive in the U.S. was, in many, many of their cases, dangerous, threatening, full of deprivation and fear,” she said.

Even if the children themselves didn’t experience that hardship, what their parents went through can affect them.

“They still feel the weight of some of these things because their parents experienced it. So, we talk about this as intergenerational transmission of trauma,” Lewin said.

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Barriers to care and how to break through

When immigrant families need help related to addiction or mental health, fear of possible legal consequences can be a barrier.

“This is a group that largely has less access to traditional mental health resources because of language barriers, because of income barriers, because of documentation barriers,” Lewin said.

That’s why Morales, of the group Identity, said it’s so important for parents to help their children find a safe space, especially if they’re new to the country.

“Help them find a club at school. Help them find a church group,” she said. “A lot of us who are immigrants, we left our communities behind. So, if you are an immigrant, create your community by bonding with your neighbors.”

She and others hope to battle the fentanyl crisis that’s devastating families in the D.C. area and around the country.

Montalvan, whose teen daughter died of an accidental overdose, said that two years after tragedy struck, she still struggles to understand that her child is gone.

“It’s very, very sad. Yes, it is hard. My heart is not accept what happened,” she said.

Some of the young people who the organization Identity works with in Montgomery County began using fentanyl when they were just 10 or 11 years old, Morales said.

She said she believes conversations about fentanyl and substance use need to begin in elementary school and middle school. If those lessons don’t come until high school, it may be too late.

If you need help for a young person struggling with fentanyl use in the D.C. area, many resources are available. Go here for information on how to find help.

Reported by Alberto Pimienta, produced by Ambar Rodriguez, shot by Lance Ing and Carlos Olazagasti, and edited by Jeff Piper

Elena Suarez wants people to know her teenage daughter Colette the way she remembers her. She was playful and “brought out the silliness” in her mom. Colette, who attended Winston Churchill High School, had the world at her feet.

But her life took a terrifying turn on a spring break trip to Brazil, where her mom says she was sexually assaulted.

Suarez said her daughter began to use cocaine to numb the pain.

“The addiction was fast and hard,” Suarez said. She suspects the cocaine her daughter took was laced with fentanyl.

Over the next year, Colette overdosed three times. After the last time, she promised her mother it would be her last.

“Mama, I love you. I want to live,” she told her mother.

“That was one of the happiest moments of my life,” Suarez recalled.

That happiness was short-lived.

“She’s walking out the door and all of a sudden she turns around, she goes, ‘Mama, you focus too much on me. Focus on yourself. Just be happy.’ She walked away. And that was the last time I saw my child,” Suarez said.

Eight days later, Colette died of fentanyl poisoning at age 19.

Sadly, stories like Colette’s are not uncommon. As the News4 I-Team investigated the fentanyl crisis among young people in the D.C. area, we learned that parents are coping not only with the heartbreak of trying to rescue their kids but with the financial toll too.

A Montgomery County mother lost her business as she sought treatment for her teen son

In Silver Spring, an entrepreneur and mother struggled to keep her business afloat as her son needed treatment because he was using fentanyl. Ana found herself trying to get her son, Steve, to treatment at the same time that she cared for the customers of her cleaning business. Eventually, she had to make a choice.

“I was alone with my son in the hospital. I didn’t have anyone to help me with the company. So, I went bankrupt,” she said in Spanish.

“I had to stop working because of a crisis. In other words, it’s difficult, because I couldn’t work, financially contribute, because I was taking care of my son,” she added. “So, you lose a lot.”

Ana isn’t alone in facing financial hardship as she tried to get her child the help he needed, said Jonathan Henriquez, a program manager with the Montgomery County organization Identity.

“We’ve actually even seen cases where the family has had to sell their home because of their child’s fentanyl use,” he said.

Identity provides afterschool resources on everything from mental health to substance use for underserved youth age 7 to 25. They also connect families with food, clothing and rental assistance as young family members struggle with drug use.

“It’s a huge financial burden,” Henriquez said.

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What treatment for fentanyl use can cost and how to get help

As many parents find out, getting help for a child dealing with substance use disorder can be costly.

According to the American Addiction Centers, outpatient drug detox programs range from $250 to $800 per day. Inpatient rehab programs are even more expensive, ranging from $5,000 to $80,000 per month.

Then there are medication costs. Depending on the drug, they can typically cost a few thousand dollars per month.

No matter where you live and no matter your financial situation, there are resources to help pay for your child’s substance use treatment.

Many programs take Medicaid, Children’s Health Insurance Program, private insurance and TRICARE.

If you don’t have insurance or treatment is too expensive, there are ways to get help:

• Many programs offer a sliding-fee scale, which lets someone pay based on what they make
• Ask about grants, scholarships and charity care and if it will cover the entire time of a child’s treatment or if some of the money needs to be paid back.
• Some facilities also offer payment plans

If you have insurance:

• First, call the number on the back of your insurance card to ask to what type of treatment is covered.
• Ask how much your co-pay will be, how many appointments or days of treatment are covered per year and if medications also are covered

“There are more and more resources because the epidemic is so large now,” said Suarez, who lost her daughter to fentanyl poisoning.

She joined a support group of other mothers who lost children, sharing their stories and trying to turn their pain into purpose.

“I was blessed that my daughter’s last wish for me was that she said, ‘Be happy.’ Because that is my guiding light, if you will. I do my best to be happy,” she said.

If you need help for a young person struggling with fentanyl use in the D.C. area, many resources are available. Go here for information on how to find help.

Reported by Susan Hogan, produced by Ambar Rodriguez, shot by Steve Jones and Lance Ing, and edited by Lance Ing

In her son Stafford’s empty bedroom, Liz Nibley dropped to her knees and prayed, “God, please keep Stafford alive.”

