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.

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During the day, the squeals of schoolchildren fill the air around 53rd and C streets SE, where Lewis lived with relatives in the squat apartment building. At night, residents said, the streets fill with outsiders, many of them unsavory. About 10 p.m., Lewis, 27, a furniture mover, was at work, and his grandmother called him before she went to bed.

"Be careful," she urged him, a message she imparted daily.

Less than three hours later, gunshots outside woke Lewis's mother and grandmother in the apartment, and after the shooting stopped, they ventured to investigate.

They saw one man wounded in the front of the building. In the parking lot in back was their loved one, sprawled on the pavement.

A graduate of Woodson High School, Lewis had talked about joining the Marine Corps or perhaps trying to purchase a dump truck to start a hauling business. "He did nothing wrong; he was respectful," said his father, John Tabb, a truck driver who lives in North Carolina with his wife and three other children.

But police said Lewis got into a gun battle with Jason Dale, 24, of Oxon Hill, who was later charged with second-degree murder. Dale also was wounded, police said. They found him in Prince George's County after the shooting, and he remains hospitalized. Another man was shot in the leg.

As Groomes surveyed the C Street scene, her phone rang. It was her executive officer, Cmdr. Melvin Scott, the bearer of bad news. "Male shot in the head or neck was the call I got," she said.

Saturday, 1:30 a.m.

Neighbors on Abbey Place NE gripe about it constantly: a cluster of young guys blocking the sidewalk, huddled over dice and a small pile of cash, hooting and bickering. Kevin Turner is in the game now. An argument flares. There's a gun. Shots ring out. The dice players scatter -- all but Turner. He is sprawled on the pavement, bleeding.

"So I get there," Groomes said, "and you can figure out right away that it's probably a crap game, and something bad happened."

In the 1100 block of Abbey, where the brick rowhouses are painted blue and yellow, and purple and green, and front yards are thick with pink roses and blue petunias, young troublemakers are an every-night sight, using drugs and shooting dice, older neighbors said. "We said it was going to happen," said Frederick Branch, 72, a retired Marine who has lived on the block near Union Station for 44 years. "Sooner or later, it's going to happen."

He was in bed about 1:30 Saturday morning when loud cursing on the street awakened him. Then he heard gunshots. When he looked out a window, he noticed a crowd scattering. From his angle, he couldn't see Turner, 29, dying on the sidewalk.