The Attempted Carjacking and Death of Mohammad Anwar, On Video
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There are a whole bunch of crossing streams to this story, but the result is Mohammad Anwar is dead, two teens are charged, and the debate is raging:
Two girls ages 13 and 15 have been charged with felony murder after D.C. police said their attempt to carjack a food delivery driver outside Nationals Park on Tuesday afternoon ended in a crash that fatally injured the man.
The girls — legally too young to drive — were also charged with armed carjacking, according to authorities. A D.C. police spokesman said at least one was armed with a stun device, which was found inside the crashed vehicle.
Authorities did not identify the girls because they are charged as juveniles.
The death of Mohammad Anwar, a 66-year-old immigrant from Pakistan who lived in Virginia and was working as a driver for Uber Eats, comes amid a wave of carjackings that began last year in the District and in suburban Maryland, and is continuing this year.
In February, authorities launched a carjacking task force, combining the resources of the FBI with police in D.C. and Montgomery County to help solve cases that cross jurisdictional lines. Authorities say many cases involve juvenile suspects.
Police said the carjacking attempt targeting Anwar occurred about 4:30 p.m. near N and Van streets SE, near South Capitol Street.
There was a struggle inside the Honda Accord and the car accelerated, crashing into parked vehicles and bending a metal rack before turning on its side, a department spokesman said.
Anwar, who lived in Springfield, was thrown from the vehicle. Police said the teens ran but were quickly apprehended by police with the help of a nearby member of the National Guard. Anwar died at a hospital.
His family members said in a statement that they are “devastated by this senseless crime.”
They said Anwar had three grown children — two in the United States and one in Pakistan — and four grandchildren, also in his homeland. He is also survived by his wife.
Bad enough, but what has really lit the interwebs on fire with this story is the video of it. Watch it for yourself here:
Appalling footage of the carjacking near Nationals Park in Washington D.C. on Tuesday that resulted in the death of Pakistani immigrant & Uber Eats driver Mohammad Anwar. The teenage girls who police say used a Taser to steal the car face murder charges.pic.twitter.com/mOPnrLBf0t
— Jerry Dunleavy (@JerryDunleavy) March 27, 2021
Not gonna watch the footage.
One thing I have noticed on the twitters, though, is that the arguments are vaguely different than the last few shocking pieces of footage.
Many times, there’s something like “here’s a film of X happening!” and the counter-arguments come up “that’s not a film of X happening! That’s *Y* happening! You can see that Y happened! EASILY! It’s not X and saying it’s X is dishonest!”
This time, the argument is “here’s a film of X happening!” and the counter-arguments come up “I think it’s horrible that white supremacists are making this into a racial issue”. The counter-argument isn’t “X didn’t happen”, but “let’s pivot to more favorable ground” with a smattering of “conservatives pounce!”
Assuming that the description of the video is accurate, the remaining quibbles over what happened are debates over whether it’s fair to charge for *MURDER* when, really, it was just a carjacking that went wrong. Hey, if he valued his own life more than his car, he’d have his car back by now and he’d still be able to hug his grandchildren. So, technically, everybody is complicit. Capitalism, man.
CNN had a headline that called the physics-involved deacceleration event an “accident” and that has a lot of people upset that the headline is being much more measured about what happened that other recent atrocious events (I saw the suggestion that it instead be called a “crash” which is less exonerative).
I do wonder what “justice” looks like following something like this. Putting the girls in jail until they die of old age seems unjust. Putting them in jail until they’re infertile and then letting them out seems unjust. Putting them in jail for 20 years seems unjust. Putting them in jail for 10 years seems unjust. Putting them in jail until they’re 18 seems unjust. They didn’t want this to happen. It happened anyway.
Now what?Report
Here’s a tweet from the Mayor of Washington DC, from 7AM this morning, that explains some good ways to avoid car theft.
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Instead of blaming survivors, we need to teach girls not to steal cars.Report
Huh. Looks like the tweet was deleted.Report
Can’t all these things me true…?
Can’t…
1.) Some folks be concerned about the actions of these girls and the tragic consequences?
2.) Some folks be politicizing the situation because it fits a racist-fueled worldview?
