A D.C. Superior Court judge on Friday ordered detention for a Maryland man accused of shooting a Housing Authority police officer and then engaging in a gun battle with other officers in Southeast Washington’s Navy Yard neighborhood.
Police said they arrested Victor Terrill, 40, of Landover in Prince George’s County, on the roof of the Arris apartments nearly four hours after authorities allege he shot the officer, who had tried to arrest him in another apartment complex, this one for seniors, about a block away.
A woman, Teyona Tolson, 37, who police said had accompanied Terrill, was charged in a citation with unlawful entry and released pending a future court hearing. Terrill was charged with assault on a police officer while armed and possessing a firearm during a crime of violence. A prosecutor said in court Friday that additional charges are pending.
Court records show that at the time of Thursday’s incident, Terrill was being sought on a warrant stemming from an arrest in 2022 when authorities said they found him passed out in a vehicle in Southeast Washington. Police said in an arrest affidavit that they administered Narcan, used to revive people who overdose on opioids. Terrill was charged with driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs and was ordered to undergo a competency exam. The warrant had been issued in January when he failed to appear for a court hearing, records show.
Terrill’s attorney argued in court Friday evening that his client should be freed pending trial. He questioned an officer’s identification of Terrill and said his client was not dressed the same when he was arrested as when the shooting occurred.
But an assistant U.S. attorney noted that the arrest affidavit says that surveillance video of the scuffle when the shooting occurred shows him wearing a black puffy jacket and black pants, which police said they found by a loading dock near the apartment building. It also shows him holding a gun in his right hand, the affidavit says. The prosecutor also said that at least one witness other than a police officer identified Terrill as the shooter.
Magistrate Judge Lloyd U. Nolan Jr. agreed with prosecutors and said he accepted the identification of the Housing Authority police officer, who was with the wounded officer when he was shot. That officer, seeing Terrill from 40 feet away, after he had been arrested, told a D.C. police detective, “That’s him, that’s 100 percent him,” according to the affidavit. “He fought back against us and shot my partner in the struggle.”
Nolan set a court hearing for Monday.
The arrest affidavit says Terrill had accompanied Tolson to the Carroll Apartments at 410 M St. SE, a public housing building for senior citizens, around 5:45 a.m. Thursday. Tolson was there to meet with a tenant, the affidavit says, but that tenant refused to let them in because of an ongoing dispute with Terrill. A police report says Tolson had previously been barred from that building and had entered Thursday without signing in.
Housing Authority police were called, and officers confronted Terrill and Tolson in a second-floor hallway and asked them to leave. The affidavit says that one officer tried to detain Terrill but that he resisted by “tensing up his body, and a struggle ensued.”
When the officer tried to handcuff Terrill, the affidavit alleges, he pulled out a .40-caliber Smith & Wesson pistol from his pocket and fired, striking one of the officers in the stomach. The officer yelled, “I’m shot,” as the suspected gunman fled down a set of stairs. Police had initially said officers fired in the hallway; the affidavit does not mention officers firing at this location.
The affidavit says police found shell casings in the lobby, near a vending machine by the manager’s office, and alleges that Terrill fired twice at officers outside the building and that one officer returned fire, also firing twice. Terrill was not injured. Police said they also found shell casings by an elevator lobby and in back of a Harris Teeter grocery store.
The wounded officer was treated at a hospital for non-life-threatening injuries.
Police said Terrill then ran to the Arris apartments in the 1300 block of Fourth Street SE, where he entered an open ground-floor garage that is shared with nearby retail outlets. In a letter to tenants, Arris management said Terrill circumvented a locked gate that is supposed to prevent people from reaching floors of the garage reserved for residents. By doing so, the letter states, Terrill was able to gain “entrance to the community.”
D.C. police declared a barricade and urged residents to shelter in place. Police said they arrested Terrill and Tolson shortly before 9:30 a.m. They said they arrested Terrill on the building’s roof. Police said they found the gun in a trash can near an elevator on parking level B3.
