Asked yesterday what the 66-year-old four-term mayor was doing there Thursday night, Barry's attorney, Frederick D. Cooke Jr., said: "I didn't ask him why he was at Buzzard Point. I don't know what he was doing sitting there."

Police conducted a field test on substances found in Barry's car, and it came up positive for traces of cocaine and marijuana. Barry was not arrested after police determined that there was not a sufficient amount of illegal drugs found to file charges.

Barry said through Cooke that he does not believe the incident will derail his plans to run for an at-large seat on the D.C. Council this fall. Saturday, at a conference hosted by the city's Democratic Party, Barry led a workshop on how to win elected office.

In a brief telephone interview last night Barry said he was "convinced that if there had been any substance or any traces of any substance they would have arrested me."

He said he believed that "the U.S. Park Police police leaked this incident in an effort to embarrass and discredit me" and said he was "upset that the police are attempting to tarnish my name."

The city's political community was stunned yesterday at the news of the incident, blaming either Barry or law enforcement officials for this latest episode in the former mayor's troubled history with drugs and the law.

Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D), presiding at the finishing line of the DC Marathon at Freedom Plaza, said he was withholding judgment until more facts emerge. But he questioned the behavior of both the police and his predecessor.

"I just want to make sure that we're equally enforcing the law," said Williams, who succeeded Barry in January 1999. "I think it's important to see that there's no profiling, no targeting, no entrapment."

Williams said that to his knowledge, "there's never been any indication" that law enforcement officials have singled out Barry. At the same time, Williams said, public figures must acknowledge that their behavior will face heightened scrutiny.

"You have an extra responsibility to think about where you are, the time of day, things like that," he said.

Council Chairman Linda W. Cropp (D) said she was "thoroughly shocked and upset" by the report.

"I don't know whether it's true or not, but the whole episode just pinpoints the reason why we as a city don't need Marion Barry as a lightning rod for negative publicity," Cropp said. "The city doesn't need that type of intrigue and controversy around our elected officials."

Park Police spokesman Sgt. Scott Fear declined yesterday to release paperwork generated by the incident, which began about 9‚p.m. Thursday when officers responding to a call about a suspicious, illegally parked vehicle approached Barry as he sat in a parked Jaguar.

In an interview Saturday, Fear said one officer reported that the occupant of the car appeared to be "ingesting something" and the offer also noticed a "powdery substance" under the person's nose. Police brought a dog trained to detect drugs to the scene, and the animal indicated that it probably had detected illicit substances, Fear said.

A search of the car and a preliminary field test on substances found in the car came up positive for "residue" of marijuana and cocaine, Fear said.

Fear declined to specify the exact amount of illegal substances tested, but he said officers decided it was too small to make an arrest and Barry was permitted to leave.

"Mr. Barry was treated as any other citizen would have been treated," Fear said.

Cooke said that Barry knows that District voters are going to want an explanation, but said the former mayor doesn't see the incident as a threat to his political comeback.

"From his perspective it's not so much of a story," Cooke said. "Certainly the interaction with the police happened, but there was nothing untoward or illegal. No criminal act occurred. He cooperated with the police because he didn't think there was anything to hide."

D.C. Council member Phil Mendelson (D-At Large), whose seat is viewed as the most vulnerable to a Barry candidacy, said that the incident will not change his campaign plans. "I've said all along I'm going to run a positive campaign," Mendelson said. "It's an opportunity to get out my record and my vision. I don't want to comment on the incident."

Before Barry was elected mayor in 1979, he served as an at-large council member for four years. Barry was completing his third term as mayor when he was arrested in 1990 at a hotel after federal authorities videotaped him smoking cocaine.

The former mayor served time in prison for the misdemeanor conviction, but after his release again won a seat on the council where he represented Ward 8, in the city's southeastern quadrant. He was reelected mayor in 1994, but decided four years later not to run again.

Until his announcement this month that he planned to run for the council, Barry had kept a low profile since leaving the mayor's office in January 1999. During the past three years, he had done consulting work for a bond firm that specializes in municipal financing and at one point he had a small office in the Connecticut Avenue suite of the National Corrections and Rehabilitation Corp. In September 2000, Barry appeared in Northeast Washington where he tried to lobby residents to allow a private company to open a halfway house for 60 adult males in their community. The residents turned the project down.

Longtime Barry supporters said yesterday that they will continue to back him. "People are so sick of the administration going after him that they're going to go ahead and vote for him like they did before," said Mary Cuthbert, an officer of the Ward 8 Democrats.

Staff writers Sewell Chan, David Fallis, Spencer Hsu and Allan Lengel contributed to this report.

Source: Washington Post (DC)
Author: Yolanda Woodlee and Hamil R. Harris, Washington Post Staff Writers
Published: Monday, March 25, 2002; Page B1
Copyright: 2002 The Washington Post Company
Contact: letterstoed@washpost.com
Website: http://www.washingtonpost.com

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Mr. Barry is just another reason why I have very little respect for most of the so-called 'leadership' of the African-American community. The drug laws are specifically designed to harrass and intimidate people of color...yet many Blacks continue to support the War on Some Drugs...and lick the hand which holds the truncheon they are continually being beaten with. When will they ever wake up?

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