3.) Some folks be overfocused on that response because it fits their own worldview?
4.) Some folks be concerned about how the justice system will treat the accused?
5.) Some folks be concerned about how the media will handle this situation?
I mean, yea, sure, it is interesting that in some places we’re talking about what people are talking about instead of talking about what happened. But isn’t that always true. And isn’t that, well, exactly what you did? In the very first comment here on a post that WASN’T doing that?
I mean, I mean… you admittedly didn’t even watch the video (which I find reasonable since it can be very hard to stomach such visuals) and immediately jumped into a meta conversation about what folks are talking about. Which I’d sum up as, “Many folks’ response seems to be colored by their personal/political/whatever biases.” Which, if so, well, news at 11.
Me? Well, as in just about all the situations, I hope that the rights and interests of the victim (and his family) and the accused are treated respectfully and fairly by the system. I’m not confident that will happen for a host of reasons. But that is what I’m saying. Not knowing enough details, I won’t say exactly what shape that should take.Report
Kazzy, please understand. We have multiple data points.
We can compare the discussion to both:
1. The Asian Massage Parlor Shootings
2. The Boulder Safeway Shooting
When it came to both of those shootings, do you remember the discussions about not only what happened with them, but what they *MEANT*?
What did that Asian Massage Parlor shootings mean? They meant a lot of things. We, as a society, have a lot of effed up attitudes towards guns, towards sex, and towards sex workers. White people have effed up attitudes towards Asians. White Supremacy plays into this. There’s a lot of Asian Hate Crimes happening. This is merely one of them.
The Boulder Shooting? Man, before that all went topsy-turvy, it was about White Supremacy manifesting itself, once again, in our effed up gun culture and we needed to talk about it.
Which brings us here.
Does this particular wrongful death indicate anything? Any discussions that we, as a society, are obliged to have?Report
“2. The Boulder Safeway Shooting”
The what? I don’t see anything in the news about that. Did something happen in Boulder?Report
There was a moment of pushback against toxic White Supremacy but they found some problematic facebook posts and once the incel was properly Milkshake Ducked, he disappeared like Bean Dad.Report
See, you’re focused on the discussion. Not participating in the discussion… but commenting on the discussion. Or the discussion about the discussion? How many levels of Inception have we traveled?Report
Kazzy, I’ve posted a comment talking about how I’d approach their trial if I were their defense lawyer.
Is there some other way you’d rather I participate in the discussion?Report
No, that’s all good. Just wondering why you started the conversation here with some meta-analysis of comments no one here even knew about.
It’s almost like you have your own priors.Report
Well, I didn’t think that talking about whether what happened was bad was interesting.
But we can talk about that, if you’d like.
Kazzy, do you think that it’s bad that this happened?
I think that it is bad that this happened.Report
Yes, I think it is bad that this happened.
And that won’t change because of what other people are saying about what other people are saying about it.
Note: I don’t know anyone outside of this blog that are saying anything about it.Report
kazzy, you’re awfully invested in the idea that we shouldn’t talk about how a nonwhite man was shot and killed just for doing his job.Report
Of all the many people who didn’t state the obvious about this sad event, including the busiest and loudest “contributor” to this thread, who swings between meta-musings on a nonexistent “debate” and explicitly trying to get the softest possible sentence for the killers you pick Kazzy?Report
It’s also interesting how people seem to have forgotten it wasn’t Jaybird who posted the article here.Report
Is there a term for the Venn overlap of “concern troll” and “shit-stirrer”? Asking for a friend.
Maybe throw in a close cousin of sealion too.Report
The funny thing about the sealion cartoon? This lady was badmouthing an entire species of animal and the sealion took umbrage and they painted the sealion as the bad guy instead of the racist lady!
That’s some stuff.
It’s like the lady is Jesse Singal and she’s complaining that she’s being called out about what she said about sealions once.Report
” Well, as in just about all the situations, I hope that the rights and interests of the victim (and his family) and the accused are treated respectfully and fairly by the system.”
