FRIDAY, JUNE 4, 2010
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THE SOUTHEAST SHOOTINGS
Despite strategy, police couldn’t avert violence
by Paul Duggan
D.C. Police Chief Cathy L.
Lanier arrived at 4022 South Capitol St. SE minutes after the gunfire March 30, as the nine victims were being loaded into ambulances. And not much time passed before she and other officials realized the motive for the drive-by attack. Facing TV news cameras in the
early evening darkness, Lanier appeared shaken, saying: “We’ve made a lot of progress to stop retaliation and gang violence. And, in the end, if this comes out to be some sort of gang retaliation, shame on all of us.” She already knew it was. “I was very angry,” Lanier recalled in an interview. The March 30 attack, which killed three people, ages 16 to 19, was the climax to a cycle of tit-for-tat shootings — the sort of violence that police have been able to short-circuit in recent years, reducing the city’s homicide totals.
Still, despite the lower murder
SARAH L. VOISIN/THE WASHINGTON POST
People cry in grief and anguish during a candlelight vigil held March 31, the night after the shootings, to remember those killed.
Deadly retaliation upon deadly retaliation
shootings from A10
where and when of a funeral that 700 mourners would attend. In the four days after his close
call at Sixth and Chesapeake, as Carter tended to his affairs, steering clear of the Irving Street apartment, he made several in- quiries about the Howe arrange- ments, authorities said. But the intel eluded him. Then, on the weekend of March 27, while Wil- liams and Simms were enjoying time at a hotel with two women, investigators said, one of the la- dies mentioned the funeral to Williams. It was coming up Tuesday, she
said.
Williams saw Best later that night and excitedly reported the details, thrilled at being able to contribute to the cause, accord- ing to one source, who described Williams as an eager-to-please “wannabe thug” with little or no hands-on experience. Authorities said the specifics were relayed to Carter: service at 11 a.m. Tuesday, St. Augustine Catholic Church, 1419 V St. NW, burial to follow in Glenwood Cemetery. As he hastily sorted out the drive-by logistics, investigators said, Carter decided to use an in- conspicuous minivan, a newer model, roomy and reliable. For a number of reasons having to do with drive-by best practices, the vehicle would be a rental ac- quired by a “cut out.” Plus, Carter, at 20, isn’t old enough to rent a car by himself. The assignment of being the
cut out went to a woman in Washington Highlands whom Carter regards as a godmother. About 40 years old, she was the keeper of Carter’s AK before the Howe shooting, investigators said. Godmother (whose coopera- tion with authorities has spared her from being arrested) went to a Thrifty location in Temple Hills to get a minivan on Monday night, March 29, the eve of the fu- neral. And then came a glitch that possibly saved lives, investigators said: Godmother picked out a suitable model, “whereupon [her] debit card was rejected.” In- sufficient funds. Carter allegedly gave her cash to put in her bank account, then drove her back to Thrifty early Tuesday, still with time to com- plete the rental, muster the drive- by crew, gather the guns and make it to the church. But the two encountered a
strict Thrifty policy: The com- pany insists on waiting 24 hours before accepting a previously turned-down debit card. God- mother was told to come back that evening. No amount of pleading could
change the clerk’s mind. A few hours later, at St. Augus- tine Catholic Church, all went peacefully, the mourners filing in from the sunshine on a cool, breezy morning, and packing the sanctuary. The Rev. Patrick Smith, who
celebrated Howe’s Mass of Chris- tian Burial that Tuesday, March 30, recalled seeing scores of young people in the pews, few of whom he recognized. Many had come to his church in the Cardo- zo area of Northwest Washington from their homes east of the Ana- costia River. There was Brishell Jones, 16, petite and well-behaved, who as-
SARAH L. VOISIN/THE WASHINGTON POST
A pensive mourner holds a candle during the vigil.
pired to be a chef; there was Da- Vaughn Boyd, 18, a convert to Is- lam working to set himself right after a brief stint in jail; there was William Jones III, 19, personable and easygoing, who was studying for a high school equivalency de- gree. As always before the funeral of a homicide victim, Smith told his secretary to alert the 3rd District police station nearby. Although he knew of no immediate danger, the priest understood the cycles of violence in the city. If au- thorities were aware of trouble brewing behind the shooting of this young man Howe, then he wanted them to know that Howe’s friends were sitting like targets in his church. A homicide sergeant already had seen to security: Two patrol units were posted on the block, and Patterson sat in an unmarked sedan just outside the church. The mourners left St. Augus- tine around 12:30 p.m., and the burial was over by 2 o’clock. At another church, Howe’s family hosted a repast, which went on until late afternoon. By early eve- ning, some of the deceased’s young friends were back in Southeast Washington, at a place they often gathered, in front of a dilapidated two-story
brick
house at 4022 South Capitol St., on the west side of Washington Highlands, near a Domino’s Pizza shop and a PNC bank. Brishell Jones was there. And
DaVaughn Boyd. And William Jones.
