Teen Charged in Youth's Slaying in 'Shooting Melee'

A teenager suspected in the shooting death of a 13-year-old boy this month in Columbia Heights was charged yesterday with murder after D.C. police searched his home and found shell casings they said matched some of those found at the scene of the gunfire.

Taken into custody early yesterday at his family's home in Northeast Washington and charged as an adult, Dominic D. Bond, 16, appeared briefly in D.C. Superior Court and was ordered held without bond.

The arrest appears to underscore the role that rivalries between groups of teenagers from different parts of the neighborhood played in the "shooting melee" in which 13-year-old Terry Cutchin was killed and a 23-year-old man was wounded.

Bond, a student at Theodore Roosevelt High School, is described in charging papers as having links to a "crew" that hangs out in the 1400 block of Girard Street NW, where the shooting took place and not far from where Bond's grandmother lives.

The 14th and Girard crew was in an ongoing dispute with a crew that hangs out just blocks away, around 17th and Euclid streets NW, according to the charging papers, and the dispute exploded shortly before 10:30 p.m. June 2.

But for days after the shooting, investigators had little to work with in the way of leads. After police on Saturday raised the reward for information to $50,000, a witness came forward, authorities said.

According to the charging documents, the witness said the gunfire began with shots being fired from a black sport-utility vehicle in the direction of a building on the block. Bond emerged from a parking lot and began firing at the black SUV, continuing as the vehicle drove down the street, the witness told investigators.

Terry, who lived with his grandmother in the neighborhood, was "alive" after the SUV passed by, the witness told police. When the gunfire stopped, Terry had been shot twice in the chest. He died a short time later at Washington Hospital Center.

The witness, who approached police Sunday, gave officers a description of Bond, and soon after, officers found him in a park area on Girard Street. But he was not immediately arrested. Instead, police obtained a warrant to search his home in the 1800 block of Bryant Street NE.

Inside the house Tuesday, investigators found an empty box of .22-caliber ammunition and a basketball. The ball was marked "11-14 Girard," a reference to his crew and where it hangs out, and "Domo," for Bond's nickname, investigators said.

Outside, in a fenced yard, investigators found several .22-caliber cartridge casings. A ballistics examination concluded that casings from the crime scene and a casing from Bond's yard were fired from the same gun, according to the charging documents.

Shell casings of other calibers were also recovered at the scene, according to investigators. The charging documents do not indicate whether police have been able to determine the calibers of the bullets that killed Terry.

After a judge authorized an arrest warrant Wednesday, D.C. police and federal marshals went to Bond's home yesterday and arrested him on a charge of second-degree murder. Unlike first-degree murder, second-degree murder does not allege a specific intent to kill. The charge alleges only that Bond acted in "conscious disregard of an extreme risk death or serious bodily injury."

The charging documents say Bond "participated in the shooting melee in the 1400 block of Girard Street . . . which resulted in the decedent's death." Senior Judge Richard Levie found sufficient evidence for the case to proceed and ordered the teenager held without bond.

Neighborhood resident Sharon Younger welcomed news of the arrest. Terry -- who was called "Little T" by Younger's 12- and 14-year-old daughters -- lived across the street in an apartment with his grandmother, and his death scared her and other parents in the area.

Terry's grandmother and other relatives are doing "as well as can be," Younger said. "They just hope the youth will stop slaying. They don't want retaliations or anything."

Staff writers Jenna Johnson and Debbi Wilgoren contributed to this report.