The Maryland man who police say discarded a loaded Smith & Wesson firearm into a storm drain in Northeast Washington that killed a veteran D.C. police officer when it went off as he tried to retrieve it will remain in jail until trial, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.
Bailey was arrested last week on three weapons-related charges, including a count of unlawful possession of a firearm with a prior conviction. Authorities say that on Aug. 28, Bailey tossed the loaded firearm down a storm drain as he fled police. When 51-year-old D.C. police investigator Wayne David — a member of the violent crime suppression team — tried to retrieve the firearm with a metal device, a .40-caliber bullet struck and killed him.
Bailey’s public defender and family pleaded for him to be released pending trial, saying Bailey was innocent of the charges. Despite that, Harvey determined Bailey was a danger to the community because he allegedly possessed a firearm that had its serial number removed. As a felon for a previous Prince George’s County robbery conviction, he was no longer permitted to possess firearms.
Harvey also showed frustration regarding Bailey’s alleged decision to discard the loaded firearm down a sewer drain. In addition to the felon in possession of a firearm charge, federal prosecutors also charged Bailey under a law passed by the D.C. Council this past March, which prohibits the unlawful discarding of firearms and ammunition and is punishable by a maximum of five years in prison.
“I will remember this case because it points to the possession of a firearm in the community as being a danger to others, especially when it is discarded,” Harvey said. He called Bailey’s case and David’s death “a real example of the dangers” of discarding a loaded firearm.
Bailey appeared in court as the chief medical examiner’s report on David was released. The medical examiner ruled David’s cause of death to be a “gunshot wound to head.” The manner of death was ruled an “accident.”
Prosecutors have not charged Bailey in David’s death. If convicted on the gun charges, he faces as many as 15 years in prison, the judge said. But Harvey also questioned some of the evidence Assistant U.S. Attorney Kyle McWaters presented. The judge said, looking at photos of the gun, that it was covered with leaves and debris. Harvey asked how a gun that Bailey allegedly discarded while being chased by police just moments earlier could look as if it had been in the sewer for a longer period of time.
McWaters said that after the firearm went off, it fell back down into the sewer. Then, when another officer removed the grate cover to access the gun, debris and leaves fell onto the gun.
Bailey’s uncle, Darrin Bailey, and other family members who sat in the audience, agreed with the judge’s observation about the debris on the gun, suggesting that the gun had been thrown there by someone else at a different time.
“A trained officer would have removed the leaves off the grate before removing it,” Bailey’s uncle said. “That just doesn’t make sense.”
McWaters said Bailey was linked to the gun because he was captured on surveillance video running with the gun and tossing it down the drain and then running across Interstate 295 and hopping on the back of a motorcycle. He allegedly told the motorcyclist that he needed help because he was being threatened and that someone was “trying to kill him.”
Authorities say as Bailey ran, he stepped out of both of his shoes. Authorities recovered one of his shoes by the grate.
McWaters said in addition to the gun being loaded, the gun's safety was in the off position, which made it easier to fire.
McWaters said police were patrolling the area of the Kenilworth neighborhood when Bailey saw the officers and “took off running.”
One of the officers, who was wearing a body camera and began chasing Bailey, yelled out, “We have a runner.” The officer said Bailey was running, while holding the waistband of his pants, a sign to trained officers that a suspect is holding a firearm in the waistband, the prosecutor told the judge.
As police chased Bailey, the officer then said on his body camera, “He dropped it in the drain.”
