DC. Another Ward in D.C.’s Care Killed In Shooting

A 16-year-old boy in the care of the city’s juvenile-justice agency was fatally shot in Northwest Washington on Tuesday – part of a vicious spurt of youth crime and violence in the District this week.

Prince Okorie was placed at a shelter licensed by the D.C. Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services (DYRS) on Nov. 9, according to sources at the agency. Three weeks later, at 4:20 p.m. Tuesday, police investigating the sound of gunshots in the 800 block of Delafield Place in the Petworth neighborhood of Northwest found Prince’s body.

Three boys were seen fleeing the area after the shooting. No arrests have been made.

DYRS Interim Director Robert Hildum said on Wednesday that Prince had not yet been committed to DYRS. Sources told The Washington Times that the juvenile recently was detained at the department‘s Youth Services Center and, pending a commitment hearing, placed at a shelter run by Alternative Solutions for Youth, a community-based residential treatment program.

Though he acknowledged the agency’s oversight of the shelter, Mr. Hildum declined to discuss specifics.

“It would not be unusual for a youth living at a shelter to be on the street in the middle of the day, either coming from school or going to some other activity,” he said.

In other incidents, youths in Southeast Washington have been involved in a spate of vicious, unprovoked attacks the last several days.

On Sunday, witnesses reported seeing a group of four black males confront a young woman walking from the Harris Teeter grocery store along the 1300 block of Pennsylvania Avenue in Southeast in the middle of the afternoon. The woman was carrying a grocery bag in each hand when one of the males punched her in the face and broke her jaw. No arrests have been made.

On Tuesday, another woman was punched and thrown to the ground by a group of four teenagers who were unsuccessful in their attempt to steal her purse.

The attacks prompted a heightened police presence in the area known as Hill East, not far from the affluent Eastern Market neighborhood. Metropolitan Police Cmdr. David Kamperin told residents via a posting on a neighborhood listserv that “these random attacks are disturbing, and this type of violence should shock the conscience within this safe community.”

The department is in need of an “overhaul,” according to D.C. Mayor-elect Vincent C. Gray, whose transition team met last week with Mr. Hildum, the third person to lead the agency in the past year.

But the city’s problem with youth crime and violence is not limited to wards of DYRS.

On Monday, police found the body of 17-year-old Ebony Franklin stuffed into a trash can in an alley behind the 1000 block of Fairmont Street in Northwest. Though not a ward of DYRS, Ebony had been working with youth-outreach counselors for more than a year.

Prince George’s County police said Hinson, 20, of Northeast Washington, was fatally shot on Aug. 11 as he was driving at about 6 p.m. He traveled a few dozen feet before his automobile crashed into a tree. Police found him dead behind the wheel.

Full Story

The Washington Times

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