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Moechella was billed as a day-long music festival in the heart of one of D.C.'s nightlife districts, where thousands of music lovers gathered to hear go-go bands and celebrate the Juneteenth holiday.
But at about 8:40 p.m. on the evening of the June 19, 2022, event around 14th and U streets NW, four gunshots rippled through the celebration, leaving 15-year-old Chase Poole dead and three other victims, including a D.C. police officer assigned to crowd control for the event, wounded.
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Last week, the teen who police arrested and charged with first-degree murder while armed and 15 other crimes associated with the shootings went on trial in D.C. Superior Court. District prosecutors mapped out their case against the youth, who they say began shooting as part of a neighborhood dispute.
“Four shots. Four lives, forever changed,” Ivan Cody Jr., a prosecutor with the District’s Office of the Attorney General said during his opening statements Monday.
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The Washington Post was permitted to watch the trial on the condition that the identity of the teenage suspect, whom prosecutors charged as a juvenile, was not revealed. The Post does not generally identify juvenile suspects in criminal cases. The teen, now 16, was 15 when he was arrested.
The prosecutor told Judge James Crowell that evidence will show that the unmasked teen “extended his arm” into the crowd and began firing. Because the defendant is a juvenile, the judge — not a jury — will determine the youth’s guilt or innocence.
The youth’s defense attorney, Lydia Wade, said police arrested the wrong person as hundreds of people began running through the chaos that night and that her client was not involved in the shooting.
“Nobody is going to identify my client as the shooter. This is speculation and guess work by police. And at best, wishful thinking,” Wade said during her opening.
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After about 32 exhibits and some 14 witnesses, including police officers, firearm experts and hospital emergency room physicians, no one has yet identified Wade’s client as the shooter in the first week of trial.
One officer testified that police stopped three individuals that night who authorities believed matched the description of the shooter. But the officers later determined the three were not involved in the shooting. One officer testified that one of the suspects was transported to a precinct but was later released.
It took authorities nearly two months to make an arrest.
Prosecutors said the teen rejected a plea deal, which would have allowed him to plead to second-degree murder while armed.
So far at trial, prosecutors have not presented any DNA evidence, eyewitness or security or police body-camera footage that identifies the youth as the shooter. Instead, prosecutors spent the week showing graphic video of the shooting.
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Jonathan Merrill testified that he and other D.C. police officers were on the National Mall supervising another music festival but relocated to the 14th and U corridor for reports of an unruly gathering. Not long after he arrived, Merrill’s body-camera video captured the sound of three quick gunshots, followed by a fourth. Merrill was shot, but he didn’t realize it. “I got hit by something hard in the knee,” he recalled telling a colleague.
Video aired in court showed Merrill racing against the panicked crowd to where officers believed the shooting originated. Merrill ran over and began treating a woman lying on the ground with a gunshot wound to her leg.
As Merrill was focused on treating the victim, it wasn’t until later, as blood trickled down his leg, that he realized he had been shot. A colleague wrapped a tourniquet around his leg. The injury required the officer to undergo three months of therapy.
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Video from another officer’s body camera played in court showed officer Brian Rodriguez finding Chase’s body lying over a concrete slab on a nearby Metro bus island at 14th and U streets. Rodriguez is seen cutting Chase’s clothing off him and trying to identify and treat the gunshot wound. “Stay with me, all right. Stay with me my man. Keep breathing,” Rodriguez said to the dying youth. A D.C. medical examiner later testified the bullet pierced Chase’s liver and kidney.
One firearms expert testified that all four bullets were fired from the same weapon. But the officer did not identify the type of weapon.
The trial is scheduled to continue next week. On Tuesday, D.C. Police Detective Gabriel Truby, who was the lead investigator on the case, is expected to testify.
Truby is expected to be critical to the prosecution’s case. At a preliminary hearing two months after the shooting, Truby testified before a different D.C. Superior Court judge that investigators identified their teenage defendant from security footage that captured the incident. Truby testified that after the suspect was seen shooting the gun, another video captured the same person tucking the gun in his waistband before running up to 14th and V streets.
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At last year’s hearing, Truby also testified that detectives were able to identify the teenager as the suspected shooter by his clothing and hairstyle. The shooter was wearing a black hoodie with the word “NASA” on a sleeve and chest, according to Truby. The shooter was also wearing Nike Air Jordan 5 sneakers and had dreadlocks that extended to his ear. Detectives used footage from several surveillance cameras and the body-camera footage of one officer near the shooting to identify the suspect. Truby said police then showed the video to two individuals who both identified the teen as the suspect.
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