Exactly what a privileged white male would say. Well done!Report
What’s the raging debate again?Report
Beats me. It takes at least two. Anyone volunteering to be the second?Report
Not me, sure looks like an actual appropriate application of the felony murder rule.
We can perhaps debate appropriate punishment for a minor?Report
The raging debate, as far as I can tell, is taking the form of “you are only arguing against this because the girls are both black and female” or “this might be very bad, but it’s not very, very, *VERY* bad, like you’re arguing. This means that you’re not arguing in good faith!”
No one is defending what happened. (Well, the occasional “maybe he should have just given up his car” bubbles up, but those people tend to not want to press the point.)
But the debate is not over “this is bad” versus “this isn’t bad”.
It’s over “this is bad” versus “why are you paying so much attention to this when other things have happened too?”Report
Oh, and the one that seems to be showing up now is “I’m seeing a lot of White Supremacists latch on to this story.”
So that’s probably the angle you can expect.
“There are a lot of White Supremacists latching on to this story. I wish I could say I was either surprised or disappointed to see it here at Ordinary Times, but I am neither.”Report
An awful lot of quotation marks. Who’s being quoted?Report
It’s not intended to be a quotation, but a paraphrase.
Here is an example of one of the arguments I’m paraphrasing, though:
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So there is no raging debate, then? Hard to play Hall Monitor for a discussion that isn’t happening outside of a few random Twitterati.Report
I don’t know what “raging debate” would mean. As far as I can tell, the raging debate seems to be whether the reporters ought to smother this story with a pillow faster.
As for being “Hall Monitor”, you misunderstand. I’m not arguing that these people should not be arguing what they’re arguing.
I’m arguing that, when things happen, you can get a feel for what’s going on by seeing the arguments over them.
The George Floyd death? Was it a murder? Did he die of an overdose? Did Derek Chauvin kill George Floyd? Was it *OF* a knee on his neck or *WITH* a knee on his neck?
This case? This is different. The arguments against it seem to be “man, there are a lot of bad people paying a lot of attention to this accident” instead of “DEFUND THE POLICE!”
The fact that that is the shape of the Overton Window about this particular wrongful death is interesting.
A hell of a lot more interesting than saying that the Window should be even smaller.Report
“As far as I can tell, the raging debate seems to be whether the reporters ought to smother this story with a pillow faster.”
That isn’t a debate. Well, unless the debate is, “Should they smother it faster or should they smother it slower?” Which is a weird debate to be having.
Rather, my hunch is that in the Twitterverse you’re frolicking around in, one side is saying, “THE MEDIA IS PLAYING THIS UP UNNECESSARILY!” and another side is saying, “THE MEDIA IS SMOTHERING THIS!” and you chose to frame that a particular way for whatever reason.
All of which leaves a question hanging: what is the appropriate amount of media coverage this story should be getting?
“This case? This is different. The arguments against it seem to be “man, there are a lot of bad people paying a lot of attention to this accident” instead of “DEFUND THE POLICE!””
The arguments against… what exactly?Report
Rather, my hunch is that in the Twitterverse you’re frolicking around in, one side is saying, “THE MEDIA IS PLAYING THIS UP UNNECESSARILY!” and another side is saying, “THE MEDIA IS SMOTHERING THIS!” and you chose to frame that a particular way for whatever reason.
I mentioned this earlier.
It’s over “this is bad” versus “why are you paying so much attention to this when other things have happened too?”
How much attention do you think is appropriate when it comes to this case?
For example: Do you think that the heinous acts of these girls indicates anything about society?
Do you think that the regrettable acts of these girls indicate anything about a media environment so starved for content that they’ll play up a local crime story as a national crime story?Report
I’m with Kazzy above, any raging debate, as best as I can tell from your descriptions, has nothing to do with the actual events and/or guilt or innocence, and everything to do with people yelling at other people for wallowing in their own priors.
Which isn’t a raging debate as much as it is far too many people talking loudly out of their nethers.Report
The arguments over their guilt or innocence have to do with stuff like “they’re guilty of carjacking, but they shouldn’t be charged with *MURDER*”.
Followed by discussions of “Felony Murder” immediately followed as if the discussion of “Felony Murder” did not happen at all and back to the discussion of how this was just a carjacking that went wrong.
