Luckily for everyone who inhabits the world, and particularly for people who might have occassion to knock on his door, Keith Washington has been convicted and will be spending some time behind bars. It’s not perfect – the jury couldn’t bring themselves to convict him of second degree murder – but they did agree on two counts of first degree assault and two of using a handgun in a crime of violence. With no mandatory time on the assault charges we can only be sure of 5 years for each of the handgun counts. WaPo didn’t make it clear if the minimums could run concurrently.
It’s a great relief, I think, that the jury convicted. I’d become worried that this clown was going to skate because each not-yet-punished bits of whacko behavior wasn’t going to be tried in a vacuum, despite them clearly providing plausibility when taken together. WaPo had earlier reported that this jury wouldn’t hear about Washington being indicted for waving a gun at someone who said they’d simply knocked on his door by mistake, something that certainly makes the shooting victims in this case a lot more believable when they said Washington simply flipped his shit and started shooting.
Sentencing is in late April; here’s hoping they land near the maximums of 25 and 10 years per count.
This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs
Well I used to say something in my profile about not quite being a “tinker, tailor, soldier, or spy” but Tom stole that for our about us page, so I guess I’ll have to find another way to express that I am a man of many interests.
Hmm, guess I just did.
My tastes run the gamut from sophomoric to Shakespeare and in my “professional” life I’ve sold things, served beer, written software, and carried heavy objects… sometimes at the same place. It’s that range of loves and activities that makes it so easy for me to love DC – we’ve got it all.
