refused to let them turn away. I asked him how he could do that and he said simply, “It's just politics.”
A few days before Christmas 1988, I was getting ready for bed while watching the 11 p.m. news when the telephone rang. It was Reggie Smith, the police department's chief spokesman. “John, Ike [Deputy Police Chief Issac Fulwood] wants you to come down to police headquarters.” Before I could ask what’s up, he said, “It’s about your boy.” I knew that meant don’t ask any questions. “I’m on my way.” When I walked into the chief’s office, I could hear Barry over the speakerphone. He sounded excited. Ike was angry. Ike said, “Get off this damn phone. Don’t you know they’re listening to you?” Barry was riding around the city trying to pull things together. As soon as Ike hung up he tried to explain to me what had happened earlier that evening at the Ramada Inn on Rhode Island Avenue.
It turned out that Barry was in room 902 at the hotel with Charles Lewis, an old friend from the Virgin Islands and a former D.C. government employee. The police were told the mayor was trying to score with a Colombian hotel maid by offering her some coke. The maid, who barely spoke English, reported this to her supervisor who called the police. Just before the police arrived, Barry’s security detail whisked him away while the police arrested Lewis. Meanwhile, Barry was trying to instruct me on what to tell the media. We decided we would wait until morning to further discuss the situation. Later that night, the media could only report the headline from The Post that a friend of Barry’s was arrested on drug charges.
The next day, Barry called a meeting of his cabinet to explain the unexplainable: why he was at the Ramada Inn with Lewis. He told us he went to the Ramada Inn because Lewis was an old friend looking for a job. He didn’t explain why Lewis didn’t go to the civil service office or the mayor’s office during regular business hours.
eeks. He refused to let
Marion Barry cut his teeth in the civil rights movement with Martin Luther King Jr. and with SNCC. (Photo courtesy of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc.)
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