A District of Columbia man killed as he boarded a Metro bus is believed to have had a hand in the deadly shooting of the teenager whose funeral he had just attended, law enforcement sources said.
George Rawlings, 21, was shot multiple times around noon Wednesday near the intersection of 14th and H streets NE, shortly after leaving the funeral of his childhood friend, Ashton Hunter.
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But police sources familiar with the case told The Examiner that Rawlings was being looked at as the getaway driver or the provider of the sport utility vehicle used in the killing of 19-year-old Hunter on Halloween night.
D.C. police had already arrested the suspected killer, 21-year-old Darrell Calvin Lee, and charged him with first-degree murder in Hunter’s death. According to court documents, Hunter stepped outside his apartment to buy a gun when he was fatally shot. Police said the shooter ran through the Sousa Junior High School parking lot to meet up with a dark-colored SUV, court documents said.
“[Rawlings was] not a triggerman, but was going to get arrested for homicide,” a police source said.
All three men were associated with the Kennedy Dog Pound, or KDP crew, that operates in the vicinity of Seventh and O streets NW in the Shaw neighborhood, according to police and court documents. Their was an internal beef within KDP and the crew appeared to be “cleaning house,” a police source told The Examiner.
Cmdr. Rodney Parks, head of the homicide unit, said he could not talk about Rawlings’ death because the investigation was ongoing.
The Rawlings family attorney, Gregory Lattimore, said word on the street was that Rawlings’ life was in danger and he was wrongly being linked as a witness to the Hunter shooting. Rawlings had nothing to do with, Lattimore said.
Rawlings didn’t go to authorities because of the way he was mistreated following the police shooting of his younger brother, Deonte Rawlings, Lattimore said. Rawlings, 14, was killed by police in 2007 in a high-profile case, and police tried to coerce George Rawlings into saying that Deonte had a gun and shot at police first, Lattimore said. Investigators never found the gun.
George Rawlings was the last family member to see his brother alive and ran to Deonte’s body, Lattimore said.
Rawlings was recently sentenced to 15 months in prison on drug distribution charges and had been released on probation, according to court documents.
“I wish he hadn’t gone to the funeral, that provided the opportunity,” Lattimore said. “But it was his friend, and he wanted to say goodbye and now we have to say goodbye to him.”
