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Motorist Robbed by 3 Police on Sunday were looking for three men who allegedly robbed a motorist at gunpoint near the University of Maryland in College Park. The victim told police he was driving eastbound on University Boulevard near Adelphi Road around 1:30 a.m. Sunday when a man flagged him down. When the victim pulled over the suspect displayed a gun and got in the backseat of the victim’s car. The victim was then forced to drive to a nearby intersection where two other men got in the car and the victim was told to get out. (AP) IFH?D=<?;B:" L7$
Police Kill Suspected Child Pornographer Fairfax County Police said an officer fatally shot a man wanted on child pornography charges after the man threatened police with a sword. Police said the shooting happened Saturday night inside an apartment in Springfield. Police said they were told the suspect was hiding in a bedroom. (AP) KFF;H C7HB8EHE" C:$
Officer Faces DUI Charges Police in Prince George’s County said a police officer has been charged with driving under the influence after he crashed his cruiser in a single-car accident. Police say the accident happened at just after 5 a.m. Saturday. Police Officer Daniel Gonzalez was off duty when he crashed at the intersection of Route 1 and Tanglewood Drive. (AP)
Culture Battle Over Food Truck Popular Fojol Bros. criticized for use of stereotypical outfits
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The number of people, as of Sunday afternoon, to sign an online protest against the Fojol Bros. food truck for their attire, which many say is culturally insensitive. (AP)
MWi^_d]jed Neither Drew Franklin nor Arturo Viscarra has ever eaten at one of the Fojol Bros.’ three colorful, crosscultural food trucks. Despite this fact, the two roommates have, in the course of a week, transformed one of the District’s most popular mobile vendors into one of the most despised. It started on May 11 with Franklin’s semicrude “Open Letter to the ‘Fojol’ Bro-dawgs” on Facebook and continued with Viscarra’s online petition at Change.org, which demanded that the Fojol Bros. “[r]espect Asian and African cultures — stop the brownface minstrel act!” The Fojol employees wear turbans and fake bushy mustaches and assume mythical personas from the lands of “Merlindia” and “Benethiopia” — all while peddling dishes inspired by the cuisines of India, Ethiopia and Thailand. The charges of racism and cultural mockery have blindsid-
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Fojol Bros. worker Peter Korbel in attire that has drawn flack from online critics.
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ed Fojol cofounder Justin Vitarello, who essentially pioneered the city’s modern food-truck movement when he rolled out his first
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D89 D;MI 7D9>EH 8H?7D M?BB?7CI speaks at George Washington University’s graduation ceremony on the National Mall on Sunday. Modest protests of Mexican telecommunications billionaire Carlos Slim, another speaker at the ceremony, did little to disrupt the morning graduation.
(THE WASHINGTON POST )
Finances May Slow Purple Line
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Fojol Bros. vehicle during Barack Obama’s inauguration on Jan. 20, 2009. The charges have impacted his young, ethnically diverse staff, says Vitarello, and they have proved a huge distraction as his ever-growing business gears up for the busy summer months on D.C.’s streets. T he pet it ion ca mpa ign against the Fojols has created a sort of crisis of conscience for Washingtonians.
Some have berated themselves for not speaking up before now, even though they’ve been troubled by the trucks’ carnival-like shtick from the beginning. “I’m a little embarrassed that I didn’t say something or at least boycott the truck on my own,” wrote one petition-signer. Others, however, fret that the District has become such a politically correct zone that no one — not even young entrepreneurs with a clear affection for international cuisines — can playfully incorporate the symbols and clothing of another culture without being accused of racism. “We’ve reached the point where no one can do anything funny/ edgy without shrill idiots getting ‘Offended,’ ” wrote one commenter on a Huffington Post story about the Fojol Bros. crisis. T IM CA R M A N
Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, D, has long promised that the D.C. suburbs and Baltimore would each get a new light-rail line and that the Purple Line and its counterpart in Charm City could be built at the same time. But financial documents recently submitted to the Federal Transit Administration show that O’Malley’s promise will be difficult — if not impossible — to keep. The General Assembly’s recent rejection of the governor’s proposed gas-tax hike makes it likely that the state will have to choose to build one of the lines before the other, state and local transportation officials say.
With no new tax revenue dedicated to transportation, finding the money for even one of the light-rail lines will be difficult, the officials say. The state hoped to begin construction on both lines in 2015, with the 16-mile Purple Line opening between Bethesda and New Carrollton by late 2020 and the 14-mile Baltimore Red Line opening in early 2021. But construction of the runner-up project probably would be delayed at least five years. When asked whether Maryland could afford to build both at once without a gas-tax increase, state Transportation Secretary Beverley Swaim-Staley said, “Probably no.” (THE WASHINGTON POST )