Prosecutors say he emptied an AR-15 rifle into a public DC street. A judge granted him pre-trial release.

WASHINGTON — The US Attorney for the District of Columbia has filed an emergency order to reverse a magistrate judge’s decision to grant pretrial release to an 18-year-old accused of firing 26 shots from an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle at a car driving away on a public street in Southeast.

The April 22 shooting, which happened at 2:19 a.m. in the 1700 block of Independence Avenue, was captured on camera by at least three different cameras, according to the motion. 

Two of those videos have been obtained by WUSA9. 

Amonte Moody is charged with assault with a dangerous weapon and possession of a firearm with a crime of violence. Both are felonies.

There were no reported injuries and no property visibly damaged by the gunshots. By law, all defendants have a presumption of innocence, and a judge, when determining detention placement, must be convinced that there are no conditions or combination of conditions that would ensure the safety of the defendant and the public before ordering the defendant to jail pending trial.

After Moody was initially detained, Magistrate Judge Lloyd Nolan granted a public defender’s motion for pre-trial release, placing Moody on home detention in Maryland with GPS monitoring and a stay-away order from the occupants in the car. 

According to the filing, after allegedly firing the AR-15 26 times, Moody is accused of running back inside his house and disassembling the rifle and hiding it in his ceiling, where it was found by investigators after multiple searches of the home.

“The kid walked out of the house, took a gun with him, shot up the neighborhood and then calmly went back into the house,” said former ANC commissioner Denise Krepp who lives nearby. “But for the grace of god nobody died in my neighborhood that night.”

Krepp said neighbors are outraged over the suspect’s pre-trial release.

“Anger, frustration, pissed off. And wondering what the judge was doing,” Krepp said, “It says keep on going. There is no accountability. We are living in the District of Crime.”

Monday, the US Attorney’s Office asked for an emergency hearing to revoke Moody’s pre-trial release. The filing states it is “unclear on what grounds the Magistrate Judge found the defendant should be released.”

“The Magistrate Judge opined that whether to detain the defendant pending trial was a close decision, finding the defendant had escalated an argument over clothes into an armed assault,” the filing reads. “The Magistrate Judge ultimately stated that he would give the defendant a chance, but did not give further reasons for that decision.” Court records show no prior criminal history as an adult in the District of Columbia.

The USAO argues in the filing that “the government established the defendant’s dangerousness by clear and convincing evidence.” 

The filing continues, “The defendant unloaded an AR-15 into the middle of a public, residential street. The defendant fired 26 rounds, littering the street with shell casings. Anyone who happened to walk into that street at that moment could have been killed as an innocent bystander. Everyone in the car the defendant targeted was at risk. Every resident of that street was at risk.”

Prosecutors also argue that despite defense attorney arguments which emphasized his family support system and lack of criminal history, prosecutors say none of that stopped Moody from allegedly emptying the AR-15 onto a public street where quote “any innocent passerby or resident could have fallen victim.”

WUSA9 has requested a transcript of the hearing in which Moody was released to home incarceration awaiting trial. The emergency hearing to reconsider Moody’s pre-trial release has been set for Tuesday.