The storefront memorial to 51-year-old murdered shopkeeper Rufina Hernandez, in front of her shop, La Casa de Morata, on Georgia Avenue, NW.

A neighborhood adapts after shopkeeper is murdered, a local is arrested for the crime, and another resident is killed

The owners of Joy’s Seafood & Carry Out in the 5400 block of Georgia Avenue NW turned off the lights of their restaurant.  The woman surveyed the street as her husband quickly pulled down the metal storefront gate, and the two left for the evening.

A car idled in an alley across the street.  Its lights were turned off as the passenger scanned the block.

It was 6 p.m. on Nov. 16, nine days after 51-year-old shopkeeper Rufina Hernandez was shot to death behind her counter in Brightwood after cooperating fully with two men who entered her store demanding money, according to police.  Area residents were taking extra steps to protect themselves, and trying to comprehend the motivations for a brutal crime that set the neighborhood on edge.

A sidewalk memorial of stuffed animals and flowers marked the darkened storefront of La Casa De Morata where Hernandez worked.  Flyers on storefronts and telephone poles offered a $25,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of her killers.

Brightwood lies just north of Petworth, with Rock Creek Park on the west side, Takoma Park and Silver Spring to the north, and Georgia avenue acting as an eastern border.   The area lies directly in the middle of the Upper Georgia Avenue Great Streets Redevelopment Plan, a coordinated effort by the DC Office of Planning to encourage commercial development and improved safety along Georgia Avenue.

According to the Metropolitan Police Department’s DC CrimeMap, there have been three murders  in District 4 since Nov. 7, the day Hernandez was killed.  Hernandez’s murder was one of three in the past month for the Fourth District, which recorded 79 violent crimes in the same period.  Nine of those violent crimes occurred within 1500 feet of Hernandez’s block.  The Fourth District has recorded 882 violent crimes in 2009, ranking the district second-lowest in violent crime of the city’s seven police districts.

Despite these numbers, local shopkeepers contended that the threat of violence is a regular part of their jobs.

Gebrehiwot Ayele, 27, has owned the Lucky Corner Market for five months, and has already had a gun pointed in his face once since buying the store.

A reward poster from the Metropolitan Police Department taped to the protective plexiglass booth in the Lucky Corner Market.

He says that he didn’t even hear the shot that killed Hernandez a few doors away from his, and he is now paying closer attention to who enters his shop.

“I work by myself, and I try to know who comes in here after 9 p.m.,” said Ayele.  “I want to know the regulars.”

He said a recent customer from California couldn’t believe that he stands behind a plexiglass barrier at his shop’s counter.

“Over there it is different.  You are allowed to have guns.  Here, they know you aren’t protected.  They even know how long it takes the police to respond.”

Azu Nwaolu has worked on this block for over ten years, and watched the robberies and shootings drive away other shopkeepers during that time.  He has been robbed at gunpoint four times in his tropical food shop.

“This is a very violent neighborhood,” Nwaolu said.  “Very bad drug problems here.”

He said that relying on witnesses to identify criminals was ineffective, because of the threat of retaliation and that many of his fellow business owners were reluctant to appear on camera after the shooting for the same reason.  A few days after Hernandez was killed, Nwaolu bought two new security cameras capable of monitoring the interior and exterior of his shop.

“I need to do something to give police an idea of what happens, if anything does,” he said.

An Arrest, A Press Conference

On Nov. 19 at a press conference in front of Hernandez’ shop, Mayor Adrian Fenty announced that 45-year-old Andres Lopez had been arrested earlier that day and charged with first degree murder in the case.  He was apprehended without incident by the Capital Area Regional Fugitive Task Force in the area of 4th and Kennedy Streets NW – six blocks from the scene of the crime.

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Metropolitan Police Department Chief Cathy Lanier said that Lopez held no fixed address, but had numerous addresses over the past several years “in and around this area.”

Word of the suspect’s connections to the area spread quickly.

“I talked to a Jamaican lady earlier that told me she [Hernandez] used to give him [Lopez] credit when he was short on money,” Nwaolu said.  “The same guy.”