At 5:40 p.m., Godmother got the minivan.
23 gunshots
By 6:15 p.m., the drive-by gun- men were aboard.
Having missed the funeral,
they would have to hunt. At the wheel of the 2009 Chrys-
ler Town & Country, Carter had hurriedly rounded up the crew, police said. They said Best brought a 9mm pistol. Robert Bost, 21, another denizen of Sixth and Chesapeake, had a .45-cali- ber semiautomatic. Carter and Simms were without weapons just then. But they were headed to see Williams, who was still holding the AK and the shotgun rescued from Irving Street, au- thorities said.
When the four reached Wil-
liams’s apartment on Chesapeake Street, police said, he had the rifle and the 12-gauge ready. But another complication arose, as investigators tell it — the distribution of the firearms. Simms would later explain it to detectives during extensive inter- views: How could Carter shoot
straight with his AK while driv- ing (and he insisted on driving)? Not to mention he had a bullet wound in his right shoulder. Im- possible. So Simms took the as- sault rifle. Which left the pump- action shotgun — another weap- on notoriously difficult to fire ac- curately while maneuvering a family van. Plus, the gun was tricky. They’d had problems with it on Alabama Avenue. The men wanted no part of
that hard-to-use and/or malfunc- tioning 12-gauge, and they told Williams to keep it, authorities said. What Carter needed was a pistol. And he had an idea where he could find one, investigators said. In a few minutes, Carter’s quest for a handgun would leave a 17-year-old boy named Tavon
Nelson dead on the ground, an- other casualty in the run-up to the shootings on South Capitol Street, authorities said. In the meantime, the crew bid thanks and goodbye to Williams, with Carter allegedly vowing to be “spinnin’ all night” if that was what it took to find the people he was looking for. Simms would lat- er describe a tone of awe and ad- miration in Williams’s voice as he watched the men pull away. “Y’all about to com-mence!” he
allegedly said. Tavon lived at the Wingate
Tower & Garden Apartments on Galveston Street SW, about a mile south of 4022 South Capitol St. He was proud to own a semiauto- matic at such an early age and of- ten boasted about the gun, a youthful indiscretion that proved fatal, investigators said. It was af- ter 7 p.m., in the waning daylight, when Carter allegedly parked the silver minivan in a Wingate lot and dispatched Best and Bost into a courtyard to relieve Tavon of his firearm. The two returned minutes later and, according to Simms, breath- lessly reported as follows . . . Tavon had seen them coming
and drew his weapon first — pos- sibly because Best and Bost, as they approached, were wearing ninja masks, and Best’s 9mm got snagged in a pocket of his coat as he was trying to pull it out. Gun- fire ensued, and Tavon was mor- tally wounded. “I finished his ass,” Bost allegedly declared. But, no gun. In the rush of things, they had neglected to pick up the slain teenager’s pistol. Investigators said Carter was
angry — caught in the awkward position of having to go to his own drive-by unarmed. But he was buoyed by other news, which he might have received by cell- phone.
Some of Howe’s friends were right up the road, outdoors in plain sight, by the bank near the Domino’s. It was a few minutes before 7:30 p.m., the sun just setting on Washington Highlands, a far cor- ner of the city where the young are lucky if they get old; it had been nine nights since a cheap piece of bling went missing. After the carnage, there would be a chase — a wild one, a 14-mile loop ending almost where it started, police cars and a helicop- ter pursuing the minivan. Carter and Simms would be tackled and handcuffed that night. Best and Bost would be arrested three weeks later, along with Williams, after Simms flipped for the gov- ernment and cleared a 14-year- old boy who had been mistakenly charged. But that was the future. Who thinks ahead at payback time? The Town & Country eased to a halt in front of the ramshackle building at South Capitol and Brandywine streets.
