Three men were charged Monday with murder in the January killing of a Southeast Washington man who authorities described as a bystander caught in a barrage of nearly 30 gunshots.

Court documents say the three men also have been charged with various counts in connection with an armed robbery a day later of a Metrobus passenger’s black Moose Knuckle coat, and then shooting at the bus with a handgun and an AR-15 assault-style weapon.

The suspects were identified as Steven Metts, 18; Jovontae Wallace, 19; and Keondre Carroll, 21. Metts and Carroll are from Southeast Washington; Wallace lives in District Heights. Efforts to reach their attorneys Monday were not successful.

Metts, Wallace and Carroll each were charged with first-degree murder while armed, two counts of kidnapping while armed, one count of armed robbery and four counts of possession of a firearm during a crime of violence, according to the U.S. attorney’s office for the District of Columbia.

Prosecutors said Metts and Carroll also were charged with assault with a dangerous weapon and other related firearms charges. Police said in an arrest affidavit filed in D.C. Superior Court that Metts and Carroll were identified as suspects in a “string of shootings and robberies” in D.C. in six days.

A D.C. Superior Court judge on Monday ordered all three men detained.

The fatal shooting occurred about 9 p.m. on Jan. 23 in the 3000 block of Martin Luther King Jr. Ave. SE in the Congress Heights neighborhood. Police said Raymond Leon Ballard, 59, of Southeast, was found shot inside an E-Z Mart gas station and died a short time later at a hospital.

The U.S. attorney’s office for the District of Columbia said in a statement that Ballard was struck by at least one of 29 shots fired. The statement described Ballard as “an innocent bystander.” Efforts to reach his relatives Monday were unsuccessful.

The arrest affidavit for all three suspects says the people involved in the shooting of Ballard had been in a blue Infiniti Coupe, which the document says was also used in the Jan. 24 robbery involving the Metrobus. The affidavit says shell casings found at both crime scenes matched.

The Metrobus robbery occurred about 12:30 p.m. A man wearing a Moose Knuckle coat told police he was confronted by armed men while walking along Livingston Road in Southeast, according to the affidavit.

He said he ran and hid behind parked cars, then ran alongside a moving bus, banging on the doors and yelling, “Let me on the bus!” so he could board, the affidavit says. Once on the bus, he took off his jacket and left it at the front.

“They trying to take my coat,” he yelled, according to the affidavit.

The affidavit says that four minutes later, the driver of a blue Infiniti Coupe pulled in front of the bus, forcing the driver to stop at Galveston Street SW and South Capitol Street SE. One man got out with an AR-style assault weapon; another man had a handgun, the affidavit says. One man got on the bus through the front door; the other used the back door.

One passenger screamed, “We are all going to die,” the affidavit says, while one of the armed men demanded the jacket. The victim pointed them to the jacket at the front of the bus, and they grabbed it and returned to the Infiniti, the affidavit says.

The man who had been robbed then used his cellphone to record the vehicle, according to the affidavit. One of the suspects saw that, and the affidavit says both men fired upward of 10 shots at the bus, striking it several times. No one was injured.

Police said they found the Infiniti later that day in Southeast with a spent shell casing lodged between the hood and the windshield. The affidavit says video surveillance captured two men walking away from the vehicle, one wearing a black Moose Knuckle jacket.

Police said they arrested three men running from a building near where the vehicle had been found and recovered an assault-style weapon and a handgun.