The Stop Police Terror Project DC and Black Lives Matter DC accused the Metropolitan Police Department of murdering 18-year-old Deon Kay and criticized MPD Chief Peter Newsham and Mayor Muriel Bowser’s handling of the incident in a joint statement on Friday.
The organizations on Friday claimed that Newsham and Bowser “distort the facts” to “smear a teenager as a violent threat.” Newsham said during a press conference Wednesday that Kay was armed at the time of the incident, and that two firearms were recovered at the scene.
“The same false, racist narrative that stole Deon’s boyhood and turned him into a full grown man out for blood is the same narrative we have seen from Mayor Bowser and MPD over and over again,” Stop Police Terror Project DC organizer Natacia Knapper said, according to BLM DC.
“Don’t be fooled — Deon was a child, barely 18, hunted and gunned down through the deeply woven slave-catching tactics cops have been using since the birth of policing in America,” Knapper added, according to BLM DC.
So Newsham needs multiple days to come up to a conclusion of whether a black boy deserved to be executed in broad daylight. Yet – the cop who shot him decided to be judge and jury in less than 10 minutes. We know this story, we know these patterns. #DeonKay deserved to live https://t.co/U9gyzeTaJx
— Black Lives Matter DC (@DMVBlackLives) September 3, 2020
Bowser described Kay’s death as “tragic” and offered her condolences to his family in a press briefing Thursday. She said that Kay’s mother had been offered “counseling and support” encouraged people to “not to let any anger spill over into violence in our city.”
“We refuse to allow the mayor to continue to insult the intelligence of DC residents,” Black Lives Matter DC Core Organizer Nee Nee Taylor said, according to the press release. “Every action she has taken — from calling for prosecutions of unlawfully arrested protesters to ignoring the killings of Black people in DC — is antithetical to the idea that Black lives matter.”
Police were responding to a report of a man in possession of a gun around 4 p.m. on Wednesday, Newsham said during the briefing with Bowser. Newsham also said that officers saw a livestream of Kay with the gun on social media.
“The idea that recovering a gun is worth the life of a child should be horrifying to every DC resident,” Black Lives Matter DC Core Organizer Makia Green said, according to the press release Friday. (RELATED: DC Police Release Body Cam Footage Of Fatal Shooting Of Deon Kay)
Kay reportedly brandished the firearm as police pursued him and another individual running after they were approached, Newsham said. The second individual has not been identified.
The firearm was reportedly found 98 feet from where Kay was shot, according to Newsham.
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