Gang member arrested three years after killing security officer
Washington DC March 7 2019 When her 28-year-old son was gunned down while walking home from his fiance’s house in Southwest Washington in the summer of 2015, Karen Addison-Herbert struggled to understand why.
Ryan Addison worked as a security guard, had graduated from college and had been preparing to interview for a clerical job with the federal government, in homeland security. He had no criminal record. “There was no reason to go after my son,” said Addison-Herbert, 62.
D.C. police arrested a man last week, and now, more than three years after her son died of bullets fired into his stomach, back, buttocks and arm, authorities say a suspected gang member from Virginia mistakenly believed Addison had killed one of the alleged gunman’s friends.
The indictment charging Joshua Artis, 29, with first-degree murder says he shot the wrong man and then returned to Virginia to seek a promotion in the Imperial Gangsta Bloods gang for avenging the death of an associate.
A D.C. Superior Court judge ordered Artis detained until a hearing March 12. His attorney with the Public Defender Service did not respond to an interview request.
Addison, the indictment says, “had no involvement” in the killing of the suspect’s friend. Other court documents say Addison was targeted on that Aug. 11 morning on Elmira Street in Bellevue simply because he happened to be on the same block as the real killer’s home.
For Addison-Herbert, the words on the court document prove what she said she knew all along — there was no reason for her son to die. He was shot wearing ear buds, and his mother suspects he never saw or heard the gunman approach. It was 12:20 a.m., six days shy of his birthday, and he was planning his wedding.
“I’m grateful they finally caught somebody,” Addison-Herbert said. “I thought it just might be an unsolved case. My son was out minding his own business. He was excited about the homeland security job. He said, ‘Ma, I finally got in the government. I won’t have to wear a uniform. I can wear regular clothes.’ ”
Said his mother: “He died before the interview.”
The Imperial Gangsta Bloods, a suburban Virginia gang, distributed heroin mixed with fentanyl and cocaine and sold firearms, court documents show. The gang has been linked to other violence, including a double homicide in Lorton, Va., as well as a shooting at a hotel in Alexandria.
Authorities targeted the group through Operation Tin Panda, an investigation that has resulted in three dozen convictions.
Two of the killings linked to the gang occurred in Southwest Washington’s Bellevue neighborhood, a narrow slice of residential homes that runs about a mile along the Anacostia Freeway from where South Capitol Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue SW meet, south to Joliet Street SW. There have been 28 killings in that neighborhood since 2015, the year Addison was killed and homicides spiked in the District.
Court documents blame the shooting of Addison not only on Artis, who is from Woodbridge, Va., but also on the Imperial Gangsta Bloods’ regional leader, Travell Vandiver, who is serving 20 years in federal prison for distributing cocaine and heroin in Virginia. He also pleaded guilty in D.C. Superior Court to conspiracy to commit murder for giving the green light for the shooting that led to Addison’s death.
Court documents allege Artis, described by prosecutors as Vandiver’s subordinate, was upset by the June 28, 2015, killing of Rodney Delonte Davis, 25, known as “Lo,” who was found shot on Galveston Place SW, steps from Elmira Street. A court document says gang members planned a trip to the District to rob people and Artis asked Vandiver for permission to accompany them to “look for Lo’s killers.”
According to Vandiver’s guilty plea in D.C. Superior Court, he answered, “Do what you got to do.”
No one has been charged in Davis’s killing.
Addison’s death left his mother and his two brothers — one older, one younger — struggling. Addison-Herbert fled to a Baltimore suburb. Her youngest son, now 26, needed therapy to cope with the loss. The last time Addison-Herbert spoke to Addison, she had reminded him of their upcoming Sunday dinner; she was preparing his favorite — short ribs, mashed potatoes and string beans.
He told her he wasn’t able to make it. Instead, he planned to accompany his fiance to her son’s baseball game. He had broken up with the mother of his daughter, now 8, and Addison-Herbert said she has never seen her first grandchild.
Now, her son is gone.
Addison graduated from Roosevelt High School in Greenbelt, Md., and earned an art degree from the University of the District of Columbia. At one point, he had wanted to design shoes and clothes and had toyed with opening a store with one of his best friends. His mother said he sang in a church choir in Maryland.
Addison-Herbert said her oldest son is married and her youngest son lives with his girlfriend. They spent Christmas with the other families, leaving her alone. She still makes short ribs each Sunday, hoping her children come by to keep up the tradition.
“They got their own lives, and my other child is no longer with us,” Addison-Herbert said. “My house feels empty, lonely, with nobody here. Everybody calls, and says, ‘We love you, we miss you.’ But it’s not the same.”
Washington Post
