The five teenage girls charged in the fatal beating of a Northwest Washington man were scouring Georgia Avenue late one October evening, “looking for a victim,” a prosecutor told a D.C. Superior Court judge Thursday.
“This was a brutal and premeditated attack of a frail and vulnerable man,” D.C. prosecutor Gabrielle LoGaglio said in Judge Kendra D. Briggs’s courtroom, on the first day of a trial for two of the five teens accused in Brown’s beating.
On trial are a 14-year-old and a 13-year-old, who was 12 at the time of her arrest and is the youngest of the five girls. Both are charged with first-degree, premeditated murder. Attorneys for both girls said that their clients are innocent, that prosecutors lack direct evidence linking them to the killing, and that there were no credible witnesses who would identify their clients as being part of the attack.
LoGaglio said that the attack — in the 6200 block of Georgia Avenue NW on Oct. 17 just after midnight — was captured by security cameras in the neighborhood, and that the younger girl recorded the attack with her cellphone.
In hearings leading up to the trial, the prosecutor repeatedly played the footage for judges who determined the teens should be removed from their homes and placed in the custody of the city’s Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services until trial. The recordings capture several teens chasing Brown, knocking him to the ground, kicking and stomping his head into the pavement, and then removing his belt and beating him with it as his pants fall to his ankles. Girls can be heard cheering and celebrating during and after the attack.
The Washington Post generally does not identify juveniles charged with crimes. Only attorneys and immediate family members of Brown and the defendants are allowed to view the trial because the defendants are juveniles. The Post was granted access on the condition that it not disclose the youths’ identities or any details about mental health that might be revealed.
In juvenile cases in D.C. Superior Court, a judge — not a jury — hears the evidence to protect the confidentiality of the youths.
One teen charged in the case took a plea deal last month, admitting guilt to a lesser charge of assault with a dangerous weapon (her foot). A trial for the remaining two, including a 13-year-old who struck a deputy U.S. marshal during a court hearing in July, is scheduled to begin in late November.
As the graphic details of the attack were laid out, several of Brown’s family members walked out of the courtroom.
The older teen’s public defender, Charlotte Gilliland, repeatedly argued during her opening statements that a D.C. homicide detective “tricked” the 14-year-old and her mother into meeting with the detective. As a result, she argued, statements the teen made outlining the attack should be off-limits.
“The government is asking the court to convict a child on evidence that is unacceptable,” she said.
Defense attorney Geoffrey Harris argued there was no evidence that his client, the 13-year-old, killed Brown. The most serious crime she should face is assault, he said.
Sasha Breland, the District’s deputy chief medical examiner, testified that Brown died of multiple blunt-force traumas to his head and brain.
Breland also testified that Brown had cocaine in his system at the time of his attack. Harris showed Brown’s previous medical records in which he told physicians he had a history of smoking crack cocaine daily and asked if Brown’s cocaine use could have contributed to his death.
Breland repeatedly said that Brown died of blunt-force trauma to his head and that his heart and arteries were fine, despite his drug use.
When the girls came upon Brown, the 14-year-old told the detective during a recorded interview, they saw a man beating him and dragging him by the collar. The teen said they heard the man — who she insisted was not known by the group — yelling at Brown, saying, “I gave you an hour and you didn’t give me my money.”
She said the man began punching and kicking Brown before one of her friends approached and asked: “Do you need help? Can we fight him?” The teen said the man ordered the girls to continue fighting Brown and threatened to kill them if they did not.
The trial is set to resume Friday and then again in October because of scheduling issues.
