The prosecution delivered closing arguments before DC Superior Court Judge Neal Kravitz in a three-month-long mass shooting trial on June 25.
Erwin Dubose, 31, Kamar Queen, 28, Damonta Thompson, 28, and William Johnson-Lee, 22, are charged with conspiracy, premeditated first-degree murder while armed, assault with intent to kill while armed, and assault with significant bodily injury while armed, among other charges, for their alleged involvement in the mass shooting that killed 31-year-old Donnetta Dyson, 24-year-old Keenan Braxton, and 37-year-old Johnny Joyner. The incident occurred on the 600 block of Longfellow Street, NW, on Sept. 4, 2021, injuring three additional people.
Mussay Rezene, 32, and Toyia Johnson, 53, are charged with accessory after the fact while armed and tampering with physical evidence for their alleged involvement in burning the vehicle used in the shooting and helping the other defendants evade arrest.
The prosecution displayed an emotional video of the shooting that showed three people exiting a car on a residential street, hiding behind a house, then opening fire across the street and sprinting back into the vehicle. Screams heard from the emotionally charged video caused some members of the audience to leave the room.
The prosecution asserted that Dubose, Queen, and Johnson-Lee “turned the 600 block of Longfellow Street into a war zone,” while Thompson “made sure the mass shooting went smoothly” as the getaway driver. A prosecutor argued that Thompson would have known how critical the timing of the attack was because he noticed a police officer parked a block away who responded within seconds.
“This wasn’t luck,” the prosecutor said. “They hit who they were aiming at.”
The prosecutor continued, “This wasn’t a warzone, it was a neighborhood block…. Donnetta Dyson wasn’t a soldier, she was a medical nurse…. That is the world they flipped upside down. Row homes and parked cars became cover. Neighbors and police became combat medics…. A mother who finally got a weekend to herself became a casualty.”
The prosecution said the defendants wore all-black clothing, ski masks, rented a car with tinted windows, changed their phone numbers after the crime, and torched the getaway car, falsely reporting it as stolen, all as an attempt to cover up their tracks and evade responsibility.
The prosecution argued that private messages, social media posts, call records, and cell data locations presented during the trial showed the relationships between the defendants and their willingness to go to extremes for one another.
“They turn to the people that would do anything for them,” the prosecutor said of the defendants, citing messages such as, “I love you to the end,” between Johnson and Dubose.
The motive for the shooting, according to the prosecution, was retaliation for a shooting that occurred an hour earlier on the 800 block of Oglethorpe Street, NE, allegedly carried out by members of the local rival gang Kennedy Street Crew (KDY), targeting Queen.
The prosecutor showed still images from security cameras outside of the residence where Queen and his friends were sitting before shooters in an SUV opened fire on the porch and fled the scene. Queen’s close friend sustained multiple gunshot wounds, and stray bullets penetrated the front windows into the living room of the house where Queen’s mother lived.
The prosecutor claimed the SUV’s close proximity with windows down allowed Queen to identify the shooters as members of KDY. He said Braxton was a member of KDY who, along with another KDY member, beat Dubose unconscious five years prior while in jail, as witnesses testified during the trial.
The prosecutor supported the conspiracy charge with a detailed chronology of phone records, location data, and surveillance footage that allegedly linked the defendants to one another and to their plan and execution of the shooting.
According to the prosecution, Dubose, Queen, Thompson, and Johnson-Lee engaged in a flurry of phone activity as they moved westward across the city en route to the crime scene. The prosecutor said several of the defendants turned their phones off or left them behind to avoid detection while “executing the conspiracy.”
The prosecutor said Rezene, charged as an accessory, traveled rapidly across town to the apartment complex where the defendants fled post-shooting. Surveillance video showed the group arriving at the apartment without masks, except for Thompson, who wore a surgical mask.
The prosecution said the defendants’ phones reconnected to the network shortly after. The prosecutor cited calls Dubose made to Rezene and others, along with Instagram ties and jail call records, as further proof of coordination and concealment efforts.
“You don’t need a law degree to know that this was a conspiracy,” the prosecutor stated.
“So, let’s take the mask off,” said the prosecutor in reference to the ski masks the defendants allegedly wore during the shooting. The prosecutor argued they could still be identified through physical, electronic, and forensic evidence, as well as by their motive and consciousness of guilt.
Dubose was allegedly tied to the crime through distinctive clothing, his affinity for the “Draco” assault pistol, video footage, and social media posts, including his Instagram profile photo, which displayed a gray ski mask.
The prosecution asserted that, although Thompson did not fire a weapon, he was “willing to play whatever role he was assigned” and his role as the driver was indispensable. They emphasized that “this cannot happen without Thompson” and argued he should be held equally accountable for aiding and abetting.
Parties are scheduled to resume the prosecution’s closing arguments June 26.
