Even cop doesn’t feel safe at home

The Metropolitan Police Department’s handling of someone’s firing shots outside a Metro Transit Police officer’s Northeast home has spurred Brookland and Woodridge residents to protest what they say is police mismanagement in their neighborhoods.

Residents, still reeling from the unsolved triple murder of three workers at Colonel Brooks Tavern April 6, plan to hold a candlelight vigil at 8 tonight. The vigil will be held outside the home of Metro Transit Police Capt. William Malone and his girlfriend, Sandy Nelson.

Last month, a gunman fired six high-caliber rounds into Capt. Malone’s 1987 Chevrolet Blazer parked in front of the couple’s $270,000 home in the 3600 block of 20th Street NE. The shooting occurred two months after Capt. Malone, 49, and Miss Nelson, 29, moved into their home. The gunman remains at large.

Regina James, an advisory neighborhood commissioner, called the latest shooting and the subsequent investigation “appalling.”

“It leaves us wondering, if this can happen to them, what can happen to us?” she said. “If they can’t get the help they need, how is an average citizen going to get it?”

The latest shooting wasn’t the first time a police officer’s family members were targets. Deborah Rosario, the wife of 5th District Master Patrol Officer Fred Rosario, was shot at in December 2000 as she and her 3-year-old son stood outside their house, which is 2- miles from Capt. Malone’s home.

She was shot at two days after she provided grand jury testimony in a homicide case. According to an investigative report obtained by The Washington Times, police officials downgraded the shooting to an “incident” three days after it occurred and closed the case.

Mrs. Rosario said she gave up pursuing the case. She provided a description of the shooter and said she sees the man in the neighborhood. She is scheduled to speak at tonight’s vigil.

Capt. Malone and Miss Nelson believe that the April 23 shooting was part of an ongoing attempt by neighborhood drug-dealing suspects to intimidate them. Three weeks before the shooting, Capt. Malone confronted several young men at a nearby house about racing motorcycles on the narrow street. Neighbors said the house where the young men congregate is notorious for drug dealing.

Miss Nelson, who works at home, said young men pace in front of her home and look through her windows while Capt. Malone is at work. She said she saw one young man write down her address.

“I was scared to death,” Miss Nelson said. “We hadn’t even lived there long enough to have shades on the windows. I felt like there was nowhere to hide.”

Capt. Essray Taliaferro, an assistant 5th District commander, visited Capt. Malone and Miss Nelson at their house April 2 and assured them he would issue a “special attention” bulletin at roll calls alerting patrol officers that a police officer living in the neighborhood was being harassed.

But that bulletin didn’t seem to work. Three weeks later, on April 23, Miss Nelson said she heard a series of gunshots fired outside her home at 11 p.m.

She called 911. That night, police officers told her they didn’t receive a warning from their supervisors that the couple was being harassed. They also told her they didn’t know that a police officer was living at the house.

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