Memorial to Jerrod F. Young
End of Watch: May 21, 1971
Rank: Officer Badge No. 2583
Age: 25 Years of Service: 2 years, 10 months
Location of Death: 3205 14th Street, NW
Duty Assignment: Casual Clothes Unit, Fourth District
Circumstance:
Officer Young was assigned to the Fourth District Casual Clothes Unit. On April 29, 1971, at 11:15 am, he was attempting to arrest a suspect wanted on a bench warrant. Officer Young approached the suspect in the 3200 block of 14th Street, NW, when the suspect drew a .22 caliber handgun and shot him in the head and neck. Officer Young died about one month later.
Biography
Young, a native of Savannah, Ga., joined the police force in July 1968. He served in the U.S. Army in Vietnam for two years and was twice wounded in combat. Survivors include his mother, Virginia D. Young, a Philadelphia elementary school teacher; his father, Joseph Young, a Savannah businessman, and brother Jon A. Young, stationed in California with the Air Force. The Fraternal Order of Police Lodge DC #1 was later named the Jerrard F. Young Lodge
Articles from the Washington Post – transcribed by Dave Richardson, MPD/Ret.
HE SHOOTING DEATH OF OFFICER JERRARD F. YOUNG ON MAY 21, 1971.
WASHINGTON POST ARTICLE DATED APRIL 30, 1971, PAGE A1
Policeman Shot in Head by Attacker
A Washington policeman patrolling in old clothes was shot twice in the head and critically wounded yesterday as he struggled with an assailant in the 3200 block of 14th Street NW, police said.
The policeman, Jerrard Foster Young, 25, of Southeast Washington, a member of the fourth district casual clothes squad, was taken to the Washington Hospital Center where he underwent four hours of emergency surgery.
Police said Charles Franklin Moore, 26, of 1917 Capitol Ave., NE, was arrested immediately after the 10:30 a.m. shooting and charged with assault with intent to kill.
Deputy Chief Mahlon E. Pitts, chief of detectives, said that Young and other policemen had arrested Moore on March 31 on a charge of possession of unregistered ammunition.
According to Pitts, Moore—who had been arrested under the alias of Robert Earl Taylor—had been released on personal bond but had failed (to appear) and a bench warrant was issued, and was still outstanding yesterday morning, Pitts said.
Pitts gave this account of the incident: Young and his partner, Officer Charles H. Brown, left the (unreadable) 1351 Nicholson St. About 10 a.m. to begin patrol in the 14th Street and Park Road area.
Shortly after arriving there, they parked their car, Brown went into a nearby waffle shop. Young went into a Woolworth store on 14th Street NW to buy a sympathy card for a relative who was ill.
Pitts speculated that when Young left the store, on the west side of 14th Street, he may have seen Moore on the eastside.
At about this time, Deputy U.S. Marshal Henry A. McElvane, a retired Washington police detective, was driving north on 14th Street. McElvane said he saw two men struggling and heard three shots.
Seeing a man with a gun, McElvane told police, he jumped from his auto, ordering the man to drop the weapon and held him until police arrived. The man was identified later as Moore, police said.
The wounded policeman, who joined the force in July, 1968, served in the Army in Vietnam for two years, his superiors said. His mother, Virginia Young, a Philadelphia school teacher, was flown to his bedside yesterday.
Moore was arraigned before a U.S. magistrate and held in lieu $50,000 bond.
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WASHINGTON POST ARTICLE DATED MAY 23, 1971, PAGE 51
District Policeman Dies of Wounds Suffered April 29; NE Man Is Held
Jerrard Foster Young, a 25-year-old metropolitan policeman, died late Friday night of gunshot wounds in the head he suffered April 29 during a struggle with another man. He had never regained consciousness.
Police said yesterday that Charles Franklin Moore, 26, of 1917 Capitol Ave. NE, held in lieu of $50,000 bond on charges of assault with intent to kill in connection with the incident, would be arraigned before a U.S. magistrate Monday on a homicide charge.
Young was wounded fatally, according to police, when leaving an F.W. Woolworth store on 14th Street at Park Road NW. Henry A. McElvane, a retired police detective, said he saw Young struggling with a man in front of the store and heard three shots.
McElvane ordered the gunman to drop his weapon and held him until police arrived, they said. Young was taken to Washington Hospital Center, where he died.
Mahlon E. Pitts, deputy police chief, said Moore, the suspect, had been arrested by Young and other officers on March 31 on a charge of possession of unregistered ammunition and had been released on personal recognizance.
When Moore failed to appear for trial on April 6, a warrant for his arrest was issued. It was outstanding at the time of the shooting.
Young, a native of Savannah, Ga., joined the police force in July 1968. He served in the Army in Vietnam for two years and was twice wounded in combat.
