On Wednesday, September 2, Metropolitan Police Department Officer Alexander Alvarez shot and killed 18-year old Deon Kay, who is Black, in Southeast DC.
The police department released body camera video recording showing the aftermath of the shooting. The footage shows an officer exiting his police car and approaching a parked car in the parking lot of an apartment building. Officer Alvarez encountered Kay, who was holding a gun. Kay threw the gun past Alvarez, and Alvarez shot Kay in the chest, killing him.
Early Thursday morning, before MPD released footage, Black Lives Matter D.C. tweeted at Mayor Muriel Bowser and MPD Chief of Police Peter Newsham, “@MayorBowser a community is waking up to one less Black future to build and hurting because you and @ChiefNewsham Terror Gang has once again taken the life of a young man.”
The executive director of the ACLU of DC Monica Hopkins said in a statement that “in addition to being unsuccessful in reducing gun violence in the District, the Metropolitan Police Department’s tactics ignore the complexities of why young people like Deon may have guns to begin with.
“The time is overdue for D.C. to overhaul its approach to ending gun violence and focus on non-police solutions that address the underlying roots of community violence instead of continuing aggressive police tactics that lead to more fear in communities, more shootings by police, more death, and more family and community trauma.”
After the shooting on Wednesday evening, protesters gathered both outside of Mayor Bowser’s house and outside of the 7th District police station.
One protester said into a megaphone at Mayor Bowser’s house, “if you don’t defund the police, then you shouldn’t bother running for reelection.”
Sources: WUSA9 9/3/20; DCist 9/3/20; Twitter 9/3/20; ACLU 9/3/20
