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Police say shooter, brother confessed on videotape
(Published May 17, 2004)

By KATHRYN SINZINGER
Staff Writer

The man accused of firing the shot that killed 8-year-old Chelsea Cromartie confessed his involvement in the shooting during a videotaped interview with Metropolitan Police investigators, according to documents presented in court.

Raashed L. Hall, 21, "voluntarily responded to the Metropolitan Police Department" on May 9, according to the documents, and described leaning forward from the back seat of his older brother’s car to fire several gunshots at teenagers who were standing on the porch of the home in which Cromartie was struck by a stray bullet.

Hall and his brother Ricardo Hall, 23, were formally charged with First Degree Murder While Armed in D.C. Superior Court on May 11. Both were ordered held without bond in the D.C. Jail, pending a preliminary hearing scheduled for May 19 before Judge Ann O’Regan Keary.

Authorities said Ricardo Hall also turned himself in to Metropolitan Police. Court documents say Ricardo Hall told police he "discarded the gun [used in the shooting] in a wooded area in Montgomery County" and sold the car from which the shots were fired after it was identified in a news media report.

Police said they have not yet recovered the gun, described in court documents as a .9-milimeter semi-automatic pistol that Ricardo Hall said he "retrieved … from an associate."

Cromartie died about 45 minutes after a bullet came through a living room window of her aunt’s home at 808 52nd St. NE at about 9 p.m. May 3 and struck her in the left side of her head, penetrating her brain, according to court documents. Law enforcement authorities said the girl was sitting in a chair in front of the window, watching television with family members, when she was wounded. Her aunt also was shot in the shoulder.

Cromartie was buried May 8 after a funeral service in Northeast Washington attended by hundreds of mourners, including Mayor Anthony A. Williams and former mayor Marion Barry.

Court documents say police were led to the Hall brothers by a witness who was present at a neighborhood carryout restaurant during an argument that turned physical and allegedly sparked the retaliatory shooting episode a short time later. The documents say the witness and "another teenager from the carryout" were standing on the porch of Cromartie’s aunt’s home when shots were fired in their direction from a vehicle that was stopped across the street.

Raashed Hall told police, according to court documents, that he got into a fight with one of several teenagers encountered at George’s Carryout at 5120 Burroughs Ave. NE on May 3 and that his girlfriend attempted to intervene "to assist him" by fetching a hammer from their car. "The girlfriend lost control of the hammer to one of the teenagers, who used it to smash the windows of her car. …As [Hall and his girlfriend] were driving away, someone from the group [of teenagers] that had been involved in the altercation fired a weapon at their vehicle," according to court documents.

The documents say Ricardo Hall told police that "he received several telephone calls from his brother … who advised him that he (Raashed Hall) had just been jumped by several unknown individuals … [who] had broken the windows out of a car that he was driving, and also shot at the car." Raashed Hall asked his brother to meet him and "bring a ‘hammer,’ which Ricardo Hall understood to be a gun," according to court documents.

Ricardo Hall "stated that he thought the plan was to locate the individuals, confront them, and scare them by shooting in the air," court documents say.