- Why two of three men charged in the First Friday killing were already free
- Court files show a convicted felon on unsecured bond the prosecutor’s office marked “agreed,” a Warren County gun case still on bail, and a warrant that sat unserved the night of the shooting.
Three men are charged in the Sept. 4 killing during First Friday in Old Town Manassas. Two of them were already free on pending cases.
Manassas Police Chief Doug Keen said two suspects were already out on bond. Court files show those two were Tasheem Rashad Douglas, 21, and Talib Davis, 23.
Xavier Wanzer, 19, is the third man charged. His adult file before that night was a traffic summons, not a live felony bond.
All three are held without bond at the Prince William County Adult Detention Center. Preliminary hearings are set for Nov. 10.
Douglas: a felon on probation, then unsecured bond
Douglas was a convicted felon on three years of supervised probation when First Friday began.
The felony that put him there was having a weapon while in jail or in custody. The offense date was April 30, 2024. He pleaded guilty on Feb. 11, 2025, in Prince William Circuit Court. On April 4, 2025, a judge sentenced him to five years, then set aside all but two months. He was placed on three years of supervised probation. Commonwealth’s Attorney Amy Ashworth’s office prosecuted that case.
Potomac Local first laid out that felony file on Sept. 5.
That was not the first gun case tied to his name.
A Prince William County Police Department daily incident report dated May 2, 2024, as reprinted that day, said officers went to the Burger King at 16551 River Ridge Blvd. in Woodbridge at 9:46 p.m. on April 23, 2024, on a brandishing call. Police said a man in a dispute with employees brandished a firearm at an employee who followed him outside. No shots. No injuries.
Warrants named Tasheem Rashad Douglas. Manassas City police arrested him April 30. He was charged with brandishing a firearm and assault and battery.
Prosecutors later dropped both counts. The legal term is nolle prosequi. It means the prosecutor’s office ended the case. That happened July 17, 2024. It was not a conviction.
A separate charge from the day of that arrest is the one that stuck. That is the felony that put him on probation. The April 23 Burger King case and the April 30 weapon-in-custody case are separate tickets. One was dropped. The other stuck.
On Feb. 14, 2026, he was arrested again.
A Prince William County Police daily report dated Feb. 16, 2026, said officers went to Manassas Mall at 1:44 p.m. on a brandishing call. Police said a man brandished a firearm during an argument and ran. Officers saw him run onto Westgate Elementary grounds and detained him.
They named Douglas. The pending charges were not brandishing. They were having a gun as a felon, having ammunition as a felon, having a weapon on school property, carrying a loaded gun in public, and carrying a concealed gun.
A magistrate set a $5,000 secured bond. Secured means money or a bondsman. Two days later a judge converted it to $5,000 unsecured. Unsecured means released without paying cash. The form said “CW agreed.” That means the prosecutor’s office agreed.
Judges and magistrates set bond. Prosecutors do not. Under § 19.2-123, that unsecured conversion for a felon on probation required a waiver from both the judge and the commonwealth’s attorney. If the form is accurate, Ashworth’s office supplied that waiver. She is elected. She has said she speaks for the office.
Ashworth’s office said in a Sept. 8 press release that it objected at the first February arraignment. The court file has no note of what changed.
Potomac Local emailed Ashworth on Sept. 9 and asked about that “CW agreed” line. She did not answer. The Sept. 8 press release is not an answer to that question. It also does not explain the April 16 bond or a warrant that sat unserved on Sept. 4.
On April 16, 2026, a judge set a $1,000 secured bond on a capias. A capias is a warrant to pick someone up for an alleged probation violation. The judge also ordered a 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew and no weapons. The hearing was set for Jan. 28, 2027.
A separate warrant was filed Sept. 4. It alleged he broke his release terms on Sept. 3. The file listed him as a fugitive. It was unserved before 9:28 p.m. The file does not show which agency asked for it.
Davis: Warren bail on two gun felonies
Keen said Davis was already out on Warren County bond on “severe charges.”
