Mother in Revenge Shooting Kept in Jail
By Donna St. George Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, July 22, 2000; Page B03

A Superior Court judge ordered the mother of a slain teenager held
without bail yesterday in what police say was a revenge shooting that
went awry and left the wrong neighborhood rival paralyzed.

While saying he believed Barbara Lipscomb suffered “a real substantial
change in behavior” after her son was gunned down in January–as the
city celebrated the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday–Judge Michael L.
Rankin ruled to keep her behind bars because he could not be sure “the
volatile atmosphere that led to whatever happened . . . would not
resurface.”

In an illustration of the incongruities of the case, the sober courtroom
audience included two leaders from the Prince George’s County group that
helped organize the Million Mom March against gun violence. On the day
Lipscomb was arrested, rousted from her sleep at 7 a.m., she was
supposed to be delivering her panel of a commemorative quilt to the home
of Bernadette Trowell, the group’s president.

“We don’t believe she did it,” Trowell, president of Mothers On the Move
Spiritually, said after the hearing. She said the group would be
writing letters and supporting Lipscomb through her legal battle. “The
person I know was grieving the loss of her son and was anxious to help
other mothers,” she said.

Yesterday’s hearing came as a stinging defeat for Lipscomb’s family
members, who had hoped the 48-year-old mother from Capitol Heights would
be home until her Nov. 9 trial. One daughter broke into tears, and her
niece, Rashaun Holmes, said: “She just don’t deserve that. She’s
already stressed out. What is this going to do to her?”

Lipscomb sat still and quiet during the proceeding, hair pulled back in
a braid, weary-looking but seeming to take in every legal maneuver.

One of the factors Rankin cited for keeping Lipscomb in jail was the
presence of four guns in her home July 13, when police arrested her on
felony charges of assault with intent to kill while armed. In their
search of her home, police found a .357 magnum, a 9mm, a .44 magnum and
a MAC-11 semiautomatic pistol. Two guns were in Lipscomb’s nightstand.

“A MAC-11?” Rankin said. “I’ve never heard anything good about a
MAC-11.”

Defense attorney Billy L. Ponds suggested the firearms might not be
surprising given the tensions between the family and the young men
Lipscomb blamed for the killing of her son, Le’Pierre Clemons, 19.
“This lady was involved in the mothers against violence,” Ponds said.
“It’s not the picture they’re trying to paint.”

But the judge agreed with the prosecutor that, given the retaliatory
motive in the alleged crime, denying bail was the “only sure way to
ensure public safety.”

The 21-year-old victim is still under treatment for his injuries, which
have left him paralyzed from the waist down, said Assistant U.S.
Attorney Leutrell M.C.
Osborne.

In making his case against Lipscomb–charged under her last married
name, Barbara Martin, and appearing in court as Barbara Graham, her
first married name–Osborne said two witnesses and the victim would
testify that “Miss Barbara” was the shooter.

Both witnesses allege that Lipscomb took a gun out of her purse and
chased the victim. One was said to have confronted the grieving mother
afterward, telling her the victim had nothing to do with her son’s
slaying. That witness said Lipscomb put the gun back in her purse and
turned away.

On the night the young man was shot, Jan. 26, in the same Southeast
neighborhood where Lipscomb’s son was killed, the victim told police:
“Le’Pierre’s mother shot me,” police Detective Andre D. Williams
testified.

Later choosing from an array of photos, however, the victim twice
selected another person Feb. 24, when he was hospitalized and “barely
able to talk,” Williams said. The victim identified Lipscomb June 6,
according to the affidavit.

Lipscomb’s attorney said in an interview that the retaliation in the
case came from police–who targeted Lipscomb because she had been a
fiery critic of their investigation. Lipscomb has said she called
police day after day, often insulting them.

On April 5, police arrested Daniel William Jackson Jr., 20, a
neighborhood rival, in her son’s slaying. The case has not gone to
trial.

Her attorney also pointed out that on the night of the shooting,
Lipscomb asked police to meet her. “It just undercuts all logic that
you’re going to go shoot someone, and you call the police” to meet you,
Ponds said.

In a 911 call played in the courtroom, a caller says that a woman just
shot someone. “Her son just got killed. . . . There was a rumor
going around. . . . And she just gone crazy.”