U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro said Friday that two teenagers have been arrested and will be charged with first degree murder in connection with the death of a congressional intern earlier this summer.
Eric Tarpinian-Jachym, a 21-year-old intern in the office of Rep. Ron Estes (R-Kan.), was fatally shot on June 30 when caught in the crossfire of a drive-by shooting as he walked down the street in Northwest Washington.
Pirro called Tarpinian-Jachym an “innocent bystander who was caught in a violent act that was not meant for him.”
She said two 17-year-olds will be charged in adult court with first-degree murder while armed and that additional charges will be sought before a grand jury. A third suspect is also being pursued.
“This killing underscores why we need the authority to prosecute these younger kids,” Pirro said.
“Because they’re not kids; they’re criminals — they’re violent criminals. We have to hold them accountable.”
The case is being prosecuted locally, Pirro said, meaning the death penalty is not on the table. President Trump has floated the idea of reinstituting the death penalty in D.C. murder cases as part of his takeover of law enforcement in the District.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote on social platform X that, if convicted, the suspected killers will face “severe justice.”
Police said Tarpinian-Jachym was shot after multiple suspects got out of a vehicle near the Walter E. Washington Convention Center and opened fire on a group of people.
Tarpinian-Jachym and two other victims who were struck, a woman and 16-year-old-boy, were transported to nearby hospitals. The other victims suffered non-life-threatening injuries, but Tarpinian-Jachym died the next day.
The University of Massachusetts-Amherst senior had only worked on Capitol Hill for a month. He was studying finance and political science.
Estes said in a statement he would remember the intern’s “kind heart” and “cheerful smile,” thanking him for his service to Kansas and the country. The Hill requested comment from Estes’s office.
Trump has pointed to Tarpinian-Jachym’s killing and other local crimes, including an incident involving a Department of Government Efficiency staffer who was attacked, as justification for deploying the National Guard to the nation’s capital.
Tarpinian-Jachym’s mother, Tamara Tarpinian-Jachym, told The Hill’s sister network NewsNation last month that the crackdown is necessary to weed out violent offenders.
“If people can’t handle 30 days of the National Guard and others patrolling to free up the time of the patrolman in D.C. and the detectives to work on other cases that are unsolved, then there’s a problem,” she said.
“I want them to find his killers, or killer,” she added.