Survivors include his mother, Virginia D. Young, a Philadelphia elementary school teacher; his father, Joseph Young, a Savannah businessman, and a brother, Jon A. Young, stationed in California with the Air Force.
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PARTIAL WASHINGTON POST ARTICLE DATED JUNE 3, 1971, PAGE C6
Crime and Justice
Arrests, Prosecution
Charles F. Moore, 27, of D.C. Jail, was indicted by a federal grand jury in U.S. District Court in Washington on charges of first-degree murder and carrying a dangerous weapon in connection with the shooting death of metropolitan police officer Jerrard F. Young, who died on May 21 of a gunshot wound in the head which he sustained on April 29.
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WASHINGTON POST ARTICLE DATED MAY 27, 1971, PAGE B2
Slain D.C. Officer Mourned by 1,000
More than 1,000 uniformed and plainclothes policemen bade farewell yesterday to a slain colleague, Officer Jerrard Foster Young, at a requiem Eucharist celebrated at Washington Cathedral.
Mayor Walter Washington and Police Chief Jerry V. Wilson led the official mourners for Officer Young. The 25-year-old policeman died Friday at Washington Hospital Center of injuries suffered when he was shot April 29 in the 3200 block of 14th Street NW, apparently during a struggle with a man he had previously arrested in connection with another incident.
Inevitably the mourner’s thoughts turned also to Officer William L. Sigmon, shot dead here Tuesday during a Savings and Loan robbery who will be buried Friday.
The funeral preacher, the Rev. Paul M. Washington, rector of the Church of the Advocate in Philadelphia and Officer Young’s childhood pastor, said of the shootings, “They didn’t have to be.”
Looking out from the cathedral’s Gothic pulpit over the ranks of blue below him, Father Washington asserted that society has placed policemen in a position of almost impossible ambiguity, demanding rigid enforcement of law and order in the ghetto while tolerating illegality in high places.
“You may well have working conditions that are worse than anyone else’s,” he asserted.
In his sermon, and later in an interview, Father Washington described Officer Young as one who attempted and largely succeeded in the effort to resolve the ambiguities of a policeman’s life, to be both an officer of justice and an agent of mercy and understanding.
Officer Young, who joined the metropolitan police in July 1968, was a veteran of two years in Vietnam.
The long funeral cortege wound its way across the city after leaving the cathedral to the sound of tolling bells. After passing 4th district headquarters, at 1351 Nicholson St. NW, where Officer Young was stationed and where an honor guard stood at attention for the passing of the hearse, the procession turned south.
At the burial site at Lincoln Memorial Cemetery, police officers stood at attention, rifles cracked and a bugler played “Taps.”
Officer Young’s mother had kept nearly a round-the-clock vigil by her son’s bedside since the shooting, but he never regained consciousness. She collapsed as the long ceremony ended yesterday, and was carried to a waiting limousine.
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JOHN RENTZ INFORMED ME THAT HE MAY HAVE LOCATED THE SUSPECT, CHARLES FRANKLIN MOORE, IN THE COLEMAN MEDIUM SECURITY FEDERAL PRISON, AT COLEMAN, FLORIDA.
A PHONE CALL TO THAT INSTITUTION PRODUCED THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION:
THEY HAVE IN CUSTODY, CHARLES F. (MIDDLE FULL NAME UNKNOWN TO THEM) MOORE, 62 YEARS OLD, CONVICTED OF MURDER II, IN WASHINGTON D.C. IN 1972. HE WAS SENTENCED TO 30 YEARS. HE WAS RELEASED AT AN UNKNOWN DATE, AND HAS BEEN RE-INCARCERATED 10 TIMES ON PAROLE VIOLATIONS. HE IS DUE TO BE RELEASED AGAIN ON JANUARY 1, 2008.
THERE WERE RESTRICTIONS AS TO THE INFORMATION I WAS ABLE TO OBTAIN BECAUSE OF THE F.O.I.A.,, BUT IT APPEARS TO BE THE SAME SUSPECT.
I DID VERIFY THAT THE SUSPECT (CHARLES FRANKLIN MOORE, DOB 5-1-1945/1946) IN THE CASE WAS IN FACT THE ONE JOHN RENTZ FOUND IN THE COLEMAM MEDIUM SECURITY PRISON IN COLEMAN, FLORIDA.AFTER BEING SENTENCED UP TO 30 YEARS FOR KILLING OFFICER YOUNG, THE SUSPECT FOUND THE TIME TO GET CONVICTED FOR TWO SEPARATE ROBBERY AND WEAPONS CASES IN 1981 AND 1985, AND THEN 10 PAROLE VIOLATIONS SINCE THEN.THE SYSTEM APPARENTLY BELIEVES HE DESERVES ANOTHER CHANCE AND HE IS DUE FOR RELEASE AGAIN NEXT JANUARY.