Karen Frantz, American University journalism grad student and freelancer extraordinaire, will be taking over Homicide Watch one week from right now. Why? Because I’ll be in California at Knight’s News Entrepreneurs Bootcamp.
Which means that for 12 days, Karen will be mining the DC homicide world for news tips and stories. She has court dates to go to and breaking news to report. As a professional thank-you, I’m paying her $250, but she’s worth so much more.
So I’m asking you to…
Use the yellow PayPal button on the center sidebar to make a donation to Homicide Watch D.C.’s freelancer fund. We want to raise $250 more for Karen, and we’re about $75 from that goal.
Read more about the Help Pay Karen campaign here.
A preliminary hearing for Kevin Benbow, suspected of first degree murder in the shooting death of Jinnell McQueen, was postponed today at the request of both his defense attorney and a government prosecutor. He was not present in the courtroom this morning.
Benbow is now expected in court for the hearing on June 2.
Charging documents in the case are here.
A 20-year-old Southeast D.C. man known to friends as “Fonnie Fee” was stabbed to death Tuesday night near Fort Stanton Park, MPD confirmed this afternoon.
Officers responded to a 911 call in the 2300 block of Ainger Place SE at about 10:00 p.m. and found Alphonzo Epps stabbed, said Spokeswoman Gwendolyn Crump. Peaceaholics co-founder Ron Moten said, and Crump confirmed, that Epps was taken to a local hospital where he died.
Epps would have turned 21 in July. No arrests have been made and Crump said the homicide is under investigation.
Friends have spent the day remembering the slain man in comments such as these (after the jump) online.
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Brian Scott and Bryant Morillo were D.C.’s first murder victims of 2011. Scott was 21; Morillo, 16.
This year has been especially dangerous for people in that age group in D.C. While there were about as many homicide victims in the first four months of 2011 as the same period last year, a much larger proportion have been 21 years old and younger.
According to Homicide Watch D.C.’s data, between January and April of 2011, 12 people 21 and under were killed in 12 separate incidents. In the first four months of 2010, nine youths were killed in six separate incidents.
An interactive timeline, posted below, shows an uptick in homicide victims 21 and younger. In 2010, youths 21 and under made up 16 percent of all homicide victims. So far this year, they make up 36 percent.
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This comment of the day comes from Marley who wrote in the photo gallery about Ebony Franklin, Raheem “Gunna” Jackson, and David Weston.
THIS HURTS ME CUZ I LOST THREE PEOPLE ON THIS SITE’ EBONY FRANKLIN WAS MY GIRLRIEND SHE WAS STABBED TO DEATH I CRY EVERYTIM I SEE HER PICTURE..DAVID WESTOM WAS LIKE MY OLDER BROTHER HE WAS SHOT AND KILLED I WANNA CRY BUT I KNO HE WOULDNT WANT THAT.. RAHEEM “GUNNA” JACKSON WAS A CLOSE FRIEND IT MAKES ME SICK THAT SOMEONE WULD SHOOT HIM 11 TIMES HE WAS ONLY 16 YEARS OLD… I LOST ALOT MORE FRIENDS THAT ARE NOT ON HERE BUT I TRY TO LIVE MY LIFE FOR THEM.. RIP GUNNA DMILES AND EBONY AKA BOB I MISS YALL
The Post’s Courtland Milloy asks in his column today, “What does bin Laden’s slaying teach kids?”
He takes that question to young people in Southeast D.C.
Here’s what they said:
“You get on the wrong side of the wrong people, you reap what you sow.”
“People who kill innocent bystanders during drive-by shootings are no different from people who operate drones that do fly-by bombings and kill innocent people. If one is wrong, then all are wrong.”
“They can catch and kill bin Laden after 10 years, thousands of miles away, but we have hundreds of unsolved murders right in the midst of all these police and they just call ours ‘cold cases’ after a few months.”
“They can find billions of dollars to build schools and homes and give people jobs in Iraq and Afghanistan. All they do around here is tear things down, move us into neighborhoods where people are beefing and put up expensive condos where we used to live.”
Please remember that we are raising money for Help Pay Karen while HWDC editor Laura Amico is away for 12 days in May. Giving a donation, in any amount, is as easy as clicking the yellow “donate” button on the right side of this page. Donations are secure, using PayPal. Read more about our efforts in a post here or on TBD.
In Brief:
- Judge William Jackson refused to compel authorities to search for the body of Latisha Frazier, a D.C. woman missing since August and believed have been killed and buried in a Virginia landfill. A defense attorney in the case had argued that finding the body is critical for his client’s defense.
- Rafael Briscoe of Southeast, DC, was killed by D.C. Metropolitan Police officers in a shooting. He is the third person to die in a D.C. officer involved shooting this year.
- Thomas Glenn Lipscomb, a 49-year-old Northeast D.C. man, was found dead of apparent blunt force injuries inside a home in the 3400 block of Minnesota Ave., NE.
- Santos Jobel Martinez Umansor, a 23-year-old Northwest D.C. man, was found dead of apparent blunt force injuries in Adams Morgan midday Sunday.
- Students at HD Woodson Senior High School remembered slain teen Raheem Jackson with a poetry slam. The winners were: For written poetry, Ebonie Davis, Dion Wheeler and Shanita Wilson; and for performance poetry, Ebonie Davis, Queen Dews and Shanita Wilson.
- Deon Thornton was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison for the stabbing death of his brother, Derrick Thornton, in Adams Morgan in February. The Thornton brother’s family had asked for leniency in the case and Judge William Jackson’s sentence represents the shortest possible prison term for the charge.
- Carlese Hall, 31, of Washington, D.C., was sentenced to 55 years in prison for the stabbing death of her seven-year-old daughter in December 2008.
- Deangelo Foote, 21, was sentenced to 50 years of incarceration for the shooting death of a teenager who had tried to stop him from robbing another person on the street.
From the U.S. Attorney’s Office:
Man Sentenced to 50 Years in Prison For the Shooting Death of a Good Samaritan - Teenage Victim Tried to Stop a Robbery -
WASHINGTON – Deangelo Foote, 21, was sentenced today to 50 years of incarceration on charges stemming from the retaliatory killing of a teenager who tried to stop him from robbing another person on the street, U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr. announced.
Foote, of Washington, D.C., was convicted by a jury in February 2011 of first degree premeditated murder and various firearms offenses, following a trial in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. He was sentenced by the Honorable Russell F. Canan.
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From the U.S. Attorney’s Office:
Woman Sentenced to 55 Years in Prison In Slaying of Her Seven-Year-Old Daughte- Defendant Stabbed Child, Then Set House on Fire -
WASHINGTON - Carlese Hall, 31, of Washington, D.C., was sentenced today to 55 years in prison on charges stemming from the slaying in December 2008 of her seven-year-old daughter, U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr. announced.
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Following are scheduled court appearances for murder cases. This information is current as of Thursday, April 28 at 10:30 p.m. and will be re-verified throughout the week. Please remember that court dates can change, even at the last minute. To view the docket of a case please go to the D.C. Courts website and search by the defendant’s name. To add an item to the calendar, email homicidewatchdc [at] gmail.com.
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