On a summer afternoon in Washington, D.C., the life of a promising young woman was tragically cut short by a senseless act of violence. Jamahri Rome Sydnor, a 17-year-old female, was driving her 12-year-old nephew home from a barbershop on August 10, 2017, just weeks away from beginning her freshman year at Florida A&M University. A recent graduate of Woodrow Wilson High School, where she had been the captain of the cheerleading squad, Jamahri was unwittingly driving through the intersection of
Saratoga and Montana Avenues NE when gunfire erupted. She was not the intended target. The bullets were the result of a violent feud between rival neighborhood gangs.
As members of one gang indiscriminately fired more than ten shots across the busy intersection, a stray bullet pierced the passenger window of Jamahri's Honda Accord and struck her in the head. After being shot, she lost control of the car, which then crashed into a parked vehicle. Her young nephew, seated beside her, was injured by the shattering glass. The hail of gunfire also wounded three other people, including a man in a wheelchair who shattered his leg trying to take cover. Jamahri was gravely wounded and died from her injuries. The tragic irony of her death was deeply felt by her family, particularly her mother, a retired D.C. police homicide detective who had spent her career trying to keep the city's children safe.
The investigation into the shooting led to the arrests of several individuals. Authorities identified Robert Moses and James Mayfield as the shooters who had hopped out of a car and opened fire. The getaway driver, Philip McDaniel, was arrested hours after the shooting and would later become a key witness for the prosecution, testifying against his lifelong friends. Moses was arrested in October 2017, and Mayfield was arrested that December.
After a lengthy legal process, a jury found Robert Moses and James Mayfield guilty of first-degree premeditated murder, conspiracy, and multiple counts of assault in December 2022. The trial and subsequent delays in sentencing prolonged the grief for Jamahri's family. In September 2024, more than seven years after Jamahri's death, the two men were sentenced. Robert Moses received a sentence of 61 years in prison, while James Mayfield was sentenced to 50 years. Throughout the proceedings, Mayfield maintained his innocence and expressed his intention to appeal the verdict.
