District Man Sentenced to Over 19 Years in Prison For Multiple Shootings During Summer of 2013

            WASHINGTON – Darious Scales, 21, of Washington, D.C., has been sentenced to 19 years and nine months in prison for various crimes that took place in July and August of 2013, including a series of shootings that followed his escape from a District of Columbia youth rehabilitation center, Acting U.S. Attorney Vincent H. Cohen, Jr. announced today.

            Scales was sentenced on Sept. 18, 2015, by the Honorable Robert E. Morin of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. In one case, Scales pled guilty in June 2015 to escape, tampering with a GPS device, assault with intent to kill, robbery, and possession of an unregistered firearm, for a series of crimes he committed in July and August 2013.  In a second case, he was found guilty by a jury in July 2015, of committing two counts of assault with a dangerous weapon, and related weapons offenses in connection with a shooting on Aug. 21, 2013. Following his prison term, Scales will be placed on five years of supervised release.

            According to the government’s evidence in the first case, Scales escaped from a Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services (DYRS) facility on July 26, 2013.  Shortly afterward, he cut off his electronic, GPS-monitored ankle bracelet.

            Less than two weeks after his escape, early Aug. 9, 2013, Scales was walking in a parking lot in the 4300 block of 3^rd Street SE, together with several unidentified associates.  Scales then spotted a Special Police Officer who was responsible for providing security at a local apartment complex.  Scales approached that Special Police Officer and shot at her, in an attempt to kill her.  Scales missed the Special Police Officer and then fled the area.  Just three minutes later, while Scales and his associates were walking down 3^rd Street SE, they encountered a local resident who was on his way home from work.  Scales and his associates robbed this victim at gunpoint and ordered him to stay on the ground while they fled the scene of the robbery.  However, when the robbery victim started to get up and gather himself, he faced a barrage of gunfire.  The robbery victim was not struck, but the bullets did break the windows of vehicles parked nearby.

            The second case involved a shooting that took place on the evening of Aug. 21, 2013. Scales, armed with a 9-mm handgun and still in escape status with DYRS, went into the 4200 block of 4^th Street SE, looking for individuals he believed were verbally harassing and threatening a friend of his.  He found two of those individuals, at least one of whom was already armed himself, and engaged in a gun battle with them.  During the resulting exchange of gunfire, Timothy Dawkins, 24, was fatally shot, most likely by a bullet fired by a person at whom Scales was shooting.  No one else was struck by gunfire during that incident.

            Scales was arrested on Oct. 1, 2013.

            In announcing the sentence, Acting U.S. Attorney Cohen commended the work of those who investigated the case from the Metropolitan Police Department.  He acknowledged the efforts of those who worked on the case from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, including Paralegal Specialists Lynette Briggs and Sandra Lane; Litigation Technology Specialist Leif Hickling; Victim/Witness Advocate James Brennan; Victim/Witness Security Specialist David Foster; and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Michael Liebman, Kondi Kleinman, Demian S. Ahn, Tejpal Chawla, Jin Park, and Katherine Earnest, who investigated and prosecuted these cases.