An Instagram live broadcast celebrating the murder of a 14-year-old boy in Northwest D.C. helped lead police to the 17-year-old suspect, who authorities believe was with his mother when he pulled the trigger.
Surveillance camera images caught the shooting outside the Crown gas station at 14th and Euclid streets NW at about 11:30 p.m. on Nov. 3.
In the video, a person in a ski mask with a gun in his hand, believed to be 17-year-old Lorinzo Thompson, starts firing from near the doorway of the gas station. He fires 12 rounds toward three people on scooters in the parking lot.
Two victims were shot and taken to the hospital. One of them, 14-year-old Niko Estep, did not survive.
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Court documents claim that three days later, Thompson appeared in an Instagram live appearing to brag about the crime while wearing the same Moose Knuckle jacket and Jordan Retro sneakers seen on the gunman in the gas station video.
In a search of his bedroom, authorities said they uncovered an ammunition magazine of the same caliber as the gun used to kill the victim.
Thompson is being charged as an adult with second-degree murder while armed.
Footage of the killing also shows that the shooter was not alone during the attack. A man in a black jacket with the hood up and a woman with red braids in a white parka stood by and did nothing to intervene, according to court documents.
The woman also followed the gunman as he rode a scooter onto the parking lot before the shooting and then wheeled his scooter back to a nearby apartment building after the killing.
That apartment building was later determined to be the suspect’s home address.
An officer who had arrested the teenager for a prior robbery told detectives that the shooter in the gas station video looked like Thompson, court documents state. He also identified his mother.
“Officer Whitfield looked at the still shot of the female with red braids for approximately 15-20 seconds before he stated that it looked like Lorenzo [sic] Thompson’s mother,” documents state.
Thompson, however, is the only person currently charged in Estep’s murder.
A motive for the deadly gunfire was not immediately revealed. D.C. police said detectives continue to investigate the case, and additional charges would come from the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