Whilst out on a jog, I found myself wondering “what would I do if I were a defense lawyer for the girls?” My goal is as little jailtime as possible. (I assume that the video is damning enough that avoiding jailtime is impossible.)
And I came up with a handful of answers…
1. Push for a plea bargain. The video, as far as I can guess from the debate, is damning. I don’t want the jury to watch it. So avoid a trial entirely.
2. Push for a Judge Trial instead of a Jury Trial. This avoids the jury thing. This has high variance, though. It could result in more jailtime than a plea bargain.
3. Push for separate trials for the girls, held concurrently if possible. Trial for the 15 year-old blames everything on the 13 year-old. Trial for the 13 year-old blames everything on the 15 year-old. Push for “my client didn’t do it, the other one did… my client was a 3rd Party to the heinous acts committed by the one who isn’t on trial here today.”
4. If separate trials can’t be avoided, then I found myself wondering about that trial and how it might go. It strikes me as a great opportunity for a pro bono lawyer to get his or her name out there.Report
Oh, I realize that there’s a 3.5.
3.5. Triage. Separate trial can’t be avoided. My goal isn’t get both of them with minimal time off but I figure that I can get one of them with minimal time off at the expense of the other. By blame-shifting (probably to the older one), the younger one can probably just get probation or something. “Just along for the ride, wanting to impress the older girl… had no idea…” something like that.Report
” Trial for the 15 year-old blames everything on the 13 year-old. Trial for the 13 year-old blames everything on the 15 year-old.”
congratulations you invented the Prisoner’s DilemmaReport
Invented? No.
Gamed? Yes.Report
This is newsworthy only because it was caught on video, and the youthful ages of the carjackers. In another year, this would have been a 45 second story on DC local news, and maybe a one paragraph AP story on page 11 of your local paper.
Because of the video we have the All Lives Matter crowd making a fuss about throwing the book at those girls.Report
This is newsworthy only because it was caught on video, and the youthful ages of the carjackers.
Being caught on video is a hell of a thing, though.
I can think of an event that was caught on video last year that changed a whole bunch of things all over the country.Report
Those things will happen when you watch someone backed by the full power of the state do what he did.Report
Oh wait! CJ is an actual lawyer!
Hey! CJ! The numbers were pulled and the dice rolled just right and you are the Public Defender for these girls!
What’s your play?Report
Leaving aside that I haven’t handled a criminal case since the mid 1980’s, my guess is that there is no play here, if by “play” you mean some sort of pretty good outcome for the defendants. This is a straightforward felony murder case, unless D.C.’s felony murder rules are different from most other jurisdictions. Separate trials will be tricky if the prosecutor files conspiracy charges, which I would probably do if I were the prosecutor. The two defendants will have separate counsel, and the extent to which each can or should shift the blame to the other seems limited, but the necessary information is privileged. There will probably be a plea bargain because there usually is. With adults, my guess would be some level of homicide, with double-digit prison stretches. I don’t know enough about the treatment of juveniles in D.C. to hazard a guess on that aspect of it.Report
Thank you.
There seem to be calls for the children to be tried as adults. (I imagine that if there will be a debate, it’ll be over whether it’s appropriate for that to happen.)
Is there a reasonable opening for a pro bono lawyer to swoop in and create a media circus? “The driver was racist and called my client a slur. In her rage and shame, she lashed out. We live in a society where even a recent immigrant knows that the quickest way to climb socially is to embrace White Supremacy and lash out against black women. My clients are guilty of trying to joyride the car of a racist man who lashed out at them. What followed was a tragedy of epic proportion but it was the result of White Supremacy and the reactions of my clients to White Supremacy resulted in a horrible situation.”
Or is that only crap that happens every week on tv and only once every couple of decades in the real world?Report
Obviously I’ll let CJ respond but that scenario only happens on TV. Absent some really extraordinary factual development or the accused refuses to plea for some reason (which does happen, I wrote an appeal in a case like that, and in DC too!) I can’t see this going to trial.Report
Is there a “reasonable opening?” No. Might someone try it anyway? Maybe. Would it do the defendants any good? Almost certainly not.
How stupid do you think a largely black D.C. jury is?Report
How stupid do you think a largely black D.C. jury is?
Within the ballpark of the stupidity of the OJ jurors.
I think that it’s more than possible to not make this about the girls, but about a racist system that is trying these girls as adults for *MURDER*, when, obviously, they’re juveniles merely guilty of an attempted joyride gone wrong.Report
Nothing like listening to white people who think they know how to get to black people.Report
Pardon me stewardess, I speak woke.Report
My goal is not to “get to black people” but to get as low a sentence as I possibly can.
In this case, it would mean going for a carjacking but not Felony Murder prosecution and getting them tried as juveniles rather than tried as adults.Report
Relevant statute for transfer of child to adult system is here. At a glance the prosecution could file a motion to transfer the 15 year old, not seeing a path to do so for the 13 year old.Report
Then that’s probably how it will play out.
The 15 year-old has the book thrown at her. The 13 year-old has 5 years in the Juvenile system, then, at 18, can try to enter society.
I don’t know what the best case scenario would be following a horrible series of events like the ones described, but there seem to be a lot worse cases than that one.Report
Seems to me that the only way anyone would be aware of any sort of argument about this case, would be to:
1. Be on Twitter;
2. Follow stupid people on TwitterReport
Did this case get any discussion outside of twitter?Report
Judging from this post and comments, no.Report
No. It wasn’t in any of the multiple MSM feeds I follow. And it has not been picked up by local media down here.
We have become a nation that can not and will not look on violence among us as anything other then “normal.” We simply no longer care about one another.
We are no longer One Nation (if we ever were).Report
Not sure it’s about a One Nation ideal, as much as a question of limited f*cks to give.
Yes, it’s an unfortunate crime, but it’s a localized event, it’s big country, I’m 2000+ miles away, and frankly, I have other things requiring my more immediate attention.
There is no bigger picture here, not in the way George Floyd was, or pandemic response was, or the recent shootings were (and I’m not convinced there is a bigger picture issue with regard to the shootings, either, given how such crimes are highly localized and only appear on my radar because of media sensationalism).
Hell, the ship stuck in the Suez is a much greater big picture story than the shootings were, since the loss of the use of the canal will impact global trade for weeks, if not months.Report
There might be no bigger picture here, but if “Crime!” becomes a topic of discussion in coming years during campaign seasons, then this is one of the little precursors to that.
Apparently, murders shot up in 2020.
If we’re lucky, this is a pandemic crisis and will settle back down after everybody has a shot in their arm.Report
Twitter rots people’s brains and attacks humans where we’re weak — dealing with large numbers. They see a few thousand people on Twitter talking about something, and act like it’s a nation-wide debate.
“Oh know, my personal Twitter feed which I’ve curated between people I agree with and people I love to hate read is blowing up about X. CLEARLY X IS A NATIONWIDE TREND.”
Nobody freakin’ knows about X. More people care about changes to Wolverine’s costume in the next comic than care about X.
But that won’t stop some people from drawing vast conclusions — ones which always dovetail nicely into their own beliefs — about it. It’s confirmation bias in action, and in a 150 characters or less.Report
Exactly and it feeds off of humanity’s weakness for gossip and in-group outgroup battles.Report
Yes exactly, twitter is the mind killer*.
*And I acknowledge that a cohort of mine who was a generation or two older might just as emotionally assert that blogging is the mind killer.Report
CJ appears to be acting in a shockingly anti-intellectual manner, but it’s actually quite in line with lawyer training to claim that if evidence has not been presented to you personally then for purposes of the current discussion it doesn’t exist.Report
Anyone notice all the people standing around and near the dying/dead guy and not doing a damn thing about it? Where’s the attempted life saving? These are national guard people. They should at least try and help the guy. You see the same thing in the “black guy pisses on the Asian person in the ny subway” and the black guy who beats the crap out of the guy in the ny subway (including chokehold). No one does anything to help the guy after the perpetrator walks off.Report
They reached a plea deal.
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It’s a good thing that we got the question of which lives matter sorted out ahead of time.Report