D.C. police released a video showing two suspects and a vehicle they believe the suspects used in committing the robbery of Bryan Smith that led to his death. (Screen capture via MPD YouTube)
D.C. police announced they have arrested two teenage boys, 14 and 16 years old, in connection with the Oct. 27 robbery of gay DJ and hairstylist Bryan Smith, who died 11 days later on Nov. 7 from fatal head injuries that police have yet to definitively link to the robbery.
D.C. Chief of Police Pamela A. Smith announced the arrests at a Nov. 15 press conference held at the intersection near where police detectives believe the two juvenile suspects targeted Smith and other victims in three separate robbery related incidents.
“We are here today to announce the arrest of two suspects responsible for a series of robberies in this community on Sunday, Oct. 27, including the robbery of 39-year-old Bryan Smith, who was walking home in the 500 block of T Street, N.W.,” Smith told the press conference.
“On behalf of the Metropolitan Police Department as well as myself, I send my deepest condolences to Mr. Smith’s family as well as his friends,” Chief Smith said. “While nothing can undo this senseless loss, we hope today’s arrests are of some measure of justice and a step toward healing,” she said.
D.C. Assistant Police Chief Ramey Kyle, who heads the department’s Investigative Services Bureau and who also spoke at the press conference, gave a detailed description of the police investigation that led to the arrest of the two teen suspects on robbery related charges. But he did not say the two suspects have been linked to the injuries that caused Smith’s death.
“Those suspects are charged with three counts of robbery and one count of assault to commit robbery,” Kyle said at the press conference. But the assault he referred to was against another robbery victim in one of the incidents separate from the robbery of Smith.
“They face additional charges of unlawful use of a vehicle, fraud, receiving stolen property, and unlawful possession of ammunition,” he said, adding that there was no evidence to show the two suspects used a firearm in the robbery of Smith and the others they targeted on Oct. 27.
Kyle said the two teens were linked to the robbery of Bryan Smith and other victims in three nearby locations through video surveillance camera footage, some of which police released to the public to seek help in identifying the suspects. However, he did not say whether any of the video footage showed the suspects assaulting Bryan Smith.
“Tragically, Mr. Smith succumbed to his injuries on Nov. 7,” he told news reporters at the press conference. “His death is still under investigation. Additional charges may be brought depending on the results of additional testing requested by the Northern Virginia Medical Examiner’s Office.”
In response to reporters’ questions, Chief Smith and Kyle said Bryan Smith, who had been taken to a D.C. hospital at the time he was found unconscious on the 500 block of T Street, N.W., around the time of the robbery, was transferred through arrangement by members of his family to a Northern Virginia hospital, where he later died on Nov. 7.
Kyle said D.C. police investigators were waiting for the Northern Virginia Medical Examiner’s Office to determine the cause and manner of Smith’s death, which would provide the information D.C. police need to determine if murder charges should be brought against the two teen suspects.
People who knew Bryan Smith said they believe he was working as a DJ in the hours before he was found unconscious, according to a D.C. police report, on the sidewalk in front of a house at 514 T St., N.W. The house is on a residential street near the gay bar Uproar.
D.C. Police Chief Smith told the press conference detectives had been working “around the clock” to identify the suspects now charged with the robbery of Bryan Smith and the other victims.
“We are here to send a very clear message today,” she said. “If you commit violence in our city, we will find you and we will hold you accountable. We will take every act of violence seriously,” Smith continued. “And every investigation in this case and beyond, we use every tool and technique at our disposal to bring perpetrators to justice and to protect our community.”
Chief Smith also noted at the press conference that the robbery of Bryan Smith and the other robbery related incidents on Oct. 27 linked to the two arrested juveniles were not related to the assault that same morning against 22-year-old Sebastian Thomas Robles Lascarro.
Lascarro, a gay man, told police as many as 15 men and women attacked and assaulted him at the McDonald’s restaurant at 14th and U Street, N.W., with some yelling anti-gay slurs.
D.C. police, who have listed that incident as a suspected hate crime, arrested a 16-year-old male on Nov. 7 on a charge of Assault With Significant Bodily Injury in connection with the McDonald’s assault against Lascarro.
“I also want to address some concerns we heard from the community in the last few weeks,” Chief Smith said at the Nov. 15 press conference. “There is no indication at this time that these four robbery cases were motivated by hate or bias,” she said.
“There is no connection between these offenses and a particularly hate motivated assault that occurred that morning in the 1900 block of 14th Street, N.W,” Smith said in referring to the McDonald’s assault targeting Lascarro.
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