"It's ironic for this to actually happen in the District's city hall and for all these juvenile justice experts to lose control over these girls," Walker said. "It's really telling."
As Arsenio Hall regularly said, "things that make you go hmmmmmm????".
Awards ceremony for rehabbed youth ends in brawl
By: Scott McCabe
Examiner Staff Writer
August 2, 2010
to put end to melee
An awards ceremony recognizing good behavior by youth in the District's juvenile justice system ended in a brawl and three arrests.
Mayor Adrian Fenty had just finished handing out the honors to the Department of Youth and Rehabilitation Services' most successfully rehabilitated offenders when three of the girls got into an argument, according to law enforcement sources and police records.
"One of the girls got a glazed look in her eyes, and it was on," said one witness who asked not to be identified for fear of retribution.
Chairs and fists started flying, witnesses said.
Administration officials and security quickly moved in to stop the Thursday night fray, but the melee continued for several minutes, witnesses said. Police backup and D.C. fire and rescue workers were called to the Wilson Building to help quell the violence and take care of an injured person.
Neither the mayor nor any of the attendees were seriously injured.
Administration spokeswoman Mafara Hobson said the mayor did not have any immediate reaction to the fight.
"He was concerned about the kids' safety," Hobson said.
Police arrested Grace Ebiasah, 18, Anna Ebiasah, 20, and Deanna Morris, 19, with fighting in a public place. All are from Southeast Washington.
Johnnie Walker, past president of the local branch of the American Federation of Government Employees, said the mayor got a firsthand look at what his caseworkers are confronted with daily.
"It's ironic for this to actually happen in the District's city hall and for all these juvenile justice experts to lose control over these girls," Walker said. "It's really telling."
The brawl highlights the problems within the agency and the headaches it is causing the mayor during what was supposed to be a relatively easy road to re-election.
Under mounting pressure last week, Fenty fired his interim DYRS director and replaced him with a top aide to Attorney General Peter Nickles. The firings came on the heels of an investigation that found numerous problems at the agency. The report found that 71 percent of the juvenile offenders in DYRS were convicted again within two years, and that youths had been disappearing for weeks at a time before the agency sought an arrest order.
The investigation began in April after three DYRS youth were charged with killing popular District middle school principal Brian Betts.
Since the beginning of the year, at least 10 youths who were supposed to have been under the supervision of the agency have been charged with murder, and six of the agency's youth have been slain themselves.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/Awards-ceremony-for-rehabbed-youth-ends-in-brawl-1005864-99720924.html
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