Judge Lynn Leibovitz sentenced Rashid Caviness-Bey Friday to 27 years in prison in connection with the shooting death of 19-year-old Osman Al-Akbar.
Al-Akbar’s mother, Abdul Al-Akbar, spoke at the sentencing hearing and said that her son’s death occurred four months before he was set to graduate from the Building for the Future Academy. His goals, she said, were to attend college at Virginia State and play basketball.
“My son was my heart,” Abdul Al-Akbar said.
Osman Al-Akbar was shot and killed in the 2600 block of University Place Northwest around 1:30 a.m. August 17, 2011. He suffered four gunshot wounds: three to the back and one to the face.
Caviness-Bey was convicted in June of second-degree murder and a related weapons offense in connection with Al-Akbar’s death.
“The murder in this case, in my view, was not a spontaneous event,” Judge Leibovitz said Friday before reading the sentencing terms. “This was a serious, unprovoked shooting of an unarmed person.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Shana Fulton said Friday the government maintains that Al-Akbar’s death was the result of a “botched armed robbery.”
“If it wasn’t a robbery, it makes the situation worse,” Fulton said.
A witness testified at trial that while looking out his kitchen window he saw three black males with “braids and dreadlocks” walk toward the scene of the crime with “scarves” wrapped around their heads; one of the men was adjusting a pistol in his front waistband. Moments later, the witness heard four gunshots. Two of the men then fled the scene and hid in an alley off Fuller Street NW. Along the way, the suspects tossed some clothing in a nearby trashcan, the witness said.
When police officers searched the scene they found Caviness-Bey and a juvenile suspect hiding in a nearby alley. Police also found a revolver and a semiautomatic handgun hidden underneath a rat trap at the top of a stairway near the alley.
Police were unable to match fingerprints and DNA recovered from the scene to either of the suspects, but a black vinyl jacket found in the alley was positively attributed to Caviness-Bey.
Sentencing documents will be added to this post.