Warren Circuit Court files CR26000454 and CR26000455 show two Class 6 gun felonies from a Feb. 22, 2026, arrest. A grand jury true-billed them July 13. The status is BAIL.
The charge text is nonviolent felon in possession of a firearm and carrying a concealed weapon, second offense. A related inspection-sticker case is a summons.
A bond hearing was held March 11. The next Warren date is Monday, Sept. 14, at 9 a.m. in Room B.
The public file does not show the dollar amount of that bond.
Wanzer: a summons, not a felony bond
Wanzer is not a third felony bond.
Orange General District Court records show a Jan. 7, 2026, summons for failing to obey a traffic signal and driving with no license. He was found guilty of both on April 10.
The adult tickets pulled for this story do not show him on a pre-Sept. 4 felony bond.
In 2021, Virginia repealed charge-based no-bail presumptions
Before that change, the code told judges to start from a presumption against bail when a person was charged with certain crimes. That list included acts of violence, life offenses, and some gun and drug cases. A defendant could try to rebut it. Judges often cited the presumption and held the person.
Senate Bill 1266 struck those charge-based presumptions from the code. It also repealed an old provision that created a presumption against bail for some people who were in the country illegally. After July 1, 2021, the default under Virginia Code § 19.2-120 is to admit a person to bail unless there is probable cause the person will flee or is a danger. Judges still weigh the record, guns, and the weight of the evidence. The starting point is no longer “this charge means no bail unless you prove otherwise.”
Sen. Creigh Deeds (D-Charlottesville) was the patron. Then-Sens. Jennifer McClellan and Joseph Morrissey were co-patrons. McClellan now represents Virginia’s 4th District in Congress, and Morrissey lost his seat and is now a candidate for Petersburg, Virginia City Council. The Senate passed the bill 21-18. The House passed it 52-45. Both votes ran on party lines. A Democratic majority controlled the General Assembly. Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat, signed the bill on March 24, 2021. It took effect July 1, 2021.
Then-Del. Jay Jones, now Virginia attorney general, a Democrat, voted yes.
The 2021 bill did not erase a separate rule. Virginia Code § 19.2-123 still says a felon or a person on probation is supposed to go out on a secured bond unless the judge and the commonwealth’s attorney both waive it. Secured means money or a bondsman. That is the statute behind the “CW agreed” line on Douglas’s February gun case. The 2021 rewrite did not require that release.
In 2022, Gov. Glenn Youngkin tried a partial restore. Budget Amendment 32 would have put a presumption against bail back for acts of violence, life offenses, and a felony committed while already out on release. It was not a full repeal of the 2021 law. The Senate narrowly blocked it. The 2021 statute kept the law in force through September 2026.
The night of the fatal shooting
Officers heard gunfire about 9:28 p.m. Sept. 4 in the 9400 block of West Street, by the train depot. Keen said about 10,000 people were downtown for First Friday.
Police say Wanzer confronted Douglas. They say Douglas fired, missed Wanzer, and hit a bystander. They say Wanzer and Davis returned fire.
The bystander was 16. She was a Patriot High School student from Nokesville. Keen identified her as Ashley and asked that her last name not be made public. Potomac Local has already published her name as Ashley Intihar.
“That family is not going to get the phone call, ‘Dad, can you come pick me up?’” Keen said. “That will never happen again.”
Police announced the three arrests on Sept. 9.
What the files show
Two of three men charged in the killing were already in the system on gun paper.
Douglas walked on an unsecured conversion the elected prosecutor’s office marked agreed. Then he walked on a $1,000 probation bond with a 2027 date. A warrant sat unserved on Sept. 4. She has not explained the agreement.
Davis was on Warren bail on two true-billed gun felonies. The public file does not show the price.
Wanzer’s adult prior was a summons.
Part 2
The next part of this series will examine whether the people who write Virginia’s laws have the stomach to change it after a 16-year-old was killed in a crowded downtown Manassas.
Potomac Local sent questions Sept. 9 to Prince William and Manassas Democrats in the House and Senate, and to Republicans Sens. Tara Durant and Bryce Reeves and Del. Phil Scott. We’ll tell you what they said.
