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Police arrest suspect sought in shootings of school administrators Police arrest suspect sought in shootings of school administrators
(about 11 hours later)
Police have arrested a suspect sought in last month’s shooting of two District school administrators who authorities said were wounded while sitting in a parked car in the Barry Farm neighborhood of Southeast Washington. A D.C. high school administrator shot last month told police that he believes he was targeted by a man he knows from his old neighborhood in Barry Farm and who he alleged killed his brother in 2007.
Justin Headspeth, 23, has been charged with assault with intent to kill. Police named him a suspect days after the Jan. 25 shooting that injured Eugenia Young, 37, the principal of Roosevelt STAY, an alternative high school in Northwest, and Otis Grandson, 31, dean of students for Ballou STAY in Southeast. Otis Grandson, 31, made that declaration as he lay wounded in the driver’s seat of a silver Lincoln, suffering from bullet wounds to the back of the neck and his left hand. A principal from another school who was with him also was wounded in the Jan. 25 attack.
The circumstances of the arrest were not immediately made public. Justin Sternbeck, a D.C. police spokesman, said only that Headspeth was arrested early Monday. Additional details could be released later in the day. When an officer asked Grandson, the dean of students for Ballou STAY in Southeast Washington, who had shot him and why, he uttered a first and last name and said, “He killed my brother,” according to an arrest affidavit filed Monday in D.C. Superior Court.
Young and Grandson were shot about 7:20 p.m. in the 1500 block of Eaton Road SE. Young told the officer that a gunman walked up to the car, pulled out a gun and fired several shots. According to the police report, she was struck in the abdomen and right forearm, while Grandson was struck in the back of his head and left arm. Grandson’s brother, Jermaine M. Holliway, 30, who had attended Howard University, was fatally shot in June 2007 outside his apartment in Barry Farm, a high-crime neighborhood in Southeast. Grandson did not respond to calls seeking comment, and court papers did not elaborate on why he believes the suspect in his shooting was involved in his brother’s death.
[Two school administrators shot in Southeast Washington] [Man who had attended Howard University killed in Barry Farm]
It is unclear what the victims were doing at the time, but a statement from the school system says the shootings were not related to the schools. No arrest has been made in Holliway’s killing, and D.C. police would not comment on whether the person arrested in Grandson’s shooting was ever a suspect in that case. That suspect was 14 at the time. D.C. police spokesman Dustin Sternbeck said detectives are aware of Grandson’s statement. “If that’s a credible source of information, we are going to investigate further,” Sternbeck said.
Barry Farm is a neighborhood near Anacostia, just off Suitland Parkway. [Two school administrators shot in Southeast]
Headspeth was also arrested in June on Birney Place SE in Barry Farm when a police officer reported seeing him strike a woman several times in the face as she sat in the driver’s seat of a car, according to court documents. The suspect in the January incident, Justin Headspeth, 23, of Southeast has been charged with two counts of assault with intent to kill in connection with the shootings of Grandson and his companion, Eugenia Young, 37, principal of Roosevelt STAY, an alternative high school in Northwest.
The victim told police that Headspeth tried to grab the keys and then began hitting her in the face. He was charged with misdemeanor simple assault. He was freed pending trial but failed to appear for a court hearing and was charged with violating the terms of his release. A D.C. Superior Court Judge ordered Headspeth detained until a hearing Feb. 18. His attorney, Kevin Mosley, questioned why Grandson waited to voice his suspicions. “If he had this information prior to being shot, why didn’t he tell this to the police before?” Mosley said in an interview. “It looks suspicious, as if they are trying to point the finger at an obvious suspect.”
Mosley said Headspeth “maintains his innocence” in both cases and said his office plans to investigate the allegations.
The arrest affidavit provides new details in the January shootings, which occurred about 7:15 p.m. in the 1500 block of Eaton Road SE. Headspeth grew up in Barry Farm. Grandson told police that he lived in Barry Farm from 1992 to 2007.
Grandson told police that he was on Eaton Road to give money to his goddaughter. Police said Grandson’s car became stuck in the snow. Police said Young got out of the car to clear snow from around the tires when Grandson saw a man he identified as Headspeth shooting at them. Young suffered a gunshot wound to her stomach; police said they think 11 shots were fired.
Emma Brown contributed to this report.