Teen pleads guilty in killing of Lyft driver on Capitol Hill (original) (raw)

A 16-year-old pleaded guilty Tuesday to felony murder in the 2023 slaying of a former U.S. military interpreter who emigrated from his native Afghanistan and was shot in an attempted carjacking while working as a Lyft driver on Capitol Hill.

Nasratullah Ahmad Yar, 31, had worked for the Army’s Special Forces before he fled the Taliban with his wife and children, thinkingthey would be safe in the United States. His killing stood out in a particularly deadly summer in the District, which spent 2023 reeling from a generational spike in violent crime.

Police spent eight months searching for suspects before arresting the teen in March. Officials said then that the youth was 14 at the time of the shooting, which meant federal prosecutors could not charge him as an adult.

As part of the plea deal Tuesday, prosecutors with the city’s attorney general’s office agreed not to ask the judge to sentence the teen to more than two years commitment — or not beyond his 18th birthday — with the city’s Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services, also known as DYRS. In addition, prosecutors agreed not to charge the teen with any additional crimes that might have resulted in investigations by their office.

The Washington Post was allowed to attend the confidential court hearing on Tuesday for the teen, who has been in DYRS custody since his arrest, on the condition that it not disclose hisname.

According to police, Ahmad Yar had just dropped off a passenger and was sitting in the driver’s seat of his parked black Toyota Highlander with the car’s hazard lights blinking in the 400 block of 11th Street in the Capitol Hill neighborhood, about a mile from the Supreme Court, when multiple teens approached him on foot and tried to carjack the vehicle but fled after the shooting instead.

Police say theassailants fled through an alley.A resident’s Nest camera recorded four young people running down the alley after the shooting that night. No additional arrests have been made in the case.

At the hearing, prosecutor Priscilla Guerrero said the teen’s thumbprint was found inside Ahmad Yar’s car. Guerrero also said as the teens were running away, their voices were captured on security-camera footage. One of the assailants said: “You killed him, bro.” Guerrero said the 16-year-old’s voice was captured when he responded: “He was reaching, bro. He was reaching.”

Authorities said Ahmad Yar was unarmed and shot once in the torso.

Hundreds attended his funeral in Fredericksburg, Virginia, including Matthew Butler, a retired Special Forces lieutenant colonel, who told the men crowded around the grave that he had loved Ahmad Yar like a son. “He was brave — and smart — and always happy. A good father. A good soldier. I am sorry — so sorry,” he said, and then he turned away.

Guerrero said authorities received a break in the case when someone who knew the 16-year-old contacted police with a tip that the youth was involved in the shooting.

The teen’s court-appointedlawyer said the teen underwent a psychiatric evaluation.

As the prosecutor outlined the grisly details of the shooting, the teen’s mother sat alone in the back of the courtroom and sobbed quietly. His sentencing is scheduled for Feb. 12, before Judge Kendra D. Briggs.