WASHINGTON — A teenage girl will held behind bars until her 18th birthday for participating in a string of robberies and a carjacking that left another teen dead last year.
The 15-year-old girl, who WUSA9 is not identifying because she was charged as a juvenile, pleaded guilty in December to six felony counts: five counts of robbery and one count of unauthorized use of a vehicle. The robbery counts stem from a string of incidents in April and September in which the girl and other teens robbed, and in some cases assaulted, victims for their purses, cellphones and cash. The vehicle count related to the carjacking of two vehicles that ended in a crash near the intersection of Saratoga Avenue and Brentwood Road in Northeast in the early morning hours of Oct. 26. The driver of one of those vehicles, a 16-year-old resident of Northeast, was killed in the crash.
On Thursday, the juvenile defendant appeared before D.C. Superior Court Judge Andrea Hertzfeld for sentencing. Before that began, however, Hertzfeld accepted the girl’s guilty plea on a separate and unrelated count of simple assault for an incident in December in which she struck another juvenile in the face and body while in custody at the Youth Services Center.
The hearing then began in earnest with victim impact statements from six women who were assaulted by the girl and other teens during their robbery spree last year. One by one, the victims described how the lasting impact of the assaults:
- One woman, recalling how the girls slammed her head into the sidewalk multiple times as they were robbing her, said she was left with two black eyes and a concussion that didn’t recover for weeks.
- Several said their sense of security and independence had been taken from them. At least two said they had to move to different neighborhoods to escape the lingering anxiety they felt from the assaults.
- A third woman, who said the teens robbed her of the last gift her mother had given her, said she will soon have to have surgery on her jaw to repair damage from the “kicks and beatings” they delivered during the attack.
One victim, who spoke through an interpreter, described being unable to defend herself because she was holding her baby when she was attacked from behind.
“The first thing I thought was for my son, she said. “I was carrying him in front and they could have killed him.”
The woman said she is still afraid to walk in public and wakes up in the middle of the night to check on her young child.
All six victims described how their sense of safety had been stolen and their lasting shock at the brutality of the attacks.
“The relentless kicks and strikes and punches, particularly to my back as I was dragged to the ground by my hair, conveyed a stark disregard for my humanity,” one victim said.
The defendant showed no visible reaction during any of the victim impact statements, although her parents, who were in the public gallery, cried and at times appeared overcome by emotion as they heard the first-person accounts of the of the spree of violent robberies.
The teen’s attorney asked for her to be placed on probation with a requirement that she receive psychiatric treatment. She said the girl had been influenced by older teens she was hanging out with and that she has been unable to process the trauma of her involvement in the fatal crash last year.
“No one is denying that [she] is in need of serious services, serious counseling,” the girl’s attorney said.
“She’s a sweet girl,” her attorney continued. “I know it doesn’t seem like that based on her actions. But she was influenced by following the wrong people. She’s not the person that’s been presented in the media. She’s no the person that the victims, unfortunately, had to see.”
The girl’s father also spoke briefly, asking Hertzfeld to fashion a sentence that would allow her to attend the military-style Capital Guardian Youth Challenge Academy beginning in July.
The teen spoke little during the hearing, but did read, in a barely audible voice, a letter she’d written. In the letter, she apologized to her victims, her parents and to Hertzfeld – specifically for the criticism Hertzfeld received for releasing her from the custody of the Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services last year just days before the carjacking and fatal crash. The girl was released at the time because of a critical lack of juvenile shelter beds for which Hertzfeld has threatened to hold DYRS in contempt.
“I would like to say I’m sorry for making you look bad for letting me go,” the teen told Hertzfeld. “I should never have taken the chance you gave me for granted.”
Hertzfeld ultimately said she didn’t feel probation was appropriate. She ordered the girl into the custody of DYRS until her 18th birthday – although she made it an unstructured commitment that could be terminated early if DYRS determines her rehabilitation has been completed.
“This case, everything that’s going on here, is a tragedy all around,” Hertzfeld said.
An employee from DYRS said the teen had already been accepted into a psychiatric residential treatment facility in Newport News, Virginia, and the department was working on finalizing the funding. Hertzfeld said a status hearing for April 11 to ensure the girl had been transferred to Newport News and was not still at the Youth Services Center.