Hiawatha Henry, who pleaded guilty in July to involuntary manslaughter in the death of his infant son, was sentenced to three years in prison today.
Henry was accused of first degree murder in the case, which pled out on involuntary manslaughter before Henry was indicted.
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Kenny Barnes was on Fox5 today, the tenth anniversary of his son’s homicide, to talk about his efforts to prevent gun violence.
“I think that what most parents want is that every life be equal,” he said. “We want every death to be equally as important.”
Watch the video below.
Kenny Barnes Talks About His Crusade Against Gun Violence: MyFoxDC.com
William McCorkle and Andre Clinkscale, Jr. were convicted today in a 2008 triple homicide that took place in Trinidad.
McCorkle, 26, and Clinkscale, 25, could be sentenced to life in prison.
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Slate this week looked at the declining crime rates across America and asked, “is there an Obama effect on crime?”
Obama effect?
Slate explains:
[The “Obama Effect”] holds that the election of the first black president has provided such collective inspiration that it has changed the thinking or behavior of would-be or one-time criminals. The effect is not yet quantifiable, but some very numbers-driven researchers believe it may exist.
The Daily Beast reports that Honduran President Porfirio Lobo looked at DC’s homicide record this week while on a visit to the United States. Lobo asked his national security cabinet to look at how DC has lowered the number of reported murders from over 500 yearly to around 100 yearly.
Reports The Daily Beast:
Usually the District of Columbia police department collides with international politics only when there is a scandal. But Honduran President Porfirio Lobo made the city’s cops a special focus of his visit to the capital this week as he seeks solutions for the murder rampage in his own country.
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A memorial service for George Washington University grad student Patrick Casey is planned for Thursday, the GW Hatchet reports.
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Reports the Washington Post:
With this year three quarters over, the number of homicides in the District has fallen well below last year’s rate, which was the lowest in decades.
As of Friday, 81 people had been slain in the city — more than 15 percent fewer than the 96 homicides reported by the same time last year — according to police figures.
If the rate of killings in the first nine months continues through December, the homicide figure for the year would be 108, compared with 132 last year.
Here’s Homicide Watch’s map of this year’s homicides. Click on a point to discover who the victim is at a location. Click the victim’s name to see more details about the case.
Find a discussion about the numbers after the jump.
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The death of an Army veteran and George Washington University grad student is a homicide, police announced today, but it remains to be seen whether it will be prosecuted as a murder.
Patrick Casey, 33, got into a fight at a McDonald’s on M Street NW last Friday. Initial reports, quoting Casey’s parents (who themselves relied on other witnesses at the scene), said he intervened in an altercation and was “sucker punched,” knocking him down. He suffered a “severe laceration” to the back of his head, according to the Washington Post, and was pronounced dead Tuesday after being in a coma for four days.
But at this point, WJLA reports, no one is facing charges in the case.
MPD Captain Michael Farish told reporters it’s unclear who started the confrontation last Friday, and Casey could have been the aggressor. He said the initial push came from either Casey or someone with him.
Farrish said the case could be a simple assault, a misdemeanor. Video reports are embedded below the jump.
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Terrance Brooks was sentenced to 20 years in prison today for the murder of Zachery Funke, despite regret from Judge Thomas Motley that he could not impose a longer sentence on Brooks due to the plea agreement.
Brooks, who was 44 when he committed the crime, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the fatal stabbing of Funke, 22, on Jan. 2, 2010.
Motley said he understood the U.S. attorney office’s reasoning for not wanting to put the victim’s and the defendant’s families through a trial, but added that if they had and the jury returned a guilty verdict, the sentencing guidelines would have allowed him to impose a 26-year sentence, which he would have preferred, citing Brooks’ record that includes robbery and drug convictions.
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Nineteen-year-old Jeffrey Britt was sentenced today to 20 years in prison for the shooting death of George Rawlings after the funeral of a mutual friend.
A press release from the US Attorney’s office is after the jump.
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