The 16-year-old boy sat quietly in the Central Booking courtroom yesterday, surrounded by young adults and middle-aged men, his standard-issue gray sweat shirt and khaki pants covered in writing, the kind of doodles someone his age might scrawl on a notebook in a classroom.
Jerome Williams was ordered held without bail yesterday in the killing of former City Councilman Kenneth N. Harris Sr. The charges against the teenager - who was 15 at the time of the killing in September - include first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, armed robbery and use of a handgun in a violent crime. He is the third suspect charged in the fatal shooting.
Despite his youth, Williams is no stranger to the law. At yesterday's hearing, officials listed more than a dozen charges he has faced as a juvenile, dating to at least 2005 when he was 12. His record includes new robbery charges since Harris was shot.
Williams was under the supervision of the Department of Juvenile Services and Social Services, and sources who are not authorized to speak on the record said he had been placed in the state's violence-prevention initiative, meaning he had contact with case workers three to four times per week. In the fall, he was released from a residential treatment facility and was on juvenile probation.
Donald W. DeVore, secretary of Maryland's Department of Juvenile Services, declined to discuss the specifics of Williams' background but said the youth's criminal history represented a "rare case."
"He's someone that had been in our system for quite some time, and we had been responding to his delinquent behavior," DeVore said. "It's not like he was a kid who was out there and not known to us."
The boy did not speak at the hearing, only shifting his glance between the floor and District Judge Christopher L. Panos, who noted the "incredible, most egregious nature" of the charges in denying bond.
Scrawled in black marker on his sweat shirt was "1400 blk, Fenwick Ave, R.I.P." The three suspects in the killing are said to have run down Fenwick Avenue after fleeing out the back of the jazz club where Harris was shot. The street leads to Williams' last known address in the 1500 block of Lochwood Road. The word "Rome," possibly an abbreviation of his first name, was written at the top of his shirt. Other words and abbreviations were written on his pants and shirt.
