This guest column about teen Garey Gordon, killed March 20 in Southeast D.C., comes from Paul Penniman, executive director at Resources for Inner City Children, an educational resource for inner city youth. He wrote on his personal blog, Inner City Visions, this weekend about Gordon.
After eight years of RICH’s existence, Garey Gordon was the first student of mine to die suddenly. As you can read here, his death was unnecessary.
Although Garey’s death does not haunt me, I often ask why he died. I think first of the facts:
1. He was an 18-year old tenth grader at Anacostia High School who just barely passed geometry in the fall semester. I had called his house in January to try to get him to do more geometry work to get his grade up to a C. He seemed willing to meet me at the library to do this if he could get a ride from his uncle, but he did not show up.
2. Garey stopped coming to school in February. During this time, we at RICH met several times with the attendance counselor at the high school and other neighborhood groups to brainstorm on how to get more students to come to school. The best tactic we came up with was home visits by teachers on Friday afternoons.
3. Garey was not the only truant. By January, fewer than 60% of the students at the Matthew Henson Academy, the subset of Anacostia High School that he attended, were coming to school on an average day. School-wide, there are approximately 200 students who have stopped coming to school on a regular basis.
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In Brief:
- Sonya Lynch was found stabbed to death in Anacostia Park Sunday night. No arrests have been made.
- Deandra Williams was sentenced to 90 years in prison for the 1999 shooting deaths of Duane Hicks and Passion McDowney in a car in Northwest D.C.
- Terrence Desean Smith was shot ant killed in Columbia Heights Monday night. No arrests have been made.
- An 18-year-old recently kicked out of an alternative school is a “person of interest” in Raheem Jackson‘s killing, the Washington Examiner reported.
- Bernard Gayles was sentenced to 12 years and three months in prison after he pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the stabbing death of 54-year-old Nathaniel Hall in 2009.
- A total of thirty new charges were added to the cases against five young people accused in last year’s violent South Capitol Street shooting.
- Alexis Pineda was ordered held on substantial probability in the shooting death of Jose Hernandez-Romero at a downtown D.C. bar on March 7.
- Ronald Taylor, an ex Metrobus driver, was indicted by a Grand Jury on a charge of negligent homicide. He is suspected of running a red light and crashing into a taxi carrying Bartlett Tabor, a California man, in 2008.
- Marcus Silver was sentenced to 22 years in prison for the shooting death of Shadawnchea Gardner.
- Charles Monroe Coates was ordered held on suspicion of first degree murder in the shooting death of Eddie A. Leonard Jr. in a robbery behind a fastfood joint on Benning Road in Northeast D.C.
- James Speaks was ordered held in the death of Shonell “Chris” Corriea after Judge Gerald Fisher found substantial probability in the case. Speaks’ attorney, however, pointed to recently killed Kevin Washington as a potential suspect.
At times today in Judge Gerald Fisher’s courtroom, it seemed like James Speaks, the man sitting at the defense desk in an orange jumpsuit, was not in fact the man under suspicion.
Speaks was arrested April 12 on suspicion of second-degree murder in the shooting death of Shonell “Chris” Corriea in a Petworth ally the night of April 6.
Relying on rumors reported to come from the street, defense attorney Renee Raymond suggested to the court that not her client, but a dead man, Kevin Washington, was responsible for Corriea’s killing.
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Charles Monroe Coates was ordered held today on suspicion of first degree murder in the shooting death of Eddie A. Leonard Jr. in a robbery behind a fastfood joint on Benning Road in Northeast D.C.
Coates, who appeared in court this afternoon to be presented with the charge, shook his head from side to side through much of his brief appearance. He remarked, appearing astonished, “who?” when a government prosecutor told the court that Coates admitted to a witness that he killed Leonard.
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A thirty-year-old D.C. man found guilt of voluntary manslaughter was sentenced today to 22 years in prison for the crime that he maintains was committed only to “take care of” his family.
Marcus Silver offered Shadawnchea Gardner’s family his “remorse and condolences” at his sentencing Friday, saying “there is just so much I want his family to know.”
Prosecutors proved at Silver’s trial, which was held in February, that Gardner, Silver’s ex-girlfriend and another woman went to Silver’s Northeast D.C. apartment on March 10, 2010 to retrieve a video game. At the apartment, Silver’s ex-girlfriend got into an argument with his current girlfriend. When Gardner tried to separate the woman, Silver shot him in the head, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
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Following are scheduled court appearances for murder cases. This information is current as of Thursday, April 21 at 5 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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A 41-year-old Southeast D.C. man was arrested today on suspcion of killing Eddie Leonard Jr., 32, in Northeast D.C. in Febuary.
MPD’s arrest warrant charges Charles Monroe Coates with first-degree murder while armed. No court date was available yet Thursday night.
MPD’s press release follows the jump.
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Note: At Homicide Watch we think it’s important that all those involved in murder cases have access to the reporting about the case, no matter their native language or English fluency. For that reason, we have decided to present this post in both English (here) and in Spanish (below). If you would like to help us, as an on-call translator, email us at HomicideWatchDC [at] gmail.com.
Nota: Nosotros creemos que es importante que toda la gente afectado en una investigación de un homicidio tengan acceso a la información, sin importa a su lengua materna. Por esa razón, hemos decidido a presentar este mensaje en inglés (aquí) y en español (abajo).
El juez Gerald Fisher ordenó a Alexis Pineda retenido al cárcel por el ataque con disparos al Jose Hernandez-Romero en un bar al centro de D.C. el 7 de marzo.
Fisher dijo que lo hizo por que hay un riesgo que Pineda, un immigrante illegal del El Salvador, pudiera huir de D.C. en vez de ser juzgado, y también que el representa un peligro a la communidad. Un traductor ayudó a Pineda, quien no habla íngles.
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A 40-year-old Metrobus driver was arrested while on the job today and charged with negligent homicide in the death of a California man in D.C. in 2008, the Washington Examiner reports.
Ronald Taylor was indicted on the charge by a Grand Jury Tuesday. He is suspected of running a red light and crashing into a taxi carrying Bartlett Tabor, 55, and his family. The Tabors were visiting D.C. from Alamo, Calif. and were on their way to the airport when the collision took place, the Examiner reported.
Taylor is expected in court May 10 for arraignment.
Alexis Pineda was ordered held on substantial probability this morning by Judge Gerald Fisher in the shooting death of Jose Hernandez-Romero at a downtown D.C. bar on March 7.
Pineda, an illegal immigrant from El Salvador, is a flight risk and a danger to society, Fisher said. Pineda used the services of a Spanish language interpretor to understand the proceedings.
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