The teenagers accused in the stabbing death of an 18-year-old in a northwest D.C. Metro station early Saturday morning allegedly offered to sell marijuana to the victim before robbing him at gunpoint, according to a court document.
Chavez Myers, 17, was ordered held without bond in D.C. Superior Court Monday evening. He is the only teenager of the nine arrested in this case to be charged as an adult with second-degree murder while armed and assault with a dangerous weapon -- the latter charge related to the kicking and punching of a second victim.
A witness who was with the deceased, Olijawon Griffin, and another victim, said Griffin first encountered the group of teenagers at a McDonald’s in the 1800 block of Columbia Road shortly after midnight. Griffin told the witness he was going with the teenagers to buy marijuana, at which point the witness went to the bathroom. When the witness and the other victim caught up with Griffin again after leaving the McDonald’s, he told them he had been beaten and robbed at gunpoint of his iPhone and Helly Hansen jacket, which can retail for $300.
The three of them proceeded to the Woodley Park Metro Station, where they encountered the group of 10-12 teenagers again, and Griffin demanded his jacket be returned, according to the court document. Griffin and the witness took the escalator up toward the station manager as the teenagers began to beat the other victim, but Griffin went back to aid the other victim as the witness asked the station manager to call police.
According to the court document, security camera footage shows Griffin and one of the teenagers engaged in a fistfight before Myers approached from behind with a knife and stabbed Griffin in the chest.
About 45 minutes later, just after 2 a.m., Griffin was pronounced dead at George Washington University Hospital.
“I lost a son,” Lunette Griffin said. “I can never get my son back, and they just don’t know how hard it is for me to go on.”
Myers and eight other teenagers were arrested at the station. Myers waived his rights and confessed to the stabbing but claimed it was in self-defense, according to the court document.
Griffin’s family is upset Myers is the only suspect charged as an adult. They’ve seen the security footage and are furious because they know juvenile prosecution means most of the suspects likely will face just a few years of incarceration.
“You can understand the three 15-year-olds, because they were young, but the other six of them were 17-years-old, which could have been tried as adults, but they dismissed the fact that my son lost his life, and it shows that the guy came around and stabbed him in the chest,” Griffin’s mother said. “My son didn’t even see him. It was more than three on him at one time.”
“Those boys are going to get out of jail, do the same thing, be back here again, and you guys are going to be reporting someone else being killed by the same boys,” said the victim’s cousin, Shaquasia Gaynor.
Olijawon Griffin, of Olney, Md., was a recent graduate of Sherwood High School in Sandy Spring.
