D.C. Violence Leaves Many Searching for Answers
Shooting Death of 13-Year-Old Boy Punctuates Crime Surge in Trinidad

By James Hohmann and N.C. Aizenman
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, July 21, 2008

Alonzo Robinson, the 13-year-old boy who was fatally shot early Saturday amid the latest wave of violence to shake the Northeast Washington neighborhood of Trinidad, was in town with his mother to visit his great-grandmother as she underwent chemotherapy for lung cancer.

He and his mother, Marcella Robinson, who was also shot and hospitalized with a bullet wound in the arm, were scheduled to return home to Alabama this past Thursday after a two-week visit. But relatives said Robinson decided to delay her departure until after the weekend so she and her only child could spend more time with family.

"I think he's in a better place," Alonzo's great-uncle Tyrone Redrick, 43, said yesterday. "It just hurts that he was called home that way."

No arrests have been made in the case, nor in any of the other shooting and stabbing incidents that left two dead and 13 injured -- most of them in Trinidad -- from late Friday through early Saturday, police said.

Police have been struggling to curb a spike in homicides in Trinidad since early spring, and the neighborhood of brick townhouses and low-rise apartments felt tense but quiet yesterday as police resumed a controversial policy of erecting checkpoints to deter would-be assailants from entering.

Police cruisers blocked several streets, channeling traffic to a checkpoint at Holbrook and Oates streets. There, officers briefly questioned drivers about their reason for coming into the neighborhood and wrote down license plate numbers. But they appeared to allow all cars to pass.

Residents seeking shelter from the wilting heat on their front porches watched warily and offered mixed feelings about the police tactic, slated to remain in place through July 24 even as it is being challenged in court.

"The checkpoint is a double-edged sword," said Randell Briggs, who is staying with his son across the street from the apartment Alonzo was visiting. "People are frustrated because they're being put upon. It don't happen in a white neighborhood. But then, they don't have the crime in the white neighborhoods that they have down here."

A few yards from where Briggs stood, someone had duct-taped an unopened bag of Jolly Rancher candies to a telephone pole and placed several stuffed animals at the base, a modest shrine to the boy cut down just as he was reaching manhood.

When he was not playing basketball, family members said, Alonzo spent much of his last few days at the side of his great-grandmother, Delores Redrick.

On Friday night, he and his mother visited two cousins in the 1500 block of Holbrook Street. Time got away from them, and relatives said they realized after 2 a.m. that it was time to head back to the great-grandmother's house, about a mile away.

Alonzo was about to get in the car with his cousin, 23-year-old Antonio William, who lives in Southeast Washington, when a man in a car yelled for them.

"He just says, 'What's up?' and started shooting," said Tyrone Redrick, 43, relaying the account given to him by William. "It wasn't a stick-up or anything."

A bullet grazed William's back, and another hit Robinson just beneath her elbow and shattered the bone in her forearm, Redrick said. She was in stable condition at George Washington University Hospital yesterday afternoon and expected to be released today, he said.

Police clarified yesterday that they were searching for individuals in two separate and apparently unrelated vehicles in connection with the shootings in Trinidad. The first group, consisting of three people in a black sedan, allegedly drove into the neighborhood shortly after 1:00 am Saturday and shot and injured an adult male and another 13-year-old boy before fleeing.

The second set consisted of two people in a gold 2002 Dodge Intrepid sedan who drove to Holbrook Street about 2:25 a.m. Police think they were responsible for three of the shooting incidents in the neighborhood that morning, including Alonzo's killing.

Like several residents interviewed, Eric James, 21, standing a few blocks from where Alonzo was shot, said his death represents a failure of police efforts to step up patrols in the area.

"If they were around here like they say they're around here, why did this happen?" he asked.

Others complained that when police do show up, they are ineffective.

"It seems a waste to do this in the daytime," Kevin Brown, 30, said as he watched police at a checkpoint next to his grandmother's house. "Right now, they're just getting people coming in to pick up their family for church."

Nighttime checks were more effective at discouraging violence, Brown said. But the bright lights police had erected on the corner the night before made it impossible to sleep. And he wondered how long police could keep it up.

"Yeah," agreed Brown's friend Shay Taylor, 20, who stood next to him, wiping her face with a wet rag to fight the heat. "It's good to have them here at night. But as soon as the police are gone, stuff just starts happening all over again."

Two blocks away, William Hill, 66, who has an injured leg, was more worried about how he was going to get to his late-night janitorial job.

"I usually call a cab to pick me up, but are they going to let the cab come to my front door at that hour, or am I going to have to walk a couple blocks to meet it?" he asked.

For Pamela Mathis, 46, who was out walking one of the dogs she keeps for protection, the dangers and hassles of life in Trinidad are fast overwhelming its charms.

"It's been happening way too much," she said of the violence. "We're in an old family house, so we're trying to continue it. But sometimes we don't want to deal with it."