DC Like a Local

photo uploaded to flickr by dbking

No story about Marion Barry is more famous, of course, than the joint FBI-MPD bust of him smoking crack in the Vista Hotel (now the Westin Washington on M ST NW). The video became synonymous with Barry, and his famous line "Bitch set me up" continues to ricochet through his current shenanigans. Personally, my favorite part is when, after being arrested, he's asked if he needs medical attention; to which he responds "You mind if I, I have a quick drink ...." Perhaps nothing else epitomizes his lack of remorse or awareness of the seriousness of his transgressions. If you stay in the Westin, be sure to ask for room 727.

The raid was a result of a year long grand jury investigation of the Mayor's behavior. On December 22nd, 1988, Metropolitan Police Department officers were preparing to make an undercover drug buy from a Barry friend and former DC employee (of course!), Charles Lewis, in Room 902 of the Ramada Inn Central (now the Hotel Helix). Having just received a tip from a hotel maid that Lewis was offering cocaine to her, MPD detectives were en route to the hotel to set up a drug buy when they were pulled off. The reason: Marion Barry was at that very time in the same room with Lewis. With MPD apparently having problems catching the Mayor, the FBI persued the case. They arrested Lewis in the Virgin Islands for another drug offense and brought him back to the DC area. After spending three months in the Alexandria Detention Center, Lewis agreed to cooperate.

For those who choose to stay at the trendy Hotel Helix nowadays, you would be shocked to see that in 1988, one of Barry's many excuses at the time was  "What I'm guilty of is . . . going to a bad address. The Ramada Inn is just considered a bad address in terms of how people look at things."  And he wasn't wrong.  The nearby 14th ST corridor was awash in prostitutes and drugs, and a young man had overdosed in room 1002 just a few days before. He would know, it was a few blocks away from "This is It", the strip, er excuse me, erotic club, we mentioned yesterday.

The Ramada incident captivated Washington, DC throughout 1989.  Speculation run rampant as the FBI and MPD's Internal Affairs division continued to build their case behind the scenes. While the arrest at the Vista Hotel would soon overshadow this affair, at the time the Ramada was at the tip of everyone's tongue.  Barry even went so far as to change his reservations at a Birmingham, Alabama Ramada to avoid negative association with the name. Incidentally, the reason for his visit?  To speak at the National Forum for Black Public Administrators, where he remarked in a panel discussion, "Unless we get rid of this scourge of drug abuse, we can forget about the 21st century."

However, on January 18th, 1990, this incident would be all but forgotten when Marion Barry was caught red-handed smoking crack on video. Admitting nothing more than a "weakness", Barry gave a tearful address from St. Timothy's Episcopal Church, across the street from his house at 3607 Suitland Rd a few days later. It would be the closest Barry would come to a public apology for his behavior. On February 15th, the grand jury would hand down the first indictments, and on June 13th, Barry would elect not to run for a fourth term as Mayor.

At the trial, numerous allegations about Barry's drug use, sexual indiscretions, corruption, and general filthiness came to light. Barry's former girlfriend, Hazel Diane "Rasheeda" Moore was the star witness. In addition to her starring role as "the Bitch" in the video of Barry smoking crack, Moore testified that she had used cocaine "at least 100" times. Moore first used drugs with the Mayor at a Southwest DC Condominium, She would purchase cocaine from a dealer known only as "John" at Florida Avenue near Howard University, deliver them to Barry's fifth floor office at the Reeves Center, and get high after budget meetings.  This continued until ended at the Grand Hyatt in June of 1988 when Barry beat her when she refused to have sex with her. According to her, Barry gave the somewhat limp defense, "I haven't hit a woman in 20 years. You bring out the worst in a man." Kudos to Barry for going 20 whole years without hitting a woman!

Despite these and other admissions, on August 10th of that year, the nation would be not at all shocked that a DC jury at the E. Barrett Prettyman Federal Courthousewas unable to convict Barry on 13 of the 14 charges against him (with 1 acquittal and 12 deadlocked). Ironically, the only charge that would stick was a possession charge that had taken place at the Mayflower Hotel, not the Vista. Jury member and DC employee (of course!) Valerie Jackson-Warren even went so far to insist that the substance that an FBI chemist testified was 93 percent pure crack was in fact sugar, because, according to her, crack is yellow and not white. Fellow juror Johnie Mae Hardeman speculated perhaps that it might be baking soda instead.  Barry's defense attorney had not contested the fact that it was crack cocaine.  Interestingly enough, although the "not guilty" voters were all African American, the jury seemed to be split along age lines, and not racial ones. The older jurors, perhaps with more personal memories of segregation, held to their interpretation that Barry was set up, despite overwhelming evidence of his guilt and none that the FBI or MPD had acted improperly.

Sentenced to six months in a Federal Penitentiary, surely this would be the end of Marion Barry's political career, no? Join us tomorrow when we see what happened next (Spoiler alert: it's nowhere near the end!).