ANALYSIS/OPINION:

We’ve been wondering which public official in Washington DC was going to step up and fill the shoes of the late Marion Barry and we might now finally have our answer.

A DC Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner was arrested for driving under the influence this week and during the course of his arrest he acted aggressively, threw around various racial epithets including the “N-word” and finally urinated on the floor of a Prince Georges County, Maryland police station and ordered cops to clean up his mess.

WTOP adds more precious details of Paul Trantham’s adventure with the law:

Prince George’s County police say Paul Trantham was swerving while driving along the 5100 block of Indian Head Highway in Oxon Hill, Maryland, around 12:20 a.m. When police pulled him over, Trantham’s car smelled like alcohol and he acted aggressively toward officers, police say. When another officer was called on the scene to help with the situation, Trantham claimed to know Prince George’s County Executive Rushern Baker. Police said he continued to act aggressively at the Oxon Hill police station, swearing and using racially charged language toward the officers. Trantham then urinated on the station floor and told officers to clean it up, according to the incident report. Officers uncuffed Trantham to allow him to use the bathroom, and he “slammed the door and said he wasn’t coming out,” according to the police report. Trantham resisted arrest when police came in.

To the delight of all involved, Trantham then issued a not-so-veiled threat to the officers saying they’d be fired because they “didn’t know who he was.”

Well, everyone knows who Mr. Tranthum is now.

For the uninitiated, Advisory Neighborhood Comissioners, or ANC, is a position created in the 1970s as a result of the DC Home Rule scheme. The position is unpaid but the commissioners do wield some level of power and influence and they also have control over budgets and staffs.

Several years ago, one ANC was convicted of misuse of funds and served 30 days in jail.

Tranthum is the ANC for Ward 8B which consists of the Garfield Heights, Knox Hill, Shipley Terrace neighborhoods, all part of Ward 8 which was represented for many years by the legendary mayor (and convicted criminal felon, Marion Barry.

Tranthum denies the details of the arrest as described by PGPD and he told local DC station WJLA that he plans to sue the police department.

“I think they are homosexual because what man would come in there and pull another man off the seat?” Trantham told the television station of the bathroom stand-off.

Police Chief Hank Stawinski stands by his officers and their report. He even released a video showing the stand-off between Tranthum and police as the community activist had barricaded himself in the bathroom.

And you wonder why we call it “The Swamp.”

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