Man, 22, Arrested in Trinidad Triple Slaying From May

Lanier Vows That Police Will Be 'Taking Down' People Involved in Attacks in Embattled Neighborhood

A District man was arrested on murder charges yesterday in the May 31 slayings of three men who were killed in a fusillade of bullets in the city's Trinidad area during an overnight surge of violence that left seven people dead in nine hours.

Of all the killings that night -- from 9 p.m. May 30 to just after dawn the next day -- the slayings of Duane Hough, Johnny Jeter and Anthony Mincey drew the most attention. The three were riding in Hough's sport-utility vehicle about 4 a.m. when they were fired on at Florida Avenue and Holbrook Street NE.

After weeks of investigative work, police said, detectives arrested William McCorkle, 22, yesterday morning and charged him with three counts of first-degree murder. McCorkle, who had been living in the Trinidad area at different addresses, was jailed pending an initial court appearance tomorrow.

"The allegation right now is that it was a simple argument," said Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier, referring to the motive in the killings.

She declined to elaborate on the dispute, which began at a BP gas station at Florida and Holbrook moments before the shootings, and would not say whether McCorkle was acquainted with the victims before the killings. She also declined to say whether police expect to make more arrests in the case.

"There's a lot of information that we can't reveal right now," Lanier said. "But the bottom line is, it was an argument that led to . . . the taking of the lives of three people."

At least 35 shots were fired at the three victims, police said at the time.

Hough, 37, a Persian Gulf War veteran and GS-12 information technology specialist at the Government Printing Office, died at the wheel of his GMC Yukon.

Mincey, 35, and Jeter, 24, scrambled out of the vehicle but were gunned down as they fled and died on the pavement. The two men, both developmentally disabled, had been virtually inseparable friends, relatives said. Mincey was an amateur rapper, and Jeter worked occasional odd jobs. Both got by on Social Security disability checks.

The night of violence began when D.C. police officers shot and killed a domestic-violence suspect in Trinidad who they said was wielding a small knife. Another man was shot in a gunfight outside his Southeast Washington apartment; another was fatally shot during a crap game near Union Station; and a 66-year-old man was found beaten to death in his car in the Edgewood section of Northeast.

Police arrested a suspect in the gunfight homicide shortly after it happened. The shooting at the crap game and the beating death remain open cases, authorities said.

The violence prompted police to set up checkpoints in Trinidad for six days, beginning June 7, to give the neighborhood a cooling off period and to keep out potential nonresident troublemakers.

Police set up Trinidad checkpoints again July 20 to 28 after another overnight spasm of violence in which six people, including a 13-year-old boy who was killed, were shot in the neighborhood.

"I'm not going to talk about connections or associations" between McCorkle and other violence in Trinidad, Lanier said.

"I will tell you . . . we have more people we are going to be taking down, taking off the street, who were responsible for the violence in Trinidad.

"It's just a matter of time," she said. "So anybody who's out there who's been involved in this violence, I encourage you to come forward before we come get you."