Follow this authorColbert I. King's opinions
Follow
Further, in a March 2014 story soon after Relisha’s disappearance, The Post reported that D.C. General rules prohibiting social contact and interaction were regularly flouted, “in particular by Tatum, who several mothers said had offered money to their daughters in plain view of other shelter staff.”
But this column is not about what the D.C. government did or failed to do for Relisha and her family. About that much can be said. Or where her family fell short in their responsibility for her care and support. That, too, is a story.
Advertisement
I’m taking the liberty of repeating some of what I learned, two years after Relisha tragically disappeared, concerning Relisha while in Kahlil Tatum’s hands.
Her family said Tatum, with their knowledge, brought Relisha gifts and took her for sleepovers, as well as to the movies and malls.
The D.C. police launched a missing-person probe for Relisha on March 19, 2014. Tatum and his wife, Andrea, lived in an apartment on N Street SE, but that isn’t where he and Relisha would be seen in videos gathered by authorities.
Such as on Feb. 26, when he and Relisha can be viewed walking down the hall at a Holiday Inn Express in Northeast.
Such as days later, on March 1, when Relisha is seen walking past the fountain in front of the Days Inn on New York Avenue. She is observed in the lobby and entering a room with Tatum.
Advertisement
Think about it.
A senior law-enforcement official, speaking to me on background, asked at the time: “What’s a grown man doing with a little girl in motels?” The official voiced a strong opinion that Tatum was “pimping” Relisha “for himself and others.” “People in this city have no idea how many kids are being taken advantage of by predators,” the official added. The official also speculated that Tatum’s wife “found out about what he was doing and he killed her.”
None of that would ever be established in a court of law — or anywhere else. Tatum was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. His wife was found shot to death with the gun authorities believe Tatum used on himself.
Relisha has never been found. The mind is left to fill in the blanks about the fate of an innocent child who brought none of this horror upon herself.
We need the truth about what happened to Relisha, and why, and by whom, living or dead. This city must learn the truth.
Share Comments
Popular opinions articles
HAND CURATED
- Opinion|What the Supreme Court told usFebruary 29, 2024Opinion|What the Supreme Court told usFebruary 29, 2024
- Opinion|Supreme Court aids and abets Trump’s bid for delayFebruary 29, 2024Opinion|Supreme Court aids and abets Trump’s bid for delayFebruary 29, 2024
- Opinion|Women are divorcing — and finally finding happinessFebruary 28, 2024Opinion|Women are divorcing — and finally finding happinessFebruary 28, 2024
View 3 more stories Sign up
Ten years after Relisha Rudd’s disappearance, it remains an agony to imagine her fate. What we know is a horror. Worse is what we are forced to suppose.
Sunday’s front-page Washington Post article on the 2014 disappearance of Relisha, then 8, from a makeshift, dilapidated and bug-ridden shelter at what used to be D.C. General Hospital in Southeast Washington portrays some of the people who knew and interacted with her before she went missing. It recaptured the disgraceful conditions under which the little second-grader lived. And it touched briefly on Kahlil Tatum, the janitor employed by the nonprofit Community Partnership for the Prevention of Homelessness, which the D.C. government hired to operate the shelter. Tatum, the prime suspect in Relisha’s disappearance, was wanted by the FBI in connection with his wife’s murder but apparently killed himself before authorities could question him.
The Post article explored the impact and consequences of Relisha’s disappearance on the community and beyond. I was around at the time, too, asking questions and publishing columns of my own about that tragedy. Some of what I learned makes it hard to speak of Relisha in the present tense.
In a 2016 column, I noted reporting that the 51-year-old Tatum was a convicted felon who had been incarcerated from 1993 to 2003 and again from 2004 to 2011 for burglary, larceny, and breaking and entering. The column also noted that a 2012 D.C. inspector general report found that the Community Partnership employed people to work in direct contact with families and children at the shelter who had not undergone criminal background checks or drug and alcohol testing, as the city contract required. The Community Partnership, according to the inspector general, acknowledged that it had “grandfathered in” six workers with criminal convictions.
Further, in a March 2014 story soon after Relisha’s disappearance, The Post reported that D.C. General rules prohibiting social contact and interaction were regularly flouted, “in particular by Tatum, who several mothers said had offered money to their daughters in plain view of other shelter staff.”
But this column is not about what the D.C. government did or failed to do for Relisha and her family. About that much can be said. Or where her family fell short in their responsibility for her care and support. That, too, is a story.
I’m taking the liberty of repeating some of what I learned, two years after Relisha tragically disappeared, concerning Relisha while in Kahlil Tatum’s hands.
Her family said Tatum, with their knowledge, brought Relisha gifts and took her for sleepovers, as well as to the movies and malls.
The D.C. police launched a missing-person probe for Relisha on March 19, 2014. Tatum and his wife, Andrea, lived in an apartment on N Street SE, but that isn’t where he and Relisha would be seen in videos gathered by authorities.
Such as on Feb. 26, when he and Relisha can be viewed walking down the hall at a Holiday Inn Express in Northeast.
Such as days later, on March 1, when Relisha is seen walking past the fountain in front of the Days Inn on New York Avenue. She is observed in the lobby and entering a room with Tatum.
Think about it.
A senior law-enforcement official, speaking to me on background, asked at the time: “What’s a grown man doing with a little girl in motels?” The official voiced a strong opinion that Tatum was “pimping” Relisha “for himself and others.” “People in this city have no idea how many kids are being taken advantage of by predators,” the official added. The official also speculated that Tatum’s wife “found out about what he was doing and he killed her.”
None of that would ever be established in a court of law — or anywhere else. Tatum was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. His wife was found shot to death with the gun authorities believe Tatum used on himself.
Relisha has never been found. The mind is left to fill in the blanks about the fate of an innocent child who brought none of this horror upon herself.
We need the truth about what happened to Relisha, and why, and by whom, living or dead. This city must learn the truth.
login
who are we?
contact us
qosheapp
Toi Staff
Gideon Levy
Belen Fernandez
Andrew Mitrovica
Mort Laitner
Ali Fathollah-Nejad
Rami G Khouri
Nikkei Editorial
visit website
