A Deadly Toll: Nine Hours, Seven Lives

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A Weekend of Bloodshed

Relatives and residents grapple with one of Washington D.C.'s most violent weekends in recent memory.

» LAUNCH PHOTO GALLERY

Clyde Tinch, after arguing with an ex-girlfriend, is standing in a school field off Trinidad Avenue NE, holding a knife. Two D.C. police officers, carrying 9mm guns, eye him warily. Police will say that they ordered Tinch to drop the blade -- again and again -- but that he lunged at them, leaving them no choice but to fire.

The last time Corenthia McCutcheon saw her 52-year-old brother, he was leaving the house they shared on Lang Place NE, dressed for another of the Friday night parties he enjoyed attending at a nightclub a few blocks away.

Tinch, nicknamed "Pooh-Pooh," had a record of drug-related arrests in the late 1980s and 1990s but in recent years seemed committed to turning his life around, relatives said. He was often seen zipping about on a moped working as a messenger and had recently completed an apprentice program with Goodwill Industries, they said.

Still, at least one problem remained: Tinch had an emotionally volatile relationship with a former girlfriend, Monica Smith. In 2005, Smith had complained in D.C. Superior Court that Tinch choked and threatened her. The court issued an order, long since expired, requiring him to stay away from her.

Shortly before 9 p.m., police and relatives said, Smith called 911 to report that he was at her apartment in the 1600 block of Trinidad, threatening her with a knife.

Tinch was gone when Officers Hosam Nasr and Michael Callahan arrived minutes later. But he called Smith while they were interviewing her. "He said he was coming back to kill her," Groomes said. "And she put him on speaker. And the officers were telling him, you know: 'Why don't you do the right thing? Why don't you come back and talk to us?' And that's when he says he's right out back in the field."

Nasr and Callahan found Tinch in the field at Webb Elementary School. An investigator said Tinch would not drop a folding knife with the blade out. According to a police statement, the officers shot him because they were "in apparent imminent fear of their lives."

McCutcheon said she doesn't buy the police version. "He's not the type to challenge an officer," she said. Smith declined to comment.

Groomes, on duty since 8 a.m., had just left a community meeting when she learned that two officers in her command had killed a man. She went to the scene for a few hours, then drove home to Greenbelt. She was thinking about a late dinner when her phone rang -- a double shooting.

So she got in the Crown Vic and headed back to the city.

Saturday, 12:45 a.m.

Shannon Shamar Lewis is standing in the parking lot behind an aged three-story brick apartment house on C Street SE. What words, if any, are spoken is unclear. A gunfight erupts. A bullet catches Lewis in the chest. He will not survive.