Rico Myers, 25, a Black/African American male, was shot around midday on February 16, 2015, in the 6100 block of Clay Street NE, near the Capitol Heights Metro station in Northeast Washington, D.C. Officers responding to the sound of gunfire found him moments later in the 300 block of 61st Street NE with multiple gunshot wounds; he was rushed to a hospital where he died.
Investigators later detailed that just before noon Myers and a friend met three young men in an alley off 61st Street NE for what prosecutors described as a planned PCP transaction. During the encounter, one of the men pulled a handgun and demanded Myers’s belongings while the others rifled pockets; Myers fought back and was shot four times, then staggered out of the alley before collapsing on the sidewalk. The medical examiner ruled the death a homicide caused by multiple gunshot wounds.
Within weeks, police announced arrests and, by April 2016, all three defendants pleaded guilty in D.C. Superior Court. Tavon Pinkney, then 20, admitted to second-degree murder while armed; his plea agreement called for a 17-year prison term. His accomplices, William Bass, 18, and Kalif Brown, 22, pleaded to assault with intent to rob while armed and robbery, respectively. In July 2016, the court imposed the agreed-upon sentences: 17 years for Pinkney, five years for Brown, and a guidelines term for Bass that local court reporting recorded as five and a half years.
The case, first publicized by police with a reward flyer seeking tips in the days after the shooting, closed with those convictions, confirming that Myers’s killing stemmed from a midday robbery that turned deadly.
