‘I Didn’t Want the Kids to Get Killed,’ Victim Testified in Non-Fatal Shooting Trial

By Audrey Staudacher , Mia Febles - March 6, 2024
Daily Stories | Non-Fatal Shooting | Shooting | Victims |

On March 5, the victim’s testimony was presented in a non-fatal shooting trial before DC Superior Court Judge Maribeth Raffinan.

Kamara Hoffler, 32, is charged with assault with intent to kill, aggravated assault knowingly while armed, and multiple unlawful possession of a firearm charges, for his alleged involvement in a non-fatal shooting. The incident occurred on Sept. 19, 2022, on the 800 block of Barnaby Street, SE. One individual sustained non-life-threatening injuries,

According to court documents, Hoffler and a woman allegedly tried to enter an apartment that was not their own. As a result of this disturbance, a physical and verbal altercation occurred with a resident in the apartment. The altercation escalated into a shootout, in which the resident suffered a non-fatal gunshot wound to his knee. No other injuries were reported.

The prosecution called the victim of the shooting to the stand. He testified about receiving a call from his girlfriend, and could hear loud banging through the phone. 

When asked if the call worried him, he replied, “Absolutely.” 

After retrieving his firearm from the apartment, the victim testified that he never raised it from his side. Instead, after the unknown man refused to leave or explain his presence, the victim claimed he pushed the unknown man from the apartment building, shouting at him to leave. 

The victim testified that he specifically told the unknown man, “Why are you here? Why are you banging on my door at three a. m.? You need to leave.” 

According to the victim, he followed the unknown man and woman outside to ensure they left the property. The prosecution corroborated these claims by displaying video surveillance footage of the apartment parking lot as the victim followed the strangers out.

The surveillance video then showed the unknown man leave the video frame before he allegedly started firing.

The victim testified that the third shot struck his knee, causing him to collapse behind a car. When he tried to stand up, the victim felt “like a baby giraffe” that was trying to walk. He claimed the unknown man fired “at least 20 shots” at him as he fled into the apartment building.

Only once he was back in his apartment he did call the police, the victim testified, fearing the unknown man would return. 

“I didn’t want the kids to get killed,” the victim said. 

On cross examination, Koehler questioned the victim about the location of his firearm the night of the incident. The victim testified that he usually keeps his firearm in a locked case inside his closet, but since he was working the night shift, he left it unlocked in the event that his girlfriend might need to access it for protection. 

Koehler reminded the jury that six children resided in the apartment on the night of the incident. 

The prosecution called a detective to the stand to do an in-court identification of Hoffler as the alleged perpetrator. Subsequently, they called two other responding Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) officers, one who collected a cigarette butt and submitted it for DNA testing, and the other one who testified regarding his body-worn camera footage, that showed the officer walking into the apartment building and the victim holding a towel compress on the gunshot wound on his knee.

The prosecution also called  the victim’s girlfriend, who was in the apartment at the time of the shooting.. 

She was awakened to someone knocking on her apartment door. When she looked through the peephole, she saw a woman wrapped in a blanket. The witness did not recognize her, and assumed the woman had the wrong apartment and returned to bed.  

She then testified that the knocking turned into aggressive banging. When she returned to the peephole, a man had joined the woman outside. 

According to the witness, she overheard the unknown man say into his phone, “I can hear her moving around in there.” She also saw him drop a cigarette butt outside her door.

Feeling “uneasy” for herself and her children’s safety, she called her boyfriend at work, believing his presence at the apartment would “scare them off.” 

But when the victim arrived at the apartment, the unknown man and woman were not deterred.

Then, according to the witness, she heard shots coming from the parking lot and the victim yelled that he’d been shot.

On cross examination, Hoffler’s defense attorneys, Jamison Koehler and Karen Minor, questioned why the witness did not call police if she felt threatened, and instead gave the victim his firearm. The witness replied that she didn’t think the victim “would do anything” with the firearm.

Parties are slated to reconvene for further witness testimony on March 6.