Down went the window of the front passenger door; down went the larger windows of the big sliding doors. The four men in ninja masks
looked at the crowd a few yards to their right. Simms, at the sliding door on the passenger side, squeezed off eight rounds of 7.62x39mm am- mo from the AK, seven spent car- tridge casings spilling onto the seats and floor of the Chrysler, the other flying out the window and landing on the street.
rate, shootings in retaliation for violence account for a huge percentage of the District’s annual homicide toll, Lanier said. The department has adopted strategies in recent years to counter the problem, she said, and the effort’s success is evident in crime statistics. It begins with an emphasis on
officers building trusting relationships in the community, creating sources of information, Lanier said. “And when someone gives us information, we can’t sit on it or think it over. We have to act on it immediately, so they’ll see action out of us.” To promote a rapid flow of information and quick responses and prevent tips from falling through the cracks, she said, officials have created faster lines of communication among the department’s myriad units and officers in different parts of the city. “It’s been a department-wide
effort, every member, and it’s taken three years of constant focus,” Lanier said. “And it’s allowed us to jump on a lot of things before they happen. . . . It’s preemption — knowing who is going after who. We’ll get information that someone’s traveling in a stolen car with a gun, on their way to do a shooting, and we’ll be able to stop that person.” Chuck Wexler, director of the
Police Executive Research Forum, said that retaliation killings account for the bulk of homicides in most big U.S. cities and that police officials nationwide have made preemption a priority, as Lanier has. “With some kinds of shootings and murders, there’s very little you can do,” said Wexler, who has worked with law enforcement agencies across the country, helping them devise policing strategies. “A kid shoves another kid and the other kid shoots him — you can’t really prevent that.
But if police departments don’t intervene, then you’ll have a second killing and a third.” In recent years, he said, “police
departments everywhere have become much more strategic about developing and using information and responding not only to the immediate shooting, but to the threat of the next one and the next one. . . . In terms of retaliation, it’s all about preemption. That’s where police departments can really make a difference.” Lanier said the impact of the approach was evident in last year’s D.C. homicide total of 143 — a 23 percent drop from the year before and the city’s lowest annual toll since 1966. Of the 143 victims, Lanier said, 25 to 30 died from domestic violence. Fewer than a half-dozen cases
involved killings in which the victims were not targeted, the chief said, citing, for example, a 48-year-old woman killed in gang crossfire; a boy, 9, struck by a bullet fired through his family’s apartment door; a 51-year-old woman shot in a liquor store holdup; and a girl, 17, slain in the crossfire between a gunman and a security guard. As for the other homicides,
“everything was retaliation,” Lanier said. And she attributed the bulk of the homicide decline last year to a reduction in retribution killings. In the days preceding the
March 30 drive-by attack, Lanier said, she kept tabs on the police investigation of 20-year-old Orlando Carter. Police suspected that Carter
had taken part in a March 22 homicide. And after he was wounded in the head and right shoulder a day later by an unidentified gunman, police suspected that the motive was retaliation and that Carter was likely to strike back. Lanier said she feared the same. After Carter was treated for his wounds March 23, “we knew when he walked out of that hospital that he was intent on getting his own justice,” the chief said.
On March 30, as Lanier stood
at 4022 South Capitol St., Carter, who allegedly had planned the drive-by attack in retaliation for his shooting, was a few blocks away, having been arrested after a chase.
Suddenly, the chief heard the arresting officer say by radio: “The suspect is an adult male, 20 years old, complaining of a wound on his face and one of his arms. Says he was shot.” And right then, Lanier said, it
dawned on her what had happened: She realized the motive for the attack and knew that police had failed to head off the kind of violence that she considers a priority. “I heard that radio
transmission and I knew immediately,” Lanier said. “The guy’s 20, he’d been shot. That’s when I looked around and said, ‘It’s [expletive] Orlando Carter!’ ”
dugganp@washpost.com
SARAH L. VOISIN/THE WASHINGTON POST
D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier hugs a Southeast resident after a vigil. Lanier says the police have focused on preempting violence.
on
washingtonpost.com
An interactive graphic maps out the sites as the tragedy unfolded; images from the shootings and funerals are full of anguish,
frustration and anger.
From the bucket seat to
Simms’s left, authorities said, Best rose backward through the open window of the other sliding door, leaning his posterior on the frame as he fired the 9mm over the top of the minivan while Bost, in the front passenger seat, pulled the trigger of the .45: 15 bullets from those two, 23 shots total, nine victims hit. Brishell Jones, DaVaughn Boyd, William Jones, all just hanging out: all dead. In half a minute. Then, before he pulled away —
before patrol cars and ambulanc- es arrived, bathing the chaos in
strobing light — the man at the wheel of the Chrysler paused in the clearing gun smoke. “The silver minivan did not move for approximately 10 sec- onds,” a detective later typed, re- counting what a witness said. The witness “could see many bleeding bodies of young people strewn about in front of what is now known to be 4022 South Capitol Street, S.E., and heard the screams and cries of those who were shot but still living.” The driver could see and hear them, too.
And he waited, as if taking it in.
dugganp@washpost.com
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