BY SARAH ROBINSON, JUNIOR EDITOR
Wilson teachers and administrators were “shocked and saddened” this month to learn that Jasper Spires, a 2014 Wilson graduate, was charged with the murder of American University graduate Kevin Joseph Sutherland on the DC Metro.
On July 4, Sutherland was riding in a Red Line Metro car approaching the NoMa-Gallaudet station when a young man attempted to rob him. The man then stabbed and beat Sutherland to death.
The details of the crime are horrific, as described in the charging document. Sutherland was stabbed 30 to 40 times and suffered other injuries which court documents attributed to “stomping.” Trapped passengers watched in fear at either end of the car and waited for the nightmare to end.
The suspect police described in the charging documents was nothing like the young man Wilson teachers and administrators knew. Spires graduated at age 17 and went on to attend Louisburg College in North Carolina to study engineering.
“There is nothing normal about this whole description,” said former Wilson college counselor Sandy Bean. “I think it’s very sad. He seemed to have a family that cared about him… he is very young.”
Assistant Principal Tennille Bowser had Spires in her English class and said that the arrest “floored me completely.” She saw him just two weeks before Sutherland’s murder when he came to school to pick up his diploma. Although it was more than a year after his graduation, it is not unusual for students to pick up diplomas this late, according to Bowser and Bean.
Bowser and Bean both said they were “shocked and saddened” by the charge of the Wilson student, who seemed to have a bright future ahead of him. “For the first time in my life I felt sympathy for the perpetrator,” Bowser said.
“I would have never thought or imagined that he would be accused of this horrible crime,” said former principal Pete Cahall, who said he knew Spires well.
What could have happened to this young man, who was interested in math and engineering, to cause him to be accused of such a horrific crime?
“Someone needs to ask the question: were there drugs involved?” Bean said.
Spires, 18, was charged with first-degree felony murder. “He is in a very difficult situation,” said Antoini Jones, Spires’ attorney. Spires’ teachers had some suspicions of drug use, perhaps even before class, but there wasn’t direct evidence of drug use during his high school career.
Jones said it was too early in the case to discuss whether drugs were a factor. While the charging documents said no marijuana was detected in Spires’ system, most drug tests are not able to pick up traces of synthetic drugs, such as the increasingly popular K2, also called Zombie, Bizzaro, or Spice.
K2 has become somewhat of an epidemic in DC, and was increasingly cheaper and easier to get earlier this summer, with prices as low as $1.
DC Mayor Muriel Bowser signed emergency legislation on July 10 banning the sale of synthetic drugs. Any business caught selling synthetic drugs in the District can now be shut down for 96 hours and fined $10,000 for its first offence.
While there is no concrete evidence that Spires was high at the time of his arrest, Metropolitan Police officer Bruce Paige said in the charging documents that he had arrested Spires two days earlier and that “during his previous encounters with the defendant SPIRES he acted as if he were under the influence and would talk to himself.”
In a WTOP News article, Mayor Muriel Bowser said that she believes there is a correlation between violence and synthetic drug use.
Teachers who knew Spires said he was bright, had a good educational background, and, although he had some ups and downs, was full of potential. Bowser remembers him as “always follow[ing] the rules, very respectful, very spritely.” She said that although he wasn’t a straight-A student, he was intellectual and could easily get by in school.
Michelle Bollinger, who taught Spires in her AP US History class, said that she has “very fond, warm memories” of him. Seeing him vilified online is particularly difficult.
The comments were disabled in a Washington Post article titled “Horrified passengers witnessed brutal July 4 slaying aboard Metro car”. Bethonie Butler at the Washington Post said in an email that they “may close comments on stories of a sensitive nature, particularly in cases where someone has died or has been injured.”
However, on smaller news sites, the comments get particularly brutal. Many news websites allow commenting by anyone with a Facebook account, and some commenters are calling Spires an “animal,” accusing him of a “hate crime,” and using racist and derogatory language.
Bollinger said that reading the comments that made Jasper out to be “less than human… It’s just unbearable [to read].”
Spires’ next court appearance is scheduled for July 24 at noon.
