Mother Accused Of Retribution Shooting After Son Was Slain
By Donna St. George and Petula Dvorak
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, July 14, 2000; Page B01
The mother of a young man gunned down on Martin
Luther King Jr.'s birthday observance, who had
grieved that her son's death went unnoticed as the
city celebrated the life of the civil rights leader,
was arrested yesterday in the shooting of a man she
blamed for her son's death.
Barbara Lipscomb, 48, was arrested at her home in
Capitol Heights at 7 a.m. on a charge of assault
with intent to kill in a Jan. 26 incident that
left a 21-year-old man paralyzed from the waist
down. Police recovered three handguns and a TEC-9
submachine gun at her home.
"This is a vigilante antic that went awry,"
Winston Robinson, commander of the 7th District,
said of the shooting. " . . . This was an innocent
man, and now he's paralyzed."
In February, police arrested Erskine Moore, the
boyfriend of one of Lipscomb's daughters, in the
crime, in the 2400 block of Elvans Road in
Southeast Washington. But they said at the
time--in a Washington Post profile of the
case--that other family members might be arrested
as the investigation continued.
Yesterday, police said they had enough evidence
to show that Lipscomb--whom they identified by
her most recent married name, Barbara Ann
Martin--was also a shooter that January evening.
It was just two days after the funeral of her son,
Le'Pierre Clemons, 19, who was hit by a spray of
bullets in the same Southeast neighborhood.
The 21-year-old man whom Lipscomb, a grandmother
and former assistant manager in the D.C. Housing
Authority, is accused of shooting was hit three
times by bullets from a .40-caliber gun. One
bullet lodged in his spine, causing paralysis,
police said. He was in the hospital for months
and continues to undergo treatment.
The break in the case came in recent months as the
victim struggled to identify the assailant. It all
came together this week, a combination of victim
and witness statements that secured arrest and
search warrants, said Sgt. C.V. Morris.
Lipscomb was arrested yesterday in Prince George's
County and waived extradition. If convicted, she
would face two to 15 years in prison.
Among the guns police confiscated were two that
belonged to Lipscomb. "She had the 9mm and a .38
revolver," Morris said. "That surprised me,
considering she said she was going to be in the
Million Mom March against gun violence and all that."
Morris said he had verbally sparred with Lipscomb
before, when she said officers weren't working hard
enough to find her son's killer.
"A man in a mask killed your son," Morris said he
told her. "That's one of the hardest crimes to solve."
Police made an arrest in her son's slaying April 5,
almost three months after he was shot. Police say
Daniel William Jackson Jr., 20, known as DJ, fired
repeatedly at the teenager. The two had grown up
together.
Robinson, the police commander, said the case shows
the damage that can be wrought when people try to
find justice on their own. "We wish that concerned
citizens would work with us in the District of
Columbia and by no means take matters in their own
hands," he said.
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