By Robert E. Pierre
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, September 23, 2007

The D.C. police officer and the teenager he shot to death last week knew the corners and cuts in Washington Highlands well. They knew what time neighbors rise and sleep. Where teens hang out. Where the things that disappear from back yards are likely to show up.

This was home, where their parents still live, where they attended school. But when their paths crossed in an alley in the Highland Dwellings public housing complex, which most refer to as Condon Terrace, the 44-year-old man and the 14-year-old boy were coming from two places, a 90-second drive between them, a world apart.

James Haskel, an officer in the helicopter unit, lives in a gated townhouse community named after Walter E. Washington, the District's first modern mayor. There, accountants, teachers and other professionals are building equity in their homes, forming running clubs, secure in the knowledge that theirs is the kind of manicured place that cities on the rise covet.

A couple of blocks away, DeOnté Rawlings was in survival mode. He spent days and nights away from his father's home, running with a crowd of troubled youths in Condon Terrace, police and neighbors said. There, shootings occur regularly, and a decades-old reputation of having some of the city's meanest streets lingers. When he was killed, police said, DeOnté was armed and riding a minibike stolen from Haskel's home.

Their collision under the street lamps in an alley Monday night upended the lives of two families and left the city struggling with tough questions: How could the theft of a minibike lead to a shooting death? Was Haskel trigger-quick or just doing his job? Was DeOnté armed and dangerous or, as his family says, unarmed and in the wrong place?

The killing also raised the ire of Condon Terrace residents, many of whom harbor negative feelings toward the police. Some said officers don't respond when they're called; others said the police who do come often rifle through the pockets of youths and adults who haven't done anything wrong. Inside and outside the public housing community, residents and city leaders grapple with what to do to prevent such shootings in the future.

Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) has held four news conferences after the shooting to assure residents that everyone, no matter their status, will be heard. Fenty said he will use his constituent service fund, money raised from private sources, to pay for DeOnté's funeral. Meanwhile, he's fighting against a history of mistrust and neglect and a widespread feeling among the city's poorest residents that their voices, even when heard, don't count.

"What difference is all this going to make?" asked one exasperated resident who, like most of her neighbors, declined to give her name.

* * *

Condon Terrace, a street two blocks long on the backside of Highland Dwellings, was a nickname police and residents used in the 1980s to designate one of the city's most dangerous sections. The nickname and the reputation stuck.

Once, filled with apartments, the area had a prime role in the city's drug trade, a drive-in for junkies, fast money for dealers.

Many residents refuse to give their names or even talk to outsiders, afraid that someone will think they are talking about individuals, about specific crimes -- a misstep that could get them killed. Guns are plentiful in the area. Some adults are afraid of teenagers.

In the 1980s, Metro bus drivers ventured down the street fearful of their vehicles being pelted with bricks and rocks. One Metro official told The Washington Post in 1981 that drivers called it "Brick Alley" because so many windows were broken there.

Broken windows weren't the half of it.

In October 2005, Marcel Merritt, a 16-year-old Condon Terrace resident, was found slain on Suitland Parkway. Authorities had been trying to catch him for months because he was suspected of killing four people and critically wounding another over a 20-month period. He lived in the 600 block of Atlantic Street SE, the block where DeOnté was killed.

The neighborhood spawned such D.C. street legends as Corey A. Moore, whom prosecutors accused of being a teenage enforcer for a violent group of young men calling themselves the Condon Terrace Crew. Moore, now in his 30s, stood trial four times for a 1994 killing. Each trial ended with the jury deadlocked. He was dubbed the "Teflon defendant."

Gangster lore sucks in misguided youths, said Rodney K. Taylor, who lived on Condon Terrace when it was alive with illegal activity. Now a firefighter assigned to his old neighborhood, Taylor and many of his colleagues volunteer at schools, sponsoring trips for youths and recruiting some to join the fire department.

When he was growing up, Taylor said, there were still mentors and recreation programs. Now, he said, adults are too quick to write children off. Without intervention, young people will continue to gravitate toward the negative, he said. In 2001, Taylor founded the Working Men Who Care, a nonprofit group that provides resources for underserved children..

"There are no resources out here," said Taylor, who turns 42 today. "These brothers are hurting. They want somebody that can offer them something. The most hurting thing is so many say to me, 'I'm 14. I know I'm not going to make it to 18. Why should I change?' "

* * *

In the police version of the events leading to Monday night's shooting, Haskel learned that his minibike had been stolen from his home and set out in his sport-utility vehicle to look for it with a neighbor, police officer Anthony Clay.

They ended up in Highland Dwellings. The officers told authorities that they encountered DeOnté on Haskel's minibike and were fired at before they could identify themselves as police. Haskel returned fire, fatally shooting DeOnté in the head. Police units were alerted by a rooftop sensor that detects the sound of gunfire.

Residents also have a version of the events.

William Lockridge, the area's representative on the State Board of Education, said he pieced together an account after canvassing residents the morning after the shooting.

Several youths were riding motorbikes in the early evening on Atlantic Street and in the alleyway behind it. An SUV showed up sometime after 7 p.m. and made at least three passes around the block. On the third, the SUV and one of the minibikes crossed paths in the alley. The SUV backed up, and shots were fired in quick bursts. DeOnt¿ had been shot in the head.

Many residents were adamant that only the police fired shots and that officers did not try to administer aid once DeOnt¿ was lying on the concrete, bleeding.

"The police are supposed to protect and serve," one woman said. "But the only people they protect and serve is themselves."

No weapon has been found. Although some maintain that DeOnté never had a weapon, others whisper privately that another youth might have fired at the officers. In a neighborhood where young people have long-standing beefs with other areas, residents said, an SUV backing up in the darkness could have been seen as trouble.

"There's a level of unrest and distrust," Lockridge said.

* * *

Louise Dixon, 73, who has lived in Condon Terrace since the early 1980s, is watching a familiar pattern. Help speeds in to scoop up bodies, put out fires. Government grants come and go. Community groups throw barbecues, occasionally take young people on trips. But too many teenagers continue to drop out of school and get into trouble.

"Our young people need help. They're in turmoil," Dixon said.

Bridging that gap isn't just the government's job, said Monica Brewster, a 31-year-old real estate agent who moved to Walter E. Washington Estates a year ago.

She runs past Condon Terrace every morning but had no idea, until recently, that many people who live there feel as if they are under siege.

The two developments, at their closest points, are less than a block apart. But the communities interact little, she said. Her neighbors often report burglaries even though they live behind gates and believe the thieves live outside the development.

"We are one community," Brewster said. "Some are going through hard times; others of us are doing a little better. I wish there was more interaction."

Encouraging people to unite as one community, ignoring an economic divide, was what H.R. Crawford, a former D.C. Council member, had in mind when he developed the gated community.

Initially, prices for Walter Washington properties began at $95,000 in the late 1990s. Now, homes there are selling for more than $300,000, still considered a bargain for a gated community in the Washington region.

"The whole point was to bring stability to the neighborhood by attracting police officers and schoolteachers," he said.

The shooting was personal for Crawford. He sold Haskel his house. DeOnt¿'s father, Charles Rawlings, works for Crawford as a custodian.

Haskel is "an outstanding young man," Crawford said. "He has lived in that community all his life." A picture of Haskel in his police helicopter, surrounded by children, hangs on a bulletin board at the neighborhood's Ferebee-Hope Elementary School.

In Condon Terrace, some teens are still drawing lines that they dare others to cross.

Police contend that DeOnté crossed a line when he fired at an officer.

But DeOnté's family said that he did not have a gun and that police made a tragic mistake.

Either way, DeOnté paid with his life.