Photo used under a Creative Commons license with John X

In an exclusive report, the Washington Post names 26-year-old Nathaniel Simms — an “admitted participant” in the shootings in Southeast last month — as having provided authorities with just about every conceivable detail of the crime. Based on anonymous sources, the Post says that Simms “has given homicide detectives a detailed account of the mayhem, including the names of his alleged accomplices, their specific roles in the attack, the motive for the gunfire and how they obtained the weapons used to kill four people and wound several others, according to court documents and law enforcement sources.” Further, the information Simms provided to police led to the arrests of two more suspects in the crime: Lamar Williams and Robert Bost. Four men in total have been charged with multiple counts of murder and police are still searching for a fifth.

If I’m Simms, I’m looking to pick up as many copies of the Washington Post as I can find right now — to wear as padding. It isn’t clear from the Post’s story whether Simms struck a deal, but suspects sometimes confess before ever meeting with a lawyer; there is no guaranteeing that Simms will get a lighter sentence in return for the information. If the heinous conventional wisdom on snitching is anything to go by, he may get more than he bargained for. When Simms gets shivved tomorrow on his way to mess hall, will sources to the Washington Post have blood on their hands?

Authorities dropped 41 charges against a 14-year-old boy initially identified as the driver for the drive-by assault. The Washington Post’s story from Friday notes that new information brought to light exonerated the boy. It certainly seems as though Simms’s testimony could be this information. But could the leak about his testimony wind up doing harm to the case? The defense for Simms and his suspected accomplices could argue that the leak of Simms’s narrative account unduly prejudices the jury pool. One thing is certain: Leaking Simms’s name so early in the case isn’t going to make Simms’s life any easier.