Khalil Rich moved in with this grandmother after his mother died in 2019. The shift from a city neighborhood in Southeast Washington to the suburb a dozen miles south in Fort Washington proved jarring.
Wp Get the full experience.Choose your plan ArrowRight
The teenager missed his friends in D.C., and grew restless. His grandmother, Octavia Snead, allowed him to return to the District in October, and he moved in with his father near Northeast Washington’s Trinidad neighborhood.
Early Friday, police said Khalil, 16, a 10th grade student at a private school, was fatally shot in an apartment in the 1500 block of Isherwood Street NE, in the Kingman Park area, not far from his father’s home. He was found in a bedroom about 2:30 a.m. and was pronounced dead at the scene.
Story continues below advertisement
“When he stayed with me, I felt as though I was protecting him from what was in D.C.,” said Snead, the 57-year-old grandmother who is also raising Khalil’s three siblings.
Advertisement
“I know it was a challenge for him to live in Maryland after having been living in D.C. for so long,” Snead said. “But going back to his dad gave him freedom, and allowed him to hang out with his friends.”
Khalil is the second 16-year-old to be fatally shot in the District this year, the youngest victims of homicide so far in 2022. DeShaun Francis of Alexandria, the other 16-year-old, was killed in February, when his mother said he was caught in a crossfire while in a relative’s vehicle in Southeast Washington.
Story continues below advertisement
There have been 41 homicides in the District this year, a 5 percent increase from this same time in 2021. Killings in the District last year surpassed 200 for the first time since 2003.
D.C. police have not discussed details of the case and have not made an arrest. But in a newly filed court document, police said a person who lives at the Isherwood Street apartment told detectives Khalil had arrived Thursday night to visit.
Homicides soar in District, Maryland suburbs in 2021
That person told police that three other people later came to the apartment. About 1:30 a.m., the document states Khalil asked the tenant to get him some items from a store.
Advertisement
Police said that person returned about 2 a.m. and found the door to the apartment open. Inside, police said that person found Khalil. A neighbor called police. The court document did not say if the three other visitors were still at the apartment when the tenant returned.
Story continues below advertisement
The court document, an application for a search warrant, says police found a 9mm bullet in the living room, a gun magazine that holds bullets on top of the dryer and a spent casing for a rifle bullet in the kitchen.
Neighbors of the Isherwood Street residence have complained to police and District officials about disturbances and people going in and out of the apartment at all hours of the day and night, according to emails provided by an area resident.
Snead said police have not shared any details of the killing with her.
She described her grandson as a “kind, caring and compassionate young man,” and added, “I will never forget his brown eyes and his smile.” He played video games with his older brother and crawled on the floor to entertain his younger siblings — 3-year-old twin boys born seven months before their mother, Nicole Rich, died of pneumonia at the age of 36.
Advertisement
Story continues below advertisement
Snead said Khalil loved outdoor cookouts and playing games like Jenga and Connect 4 with his family. He played football and basketball in the neighborhood. Khalil enjoyed helping the twins learn to talk and taught them to ride tricycles.
“He was a great influence on their lives,” Snead said.
Their classmates are murdered, then they take the SATs: How gun violence shapes academics
But he never got over his mother’s death, Snead said.
“He was still grieving, he was still hurting,” she said, adding she believes his desire to return to the District was “a large part of him wanting to seek that love from his dad.”
Efforts to reach Khalil’s father were not successful, and another relative referred a reporter to Snead.
Snead said she last spoke with Khalil on the Monday before he died, when he called her house. He talked with the twins, and then to his grandmother, telling her, “I love you too.”
On Friday, Snead said she learned from police Khalil had died. On Sunday, she drove to the medical examiner’s office to identify his body.
“I needed to see him,” Snead said, “to make sure that was my baby.”
Once there, she was only allowed to view a photo.
“That was torture,” she said, adding, “I knew it was him.”