On this day, D.C. Mayor Marion Barry was arrested on charges of possession of cocaine at the then-Vista International Hotel downtown.
FBI agents caught Barry on a hidden camera smoking crack cocaine with a former girlfriend, Rasheeda Moore, an informant who agreed to cooperate with the authorities in exchange for a reduced sentence on an earlier drug conviction.
“The bitch set me up!” Barry yelled as police hauled him away. The incident played over and over on television.
Barry was convicted on only one charge: a previous misdemeanor count of possessing cocaine that occurred in November 1989. After serving six months in prison, Barry re-entered D.C. politics and was elected to the city council before once again winning the mayoral election in 1994 for an unprecedented fourth term.
In 1997, Congress passed legislation to end “home rule” in the District, stripping Barry of his power and returning the city to the pre-1974 system of administration by federally-appointed commissioners. Barry retired as mayor in 1999, but re-entered politics again in 2004 and remains the councilman for Ward 8.
