S Street Rising: Crack, Murder, and Redemption in D.C. Read Online Free PDF Page A

much fun as I’d had working there, the paper had no future. For years, the Herald Examiner had been hemorrhaging cash—about a million dollars a month, according to newsroom chatter. It folded six weeks after I arrived in Washington.
    But my six and a half years at the Herald Examiner had prepared me well for the Post gig. Working at a newspaper with a small staff in a big, news-rich city meant I got a chance to write about almost everything. I’d covered earthquakes, fires, L.A. City Council meetings, local and state political races, the murder of singer Marvin Gaye, and the takedown of infamous serial killer Richard Ramirez, who was dubbed—by a Herald Examiner editor—the Night Stalker.
    When I was working in L.A., I didn’t think of myself as a crime reporter, but I had the soul, instincts, and resourcefulness that any good crime reporter needs. Wailing sirens and tight deadlines made me tingly. Chasing the big story amid chaos was energizing.
    The more chaotic the situation, the better. I wrote a few longer pieces, articles that took two or three weeks to research and complete. But being in the street was what got my pulse racing. And I was good at it.
    When the big earthquake hit Mexico City in September 1985, the paper sent me. As the plane cruised in for landing, I surveyed a ruined city from my window seat—fires and rubble everywhere. Outside the airport, I quickly interviewed a handful of taxi drivers—not for a story, but for a short-term hire. My gut told me that a young driver named Carlos was the biggest risk taker, so I hired him.
    He confirmed my instincts. Young soldiers with assault rifles manned roadblocks, preventing non-official vehicles from going into damaged areas. Carlos roared through the stricken city, improvising alternate routes around the checkpoints. When we were stopped at a military roadblock, Carlos explained with urgency that “we” were press, persuading the soldiers to let us through.
    For several days I witnessed and wrote about one amazing story after another: Mass burials with quick blessings by exhausted priests. A series of rescues, after several days, of newborn babies from the rubble of a hospital that had collapsed below ground level. Dazed men and women roaming a makeshift morgue in the outfield of a baseball field, studying hideously bloated heads and other body parts to try to identify missing loved ones. I hardly slept, but I wasn’t tired. I was running on adrenaline.
    The first big quake had hit on Thursday, September 19, 1985. The 8.0 earthquake knocked out all communications—phones, faxes, and Western Union wires were all down. On Friday afternoon, I flew to Ciudad Juarez, just across the border from El Paso, just to get to a phone. As I was in the air, an aftershock, almost as big as the first temblor, had struck the city. I called in my first story and hopped on a jet chartered by a group of journalists to get to Mexico City, after an editor approved the $1,000 cost. I spent Friday night reporting and Saturday morning handwriting my voluminous notes and a second story. The paper was counting on me; failure to file would have been a journalistic catastrophe.
    I gathered my notes and hailed a taxi to the airport. I found a check-in line for a flight to Guadalajara. A fellow Herald Examiner reporter was working the story from there, in an airport hotel that still had phone service. More than a hundred people were in line, anxiously waiting to check in for the flight. I had to stay in Mexico City to continue reporting, but I had to get my notes to my colleague in Guadalajara. I studied the people waiting to board the flight and zeroed in on a woman with two young kids—a boy and a girl. I introduced myself to the woman, explained that I was a newspaper reporter from Los Angeles, and told her that it was important my notes got to my co-worker. Would she deliver them?
    The woman nodded. Yes, of course.
    This was my one shot. I thought she would probably follow