All three teen suspects in the shooting death of D.C. school principal Brian Betts were supposed to have been monitored by the District’s juvenile justice system when the principal was killed, officials admitted.
Alante Saunders and Sharif “Reef” Lancaster, both 18, had each been committed to the custody of the city’s Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services after years of arrests, District records show.
Saunders had fled the agency’s custody April 1, days before Betts’ body was found in his Silver Spring home in what police are describing as a robbery-murder set up through a phone sex chatline.
“I was telling him, ‘if you stay out there longer and run, it’s just going to be worse for you,'” Saunders’ mother, Delilah Saunders, told the Washington Examiner Monday night, tearfully describing her last conversation with her son.
Lancaster had been placed in secure detention in July after years of arrests on charges from weapons violations to unlawful entry. He was put in a work release program in January, records obtained by the Examiner show.
Authorities late Monday were questioning a third 18-year-old, who had been sent to a youth agency diversion program on April 6.
That teen had a long record, too, from stolen car charges to an unlawful entry case in December 2008.
The trio join a grim roll call.
So far this year, six youth agency wards have been charged with murder. Two other youth offenders have been killed.
“This government has failed these children, it has failed the citizens, it has failed everybody,” police union Chairman Kris Baumann said. “We’ve constantly coddled violent offenders at the expense of public safety. I don’t know how many people are going to be killed before we start taking this seriously.”
Mayor Adrian Fenty hastily called a news conference Monday night to defend his youth agency, which he said had improved “immensely.”
“The agency is in the midst of reform, but its reform is by no means anywhere close to being finished,” Fenty said.
