Assault Suspect Had Murder Conviction

WASHINGTON, D.C. - A Peacoholics mentor who is facing charges of molesting a teenage girl was allowed to work inside a Northeast D.C. high school despite having a previous conviction for murder, investigators say.

It was a job he shouldn't have gotten if a criminal background check had been properly done.
The co-founders of Peaceoholics, a group that works with at-risk youth, say background checks for its workers go back 10 years, but there is nothing in the D.C. code that puts a limit on the number of years. In fact, if the check had been done, according to law, Barry Harrison would never have been cleared to work at Spingarn High School.

The D.C. code says background checks are required from:

"An applicant who is under consideration for paid employment by a covered child or youth services provider."

It also says:

"An applicant, employee, or volunteer required to apply for a criminal background check...shall submit to a criminal background check by means of fingerprint and National Criminal Information Center checks conducted by the Mayor and the FBI."

At the top of the list of crimes that would prevent employment is murder. Records show 50-year-old Barry Harrison was convicted of murder in 1986. He was released in 2006, and he was serving as a paid intern with the Peaceoholics when police say he molested a 15-year-old girl in the basement of Spingarn High School.

"You can't condemn an entire organization because of the action of one, an awful act," said Marion Barry, a City Council member representing Ward eight, "Peaceoholics have about a hundred people on its payroll, that's the first thing. Secondly its obvious Peaceoholics need to do a better job of screening people-- gotta get a rap sheet, a background check."

Barry says the Peaceoholics should be responsible for screening their own people, but councilmember Harry Thomas, Jr. of ward five, whose district includes Spingarn, doesn't see it that way.

"I don't even put the onus on the Peaceoholics, I put the onus on this government," Thomas said. "I put the onus on us as leaders we should have the most stringent safe guards in place of any outside vendors that come in contact because in essence we are funding those sources."

The Peaceoholics say had they known Barry Harrison had been in prison for murder, they would never have sent him to work in the school. They say they need to employ ex-offenders in order to mediate disputes in some of the District's toughest neighborhoods.

For the second day in a row, FOX 5 asked Mayor Adrian Fenty's office to provide us with the policy allowing Peaceoholics to work inside D.C. schools. Late Tuesday, a document was emailed to FOX 5 by mayoral spokesperson Mafara Hobson. It was signed by the previous superintendent of schools, Clifford Janey, and expired last year.

There is nothing in the document that requires Peaceoholics employees to undergo background checks. Hobson says D.C. Schools is now conducting an investigation into how Harrison was permitted to work in the school. She says he should have been fingerprinted with the prints sent to the FBI.