The men accused of shooting an 18-year-old gang rival in an Uber vehicle blocks from his home may have learned where he lived from a private D.C. document, according to charging documents released Thursday.
Detectives searching the phone of a suspect in the killing of 18-year-old Kesean Pollard found a picture of Pollard’s “face sheet” from the D.C. Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services, according to an arrest affidavit for one of the four men charged with killing him. Face sheets are confidential profiles of juveniles in youth detention centers that include their photo, phone number and home address.
Police say that photo and a Google search for the address listed on it, along with a photo of the crime scene, were recovered from the phone of Nathaniel Washington, 22, of D.C.
Washington and three others police say are linked to a Lincoln Heights gang are accused of shooting Pollard moments after he left home on the morning of Oct. 22, 2024. Charging documents point to revenge for a previous killing in which Pollard was accused and acquitted as a likely motive.
Pollard’s mother filed a lawsuit in D.C. Superior Court this month blaming the city for her son’s death because of the leaked private information that included their home address.
The lawsuit said Washington received Pollard’s address from an employee at the Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services (DYRS). Weeks before Pollard was killed, he was released from the New Beginnings Development Center in Prince George’s County, where the District employee worked, the lawsuit said.
“Mr. Pollard’s murder was the foreseeable result of the very risk that the District’s confidentiality obligations exist to prevent,” attorney Cary Hansel wrote in the complaint.
Reached by phone last week and asked about the leak, the employee denied having any involvement. The employee has not been criminally charged, according to publicly available court records, and the charging documents for Washington do not say how he obtained the face sheet.
The department’s director, Sam Abed, said in a statement that the person is no longer employed at the agency. Because of pending litigation, the department cannot comment on specific allegations, he said.
“Our focus remains on providing a safe, supportive, and rehabilitative environment for the young people in our care,” Abed said.
Several of the men accused of staking out and killing Pollard had been in DYRS custody, some of them during the same period as Pollard, according to the lawsuit, which attributes the violence to tensions between rival gangs and places the blame squarely on the District employee.
The lawsuit says the men waited outside Pollard’s home for more than five hours, followed him after he got in an Uber for a ride to school, then shot dozens of rounds into the car at a nearby intersection.
Last week, the Prince George’s County Police Department announced charges in Pollard’s killing against Washington, as well as Donzell Gibson — a local rap artist who goes by the moniker Morally Rich Jake — Devin Spivey and Shamar Evans. They are being charged with first-degree and second-degree murder, as well as assault and gun charges, according to arrest affidavits.
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