Chavez Tyrek Myers, 17, was charged with second-degree murder while armed and assault with a dangerous weapon for his involvement in the early Saturday morning brawl in the Woodley Park Metro station that left Olijawon Griffin dead and another teenager with a broken nose.
Myers will be prosecuted as an adult. Eight other teens were charged as juveniles Monday for their alleged roles in the armed robbery and melee.
Judge Diana Harris Epps ordered Myers held in D.C. jail, despite his attorney’s claim that he is a college-bound student with decent grades who lives with his parents in District Heights, Md., and has never before been in trouble with the law.
“His college applications are half-filled out on his dining room table,” the attorney, Janet Mitchell, said in court.
Myers, a slim black teenager with a short afro, appeared wearing a royal blue polo shirt and khaki pants. He is a student at Cruz Vocational School, Mitchell said.
“If we’re hanging our hat on the fact that someone has said he’s a student, that’s not a very strong thing to hang one’s hat on,” Harris-Epps said. “He could be registered and never go, for all we know.”
According to charging documents, Myers was with a group of about a dozen black males at the McDonald’s in the 2400 block of 18th Street Northwest, when they came across Griffin, who was there with two others, shortly after midnight Saturday.
A witness told police that Griffin left with the young men to see if he could buy some marijuana from them. When they walked into a nearby alley, the men apparently robbed him at gunpoint, taking his black Helly Hansen jacket and iPhone.
Griffin and his two friends then walked toward the Metro station, where they came across the same teenagers who had robbed him. They descended to the train platform and Griffin demanded his jacket back, at which point a fight broke out.
According to the charging documents, security camera footage shows Myers run up to Griffin, who was engaged in a fist fight with another person, and stab him once in the chest, before running away.
Myers told detectives during an interview after the incident that he stabbed Griffin, but claimed it was in self-defense. He also admitted to kicking and punching Isaac Chase, one of the young men who was with Griffin, during the fight. Chase was taken to a local hospital after the incident with a broken nose.
Myers is scheduled to appear again in court on Nov. 30 at 9:30 a.m. before Judge Ronna Beck.
A candlelight vigil was planned for 7:30 p.m. Monday near Griffin’s home in Olney, Md.
Charging documents are posted below:
