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Source: THE WASHINGTON TIMES 4/20/00

Black Kills 8-year-old White Boy in
Knife Attack
By Ellen Sorokin and John Drake

A knife-wielding man yesterday attacked an 8-year-old in Alexandria, Va., killing the boy
and injuring his great-grandmother and a passer-by who tried to stop the random,
unprovoked attack, police said.
Its a tragic afternoon here in Alexandria,
said Lt. John Crawford, a city police
spokesman. I have never heard of
anything like this in my entire career.
Kevin Shifflett, 8, had been playing with
several neighborhood children outside his
great-grandparents house in the 100 block
of East Custis Avenue about 3:40 p.m.
when a man walking down the street
suddenly attacked him with a knife for no
apparent reason, Lt. Crawford said.
Kevins 80-year-old great-grandmother ran out of the house to protect him, but the
man punched her in the chest and cut her on the right arm. She was treated at
Alexandria Hospital and released last night.
The 51-year-old passer-by who tried to help the boy also was stabbed. The passer-by
was in serious condition last night after undergoing surgery at Washington Hospital
Center.
Police did not identify either woman because they are witnesses to a crime.
After attacking the boy, who is white, the man fled east toward Mount Vernon Avenue.
Police issued a lookout for the man last night, calling him armed and dangerous.
They described him as black, 20 to 25 years old, 5 feet 9 inches tall and with a medium
build. He was wearing a light brown sweater, dark blue T-shirt and dark pants.
Police last night did not know of any motive for what they called an apparently random
attack, nor whether the boy and his assailant were acquainted, or why the man singled
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out Kevin from the other children, Lt. Crawford said. Police were interviewing neighbors
and bystanders to see whether anyone recognized him, he added.
Kevin was a second-grader at Mount Vernon Elementary School and was visiting his
great-grandparents.
Kevin was a happy, kind little boy who was very quiet and respectful in school, said
Roberta Trout, whose son, Timmy, is Kevins cousin. Mrs. Trout, 38, is a substitute
teacher at Kevins school.
Kevins parents, who work for the city government, dropped off Kevin and his two
siblings at the house yesterday morning before going to work.
Timmy Trout, 6, had been playing with Kevin and several other children until a half-
hour before the slaying, when his grandfather, Ralph Trout, called him home to help
plant a tree.
That could have been my child, that could have been my child, said Mrs. Trout, who
lives a half block from where the attack occurred.
I dont know what Im going to do with my boy now, she said. Mr. Trout said he ran
over to the grandparents house when he heard police cars driving down the street.
The grandmother showed me her arm and didnt say anything, Mr. Trout said. She
was just in shock. Several hours after the attack, yellow police tape still marked off the
area as police continued their investigation. Police worked well into the night collecting
evidence from the blood-splattered driveway where Kevin was slain.
Officers, some with police dogs, went door to door yesterday afternoon, searching for
the suspect and any evidence.
Neighbors stood behind the police tape aghast at the dried blood on a gray Chevrolet
Cavalier parked in the driveway next to where the children had been playing.
Its just really, really sad, said neighbor Chris Combs, who saw Kevin and his friends
playing outside an hour before the attack occurred. Nothing like this has ever
happened here before. I grew up here, and we all played here. Its a wonderful
neighborhood. This is just unbelievable.
The great-grandparents house is not far from Del Ray United Methodist Church and a
preschool. C. Potter,, a teacher at the preschool a block from the killing, said she locked
the church doors after she went out to check if the playground was wet and saw police
cars. This is a big trauma for this neighborhood, Ms. Potter, 36, said.
Alexandria Vice Mayor William Euille, a Democrat, was among those neighbors standing
in the street, watching the scene in disbelief. This is very sad and very tragic, said Mr.
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Euille, who lives four blocks away. This is not natural to have this happen in our
community. Im stunned, said Bill Miller, whose 9-year-old daughter attended school
with the boy. Kevin was a great little kid. How could you even imagine what could
provoke an adult to slash a child? It could have been my child on my street.
Mr. Miller said he will now think twice about allowing his daughter to play outside
unattended. Im always cautious, he said. But I dont know now. Things have
changed a little bit since this happened. Jacqueline Richardson, tightly holding a
granddaughter who attends the preschool, said she was just shocked this happened.
I cant believe someone did that to a small child, Mrs. Richardson said.


Racial Note Found in Suspects Hotel
Room
By Josh White and Patricia Davis | Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, July 7, 2000; Page A01
A handwritten note saying Kill them raceess whiate kidds anyway was left
behind in the hotel room rented by a suspect in the slaying of Kevin Shifflett
two days before the 8-year-old boy was fatally stabbed in Alexandria, hotel
and law enforcement officials said.
The note, written on the back of a Virginia Department of Corrections memo, is
believed to have been penned by the 29-year-old suspect and may prove to be key
evidence linking him to the killing, a law enforcement source said.
The note may provide evidence of the suspects state of mind before the slaying,
sources said, and give investigators a possible motive.
A witness to the April 19 attack told police that the killer, who was yelling as he headed
toward Kevin, said something to the third-grader about hating white people before
slashing his throat, a source said. The suspect is African American, and Kevin was
white.
Police have never publicly stated any racial overtones in Kevins death, and a source
cautioned that the witnesss statement requires more investigation.
Still, a law enforcement source characterized the note as a very promising new
development. The note came to light during a Washington Post interview with hotel
officials. The Post obtained a copy of the note and showed it to authorities, who then
obtained the original from the hotel.
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Detectives homed in on the man June 23 when investigators matched evidence taken
from a cab, used by Kevins killer to flee the crime scene, to DNA on file in a database
of Virginia felons. Although police have linked the man to the getaway vehicle, they are
still looking for evidence linking him to the crime scene.
The felon had lived with his family five blocks from the scene of the slaying and was
paroled from prison on a malicious wounding charge 12 days before Kevin was killed,
sources said.
The Post is not naming the man because he has not been charged in Kevins killing and
because authorities have never publicly identified him as a suspect.
The suspect was convicted of malicious wounding stemming from a 1993 attack in
Alexandria that also had racial overtones. The victim in that case, Leonard Riddle, said
the suspecta strangercalled him whitey before brutally beating him with a hammer
for no reason.
The note was found in the hotel where the suspect stayed in the days before Kevins
stabbing. Four days before the slaying, on April 15, the suspect checked into the
Homewood Suites Hotel on Leesburg Pike in Fairfax County, just outside Alexandria,
paying $350 in cash for two nights in a luxury first-floor suite with a Jacuzzi.
Early on April 17, the man left a burning cigarette on his bedsheets as he took a
shower, igniting a fire and setting off the hotels sprinkler system and alarm, a hotel
official said. The hotel was evacuated, and firefighters burst through the door of the
burning room.
The man refused to get out of the shower when firefighters arrived, spewing expletives
as smoke billowed from Room 117. The man was arrested by Fairfax police on cocaine
possession charges and also for refusing to evacuate, police said.
His belongings were put under lock and key in the hotels lost and found room. Police
say they seized cocaine and marijuana from the room but left behind a few pieces of
clothing, some small personal items and a few pieces of paper.
Hotel staff kept the mans records on file, including a copy of his Virginia state
identification card, issued April 13.After the stabbing, a hotel official became concerned
that the man who had stayed at the Homewood Suites might be the killer, noting at
least a slight resemblance to the police composite sketch. He checked the hotels
records, found that the man had lived in Del Raythe neighborhood where Kevin was
killedand thought the coincidences were important.
I immediately started thinking about the possible connections, the hotel official said.
When I looked up his address and saw he lived in Del Ray, I thought that it was all too
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much. I struggled with it over the weekend, and early the next weekthe week after
the murderI called the police.
A detective told him that a member of the task force investigating the slaying would call
him back, he said. That call never came, he said. I figured that they had ruled this guy
outthat he wasnt the right guy, the hotel official said.
On June 25after the man became a suspectpolice arrived at the hotel looking for a
copy of the mans hotel bill. Hotel staff provided it, and the police left. Detectives
returned early last week to pick up the rest of the mans belongings, according to hotel
staff. A hotel employee later found a piece of paper in the lost and found room that
apparently had fallen from the mans box of belongings and gave it to the hotel official
on Wednesday. That paper was the handwritten note with the racial overtones and a
reference to killing kids.
When I saw what was on it, I got very concerned, the official said. I called the police
right away. Police did not immediately return his calls, he said.
The suspects note is scrawled on a yellowed, stained and wrinkled sheet of paperthe
back of a Feb. 4 memo about copying fees to inmates at Virginias Greensville
Correctional Center, where he was imprisoned. It is written in broken English, some
words are strung together with little obvious meaning, and words are misspelled.
Yesterday afternoon, after the hotel official showed the note to a Post reporter, the
newspaper showed a copy of it to authorities and asked them about it. Police detectives
then went to the hotel and seized the original of the note. A police spokeswoman said
they were already in the process of responding to the hotels concern at the time that
The Post was questioning officials about the note.
The parolee had been held in the Alexandria jail since June 25 on a parole violation and
was moved this week to the Fairfax County jail to face the drug charges from the hotel
arrest.
He is accused of violating his parole by not telling his probation officer of the hotel
arrest, said James L. Jenkins, chairman of the Virginia parole board. He faces two
hearings today. In one, prosecutors are seeking to revoke his bail on the drug charge.
The other is a preliminary parole revocation hearing. The man was imprisoned a month
before parole was abolished in Virginia.
If his parole is revoked, he would have to serve the rest of his sentence on the
malicious wounding and other charges, including sodomy. That amounts to almost two
years and four months, Jenkins said. That would give police a large window to gather
more evidence in the Shifflett case.
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Some potential evidence was gathered at a Red Roof Inn in the Alexandria section of
Fairfax County. The man stayed at the Route 1 motel the night of the killing.
Officials for Accor Economy Lodging, which owns the Red Roof chain, said the suspect
checked into the hotel April 19 and stayed through April 21, paying entirely in cash.
Emmett Gossen, a spokesman for the company, said there was absolutely nothing
exceptional about his stay.
Gossen said Alexandria police showed up at the Red Roof Inn a few weeks ago and
asked to look at records of the suspects stay. Police then rented the same room and
basically took it apart, removing carpeting, bedding and pieces of plumbing from the
hotel room, Gossen said.
The problem was that the room had been rented several times in between his stay and
their search, Gossen said.
There was nothing that we or they could do about that. The only trace we have is his
name and reservation in our computers.
Staff writer Tom Jackman contributed to this report.
2000 The Washington Post Company

Source: CNSNews.com, July 25, 2000
Three Months Later: Killing of White
Boy Still Draws Yawns From Justice
Dept.
By Lora Bright, CNS Correspondent
(CNSNews.com) Three months after the stabbing death of eight-year-old Kevin
Shifflett in Alexandria, Virginia, US Justice Department officials have yet to decide that a
federal civil rights case is warranted.
Was the killing a hate crime? If it was, does the Clinton Justice Department care? When
the victim is white and the suspect is black, does the case automatically get little or no
attention?
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A spokesperson for the Justice Department acknowledges only that the department is
aware of reports that have been in the media that [the Kevin Shifflett murder] may
have a racial motive, that officers are monitoring the situation, and that we certainly
look at the information thats presented us and make the determination that we feel is
appropriate.
By contrast, Attorney General Janet Reno recently met with the family of Raynard
Johnson, a 17-year-old black man who allegedly hanged himself. While black activists
like Reverend Jesse Jackson have labeled Johnsons death a lynching, two autopsies,
including one paid for by Johnsons family, found that the injuries were consistent with
suicide and there was no evidence of foul play.
The Justice Department also launched a preliminary investigation in West Virginia into
the killing of Arthur J.R. Warren Jr., a black homosexual man, after the Deputy
Attorney General met with the family, even though, according to reports, FBI officials
determined there is no reason the case would fall under federal jurisdiction.
The involvement of the NAACP and the Human Rights Campaign led the Justice
Department into direct involvement in the case, according to Kara Peterman, a
spokeswoman for the Justice Departments civil rights division.
The disparity in the handling of the cases proves the Justice Department will
investigate anything except European- American cases, according to Louis Calabro,
president of the European-American Issues Forum who spoke out against the
departments handling of the Kevin Shifflett murder case.
If it is European-American victims, they want nothing to do with it, but if it has to do
with other racial ethnic groups, they want everything to do with it, Calabro said.
Calabro believes the disparity of coverage between the Warren and Shifflett cases is
not a question of ignoring one case.
Its a question of the President of the United States that showsthat the president isnt
even aware that white people or European-American people are victims of hate
crimesor hes not concerned with it, Calabro said.
Calabro sent an official request for FBI investigation of Alexandria, VA. Kevin Shifflett
murder to the FBI Washington Field Office.
We asked them to investigatethe charge by the Washington Times that the police
department withheld information from their own personnel regarding the racial aspect
of the crime, Calabro said. Of course they dont answer us.
[The Justice Department] is going to open the door for anything, Calabro said. They
should be in the Kevin Shifflett case because theres indication that in fact the local
authorities were attempting to conceal racial aspect[s].
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A suspect in the Shifflett case, who has not yet been charged, allegedly left a racist
note in his hotel room, threating to kill white children. In 1993, the suspect also
reportedly beat a man with a hammer while calling his victim whitey.
Peterman had no knowledge of any contact made by Reno or her top lieutenants with
the Shifflett family. A telephone call from the Justice Department to the Shifflett family
would be a local call since Alexandria is located just a few miles from the Justice
Departments Washington headquarters.
Do you meana condolence call? I would actually have to talk with the Attorney
Generals personal assistant to see if any of that call [was made], Peterman said. I
dont know what personal correspondence the Attorney General has had or not had.