The city has a poor record of keeping track of youths in its custody.
Wards of the city’s Department of Youth Rehabilitative Services are ending up as the victims and perpetrators of fatal shootings. In the past year and a half, more than 10 juveniles who were supposed to be under DYRS care were accused of murder, and at least a half-dozen were killed.
Most recently, gunfire that shook Georgetown on Halloween left D.C. ward and 17-year-old Tyronn Garner dead.
Two other DYRS wards were charged with murder within the week leading up to Garner’s death. Henry Diaz-Antunuez, 19, was charged with a shooting-homicide that took place in July. Michael Jordan, 18, was arrested and charged with first-degree murder in the October shooting of a Howard University student.
That same week, a 20-year-old ward who had escaped the DYRS’s custody was charged with shooting and killing a taxi driver in Anacostia.
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The week before, on Oct. 8, another of the agency’s escapees was stabbed to death in a Petworth playground.
That’s at least five wards involved in fatal violence in the last month alone.
Because of the agency’s inability to keep track of its wards, the District is facing a $20 million lawsuit. On Nov. 3, the family of a Catholic University student who was fatally shot in Petworth by a juvenile ward of the DYRS filed a wrongful-death suit.
They say the District acted with indifference and negligence in the supervision of the teenager, resulting in the August 2010 killing of 31-year-old Neil Godleski.
And little has changed in the past year. On August 17, police arrested Rashid Caviness-Bey for the shooting death of Osman Al-Akbar.
Both men were wards of the city.
Still, few incidents shook the city more than the murder of middle school principal Brian Betts in April of 2010
The beloved leader of Shaw Middle School was robbed and shot in his Silver Spring home. Three of the four District men charged with the murder were DYRS wards.
Staff writer Scott McCabe contributed reporting.