Chief Lanier credited the neighborhood’s willingness to cooperate in making an arrest.

“As we traveled through this neighborhood, all we got from everybody we talked to was what a wonderful person she was, and how well loved she was in this community,” Police Chief Lanier said.

“She was!” one of the gathered onlookers shouted.

“I know she was, and it was really that sentiment that got us here,”  Lanier answered.

“It is probably something that will never be explained, and something that business owners and people that live in this area will be living with for a long time,” Fenty said of the crime.

“Hopefully tonight we offer some solace, some comfort, and maybe a little bit of closure,” he said.

Mayor Adrian Fenty (right) talks with area residents after the press conference announcing an arrest in the Rufina Hernandez case.

According to Dr. Elijah Anderson, professor of sociology at Yale, the measure of closure may be less than city officials might hope.

“The cops come in, they make a statement, and they leave, but that doesn’t win the hearts and minds of people who would do this to you,” Anderson said.

Anderson is the author of “The Code of the Street,” a book that deals with the cycle of disenfranchisement in violent communities, and the coping behaviors adopted by residents.

When you are dealing with a regular threat of violence, reputation management is a critical step in protecting yourself, according to Anderson.

“You have to establish yourself as someone who doesn’t take that stuff,” Anderson said.

Anderson said that violent events like the Hernandez shooting can make residents feel as though the system has turned its back on them.

“When people believe that, they feel responsible for their own safety,” Anderson said.  “That’s why people arm themselves and face each other down.  When civil law is weak, street justice often fills the void.  It’s almost as though the community itself becomes toxic.”

Dr. Jeffrey Ian Ross is an associate professor of the Division of Criminology, Criminal Justice, and Forensic Studies at University of Baltimore.  Ross said that for neighborhoods that deal regularly with violent crime, “there has to be something really, really dramatic” to spark long-term community outrage.

Ross cited the 2002 arson murders of the Dawson family in Baltimore as an example of how violence can galvanize a community.  The family of seven died in a fire started by a local drug dealer because of Angela Dawson’s work with police to fight the criminals in the neighborhood.  The family’s burned out home has since been converted to a community center.

“The victim can become something of an icon in the neighborhood,” Ross said.

Another Murder As Neighborhood Moves On

At 12:08 a.m. on Nov. 29, the Sunday after Thanksgiving, MPD received a report of shots fired in the in the 600 block of Longfellow St. NW, a few blocks away from the Hernandez shooting, and where Lopez was arrested. After reporting to the scene, the police learned that 23-year-old Edwin Reyes had been shot in the head.  He died later that morning from his injuries.  The shooting was five blocks from where Rufina Hernandez was killed.  

View Rufina Hernandez shooting in a larger map

Brightwood was back in the headlines, just as its residents were putting the Hernandez shooting behind them.

On Dec. 13, almost a month after the Hernandez shooting, the storefront memorial had grown in size at La Casa de Morata.

Next door, a reporter was turned away from the barber shop at 5450 Georgia Ave. NW. The man running the shop said that he didn’t want to talk about the shootings, and that he was trying to forget about what had happened.

Across the street and up the hill a block at the Cricket Wireless store, 20 year old Juan Correa worked the counter and contemplated his safety.

“She worked the same shift as me,” Correa said.  “If she got murdered at 8:30 p.m., where were the police?”

Meanwhile, Azu Nwaolu had not yet installed his new security cameras.

The security cameras Azu Nwaolu purchased for his shop after neighboring shopkeeper Rufina Hernandez was murdered.

Nwaolu said he was saving money to afford the DVD recorder needed to store the video for use by police in the event of a robbery.  The total cost of his surveillance equipment was nearly $700.

“We are just keeping an eye on everybody, holding on as much as we can,” Nwaolu said.

Anthony Johnson, 51, stood under the awning at the Simon’s Wok & Grill and watched the rain fall as he waited for a bus.  Johnson works at the Italian Embassy, and has lived in Brightwood for ten years.  He said that his daily routine has been upended since the shooting.

“Her husband knew Italian, and I used to go in there and visit every day after work,” Johnson said.  “All I do now is go to work and come home.  It ain’t the same.”

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