WASHINGTON — The trial for a 16-year-old accused of fatally shooting another teenager on the Brookland-CUA metro platform in April will be delayed until September.
D.C. Superior Court Judge Kendra Briggs granted an unopposed request from the teen's attorneys on Wednesday to push back to trial, which had been scheduled to start next month, until Sept. 17. The teen is being represented by the Public Defenders Service for the District of Columbia, which is beginning furloughs one day a week this month running through mid-September due to a budget shortfall.
While he awaits his new trial date, the 16-year-old suspect will remain in detention at the Youth Services Center. WUSA9 is not identifying him because he has been charged as a juvenile.
The teen was arrested in April on a charge of second-degree murder in connection with the fatal shooting of 14-year-old Avion Evans. According to police, the incident began with an altercation between a group of teenagers on the Brookland-CUA Metro platform. At some point during the scuffle, police said, someone not involved with the fight pulled out a gun and opened fire. Evans was struck and pronounced dead on the platform.
One of the teen's attorneys, William Howell, argued in an April court hearing that the shooting appeared to be a "spontaneous event" that was unlikely to repeat itself. Howell sought for the teen to be released to the custody of his parents. He was instead ordered held without band at the Youth Services Center, the city's juvenile detention facility, and ordered to undergo a standard psychiatric evaluation.
A trial in the case was originally scheduled to begin on May 24, although prosecutors from the D.C. Office of the Attorney General requested a continuance because the autopsy report from the Office of the D.C. Medical Examiner was not yet available.