WASHINGTON — D.C. police arrested a second suspect in the fatal shooting of a D.C. teen this summer — a random shooting that police say stemmed from a “beef” between two rival neighborhood groups.
Police arrested 18-year-old Robert Moses, of Northeast D.C., Friday morning. He has been charged with first-degree murder while armed in the death of 17-year-old Jamahri Sydnor, who was struck and killed by a stray bullet as she drove through a Northeast neighborhood in August.
Sydnor was a Woodrow Wilson High School graduate and the daughter of a D.C. police sergeant, who was set to start college at Florida A&M University just days before she was shot.
Moses is the second person to be charged in Sydnor’s death. Shortly after the Aug. 10 shooting, police arrested 21-year-old Philip Carlos McDaniel, of Northeast D.C., and said they were seeking two other suspects. A third man, 18-year-old James Mayfield, is cited in court documents as one of three men involved in the Aug. 10 shooting. He has not been arrested, D.C. police said.
Speaking to reporters at D.C. police headquarters Friday afternoon, Chief Peter Newsham declined to discuss specifics of the arrests but said a “senseless neighborhood dispute” led to the shooting in the 1400 block of Saratoga Avenue in Northeast D.C.
According to court documents, the alleged shooters were members of a group of young men associated with the Langdon Park neighborhood who were “beefing” with another group associated with the Saratoga neighborhood. Before the shooting, Mayfield, Moses and McDaniel saw a member of the Saratoga group walking in Northeast and tried to assault him. The man pulled out a gun and fired warning shots causing the three to flee, according to court documents.
The three men then decided to retaliate against the rival group “by shooting people congregating in the Saratoga neighborhood,” according to court documents.
During the shooting, an adult man also suffered a gunshot wound and a passenger in Sydnor’s car suffered cuts from broken glass
The court documents and online court records also reveal that less than a month before Sydnor’s fatal shooting, both Moses and McDaniel were arrested and charged with illegal possession of firearms and other gun charges.
Newsham said police are continuing to investigate the shooting.
“If we find out that others were involved, we want to make sure that they’re held accountable,” he said.