The Bethesda resident didn’t pray for a cure for her youngest son, only that he was still alive.

“We love you. Give him another chance. We never, ever want to lose you,” her prayer continued.

That night came years into Nibley’s fight to get her son off drugs. Stafford ran away from a drug treatment program. Liz said it wasn’t the first time he had done so. It would be days before her mother saw him again.

Stafford was in high school when he first started using drugs. He started with marijuana and escalated to heroin and eventually fentanyl.

Nibley showed News4 video clips of her son playing a lead role in Our Lady of Good Counsel High School’s production of Les Misérables in his junior year.

“Listen to that voice,” she said as she watched how happy he was on stage. “Look how beautiful his eyes look.”

It wasn’t long after that performance when Nibley, her husband and their other sons knew Stafford needed help to get off drugs.

“It’s very, very hard. There is no guidebook and at times you really feel like you’re navigating this journey alone,” Nibley said.

What families face as they seek care for their kids

Families can face a long path to finding treatment when a young person is using fentanyl, said Dr. Marc Fishman, a Maryland psychiatrist specializing in addiction treatment. He didn’t treat Stafford but he treats teens in what he knows is tough environment to find care.

“It shouldn’t be this hard,” he said.

“When I see parents, they are up to their ears in alligators. They are exhausted … They don’t know which way to turn. They don’t know what to do,” he said.

Fishman just opened Maryland’s first inpatient drug treatment center specifically for teens – the very first one. There aren’t many more in Northern Virginia, and there are none in D.C.

A young person struggling with drug use may repeatedly need treatment, he said.

“Sometimes, people are lucky and get it the first or second time, but a lot of people flounder and don’t know and only get [to treatment] after a near-fatal overdose, which is way too late,” he said.

Stafford’s family found 42 drug treatment programs for him

Stafford didn’t participate in just one or two drug treatment programs. His family found 42 programs for him.

The number 42 rolled off his mother’s tongue as if finding her son those programs was not a remarkable feat of persistence.

Even now, she has the list of all 42 programs on her phone. Scrolling through the list, she said the programs took place all over the country. Some were better than others, some were awful, and a few worked for Stafford for a while. Few of the programs had coordinated care at home.

Together, the 42 drug treatment programs cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, even with insurance.

As Stafford began every one of the programs, his mother said so many goodbyes to him, she recalled.

“I just hoped always for the future. I always had hope for the future,” she said.

But after 42 programs and almost 10 years of fighting, addiction beat Stafford just days before his 25th birthday.

Police found him dead in a motel in Baltimore.

“The police said there was so much fentanyl. There was so much fentanyl,” Nibley said.

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The role pediatricians can play in addiction treatment

Stafford isn’t alone in starting to use drugs as a teen. Fishman, the psychiatrist, pointed to research suggesting 90 to 95% of adults with substance use disorders started using drugs before they turned 18.

He said primary care doctors should know how to treat young people.

“We need to do a better job about pushing these treatments out into primary care, because that’s where kids already are,” Fishman insisted.

For teens, that is most likely a pediatrician. But in most cases, a child’s pediatrician does not have experience treating drug use. The American Academy of Pediatrics has a telephone hotline offering advice for pediatricians but no formal clinical guidelines to treat opioid use.

Research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in late February shows nearly a quarter of American pediatricians surveyed had diagnosed an adolescent with opioid use disorder, but only 5.5% of them had prescribed medicine that can save their lives by negating the effect of opioids.

Buprenorphine is the medication used to treat many patients fighting opioid use. It is often prescribed under the brand names Suboxone, Subutex, or Zubsolv, among others. According to the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, it is a “long-acting opioid drug used to replace the shorter-acting opioids that someone may be addicted to, such as heroin, oxycodone, or fentanyl. When taken at the correct dose, buprenorphine prevents withdrawal symptoms and reduces drug cravings without causing the person to feel high or sleepy. This lowers the harms associated with opioid misuse and gives people who are addicted to opioids a chance to stabilize their lives.”

The FDA has only approved buprenorphine for patients 16 and older, but addiction specialists told the I-Team it can safely be used “off-label” for younger patients.

How Virginia law affects teens seeking life-saving drug treatment

In Virginia, however, it’s against the law to prescribe buprenorphine to anyone under 16.

Dr. Zeina Saliba, the chief of addiction and recovery services for Inova, said she believes Virginia’s law hurts kids who need treatment the most.

“If there is a young person who’s below that age, for whom the standard of care or the recommendation would be ‘Let’s get you on a life-saving medication,’ that’s not easy to do in this state,” she said.

Saliba said she hears from frustrated and overwhelmed parents and the medical colleagues who are trying to convince them to make sure kids aren’t going without treatment for fentanyl use.

“A dream state would be that no matter where you enter the health care sector, we will help you get to the right place,” she said. “[…] That’s not where we are right now.”

Saliba said not every kid needs in-patient detox or treatment. Sometimes outpatient therapy and medication can be enough. Finding someone who can help direct care is crucial.

“One of the most important things is going to be meeting with a professional who is skilled in identifying the different domains, evaluating to be able to give you a strong recommendation,” she said.

An average of 22 people age 14 to 18 died in the U.S. each week in 2022 from drug overdoses driven by fentanyl in counterfeit pills, according to new research from UCLA Health. That’s the equivalent to losing one classroom of teens every week.

If you need help for a young person struggling with fentanyl use in the D.C. area, many resources are available. Go here for information on how to find help.

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Rick Yarborough, shot and edited by Steve Jones