Youth, 14, Is Fatally Shot in Clash With D.C. Police
Off-Duty Officers Were Conducting Probe in Southeast

By Elissa Silverman and Martin Weil
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, September 18, 2007

A 14-year-old youth was shot and killed in Southeast Washington last night in a confrontation with D.C. police officers, a police official said.

The confrontation occurred about 7:30 p.m. in the 600 block of Atlantic Street. The two off-duty officers, who were in plain clothes, had gone there to pursue a burglary investigation, Assistant Police Chief Willie Dandridge said.

The slain youth was not identified immediately. He had been shot in the head, said Alan Etter, a spokesman for D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services.

The incident brought top city officials, including D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty and Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier, to the scene. It also provoked expressions of scorn and anger at police from taunting youths who gathered nearby.

As of late last night, no firm and detailed account of what had happened could be obtained. Lanier said an officer and another person had fired shots. But she declined to give a sequence of events, to identify the other person or to say conclusively whether the officer's shots had fatally wounded the youth.

In the first account provided by police, Dandridge had said the youth was with another person and had opened fire on the officers. Then, Dandridge said, "fearing for his life," an officer fired his gun.

Lanier also said the youth had been shot during an exchange of gunfire.

But she confirmed little else of what Dandridge had said. Speaking to reporters about an hour after Dandridge did, she made statements and responses to questions that were far less specific, and she emphasized that events were still being sorted out.

Although an exchange of shots had occurred, she said, "we don't know when, where or how that occurred."

During the incident, she said, someone other than a police officer fired a weapon. But who it was not clear.

"Right now," she said late last night, "I just don't know who fired that other weapon.''

Regardless of what might have caused the gunfire, Fenty (D) said at the scene that he wished to express his sympathy to the slain youth's relatives.

"We express our condolences to this family. . . . Whenever we lose a 14-year-old, under any circumstances, it is a loss for the city," the mayor said.

Fenty said Lanier, who arrived at the scene in uniform, had visited the slain youth's family earlier at Children's Hospital, where he had been taken after the shooting. The youth was pronounced dead there.

The incident occurred among modest two-story red brick dwellings on a street in the Condon Terrace area, about a half-mile from the border with Prince George's County.

According to Dandridge, who was responsible last night for the two police districts east of the Anacostia River, the two officers were investigating an earlier burglary in Southeast Washington. However, it was unclear what specific information led them to Atlantic Street, and apparently to a courtyard there, where the gunfire eventually broke out.

Details of the burglary -- exactly where and when it occurred and what might have been stolen-- could not be learned last night. No explanation was available as to why the officers were continuing to pursue it after they went off duty.

Lanier did not specify the crime the officers were investigating but said that in the course of their activities, they came upon at least one juvenile who was considered a possible suspect.

In his early account, Dandridge said the officers encountered the youth and his companion on Atlantic Street and identified themselves as members of the police department.

At some point in that confrontation, one youth fired "multiple times," Dandridge said.

At least one of the officers returned fire, Dandridge said.

Whether any weapon was found on Atlantic Street could not be learned. Lanier said that was part of the investigation.

The officers were placed on administrative leave, which is routine after such occurrences. Neither was identified by name. Their specific police assignments were not released.

It was not clear how many people might have seen the confrontation. A number of residents interviewed by reporters said they knew little or nothing about it. Several said the appearance of police and fire vehicles was their first indication that something had happened. Others said only that they heard shots and saw or heard a helicopter.

But as police looked over the scene last night, youths gathered nearby, cursing and making obscene gestures.

Members of the police force investigating team and 7th Police District officers were involved last night in the review of the shooting.

A relatively large number of shootings by the D.C. police was identified several years ago as a significant problem for the force. But new policies that were implemented, including increased training, were credited with reducing the number sharply.