Community members signed a poster in honor of D’Quan Young at his vigil on Thursday.

/ Courtesy of Natacia Knapper/Stop Police Terror Project DC

As the sun set at the Brentwood Recreation Center on Thursday night, Catherine Young took the microphone and began speaking to the gathered crowd about her son, D’Quan.

“I just want to thank the friends and family for coming out and supporting us. And I thank y’all love for ‘Quan,” she said. “He was a friend and he was a father, son, cousin, uncle…”

She trailed off, her voice breaking. She turned around and shook her head, appearing to signal that she couldn’t continue. Someone behind her hugged her tightly.

D’Quan Young, Catherine’s son, was killed by an off duty Metropolitan Police Department officer a year ago on 15th Street Northeast, right near the rec center where a vigil was held in his honor on Thursday. Since his death, Young’s family, including Catherine and his father, Don Davis, have been trying to figure out exactly how and why he died. Did he and the officer who shot him know one another? How did the confrontation between them begin? Is the officer still working in the field? And, most pressingly for his family, what is the officer’s name?

In February, Catherine Young testified before the D.C. Council’s Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety, her voice cracking as she struggled to recount the events of the day he died and her attempts to get information from the Metropolitan Police Department. She described arriving to the scene after getting a call from her grandson telling her D’Quan had been shot, and then standing on the playground at the rec center for two hours trying to figure out what hospital he had been taken to.

“I asked the police officers time and time, where was my son because my son needs me and I need to be wherever he was,” she said in her testimony. “No information regarding my son’s condition was given until several hours.” When she got to the hospital, Young said that another officer asked her several questions before he would finally confirm to her that her son had died.

After Young’s death, the U.S. Attorney’s Office opened an investigation into the shooting and the officer was put on administrative leave, Police Chief Peter Newsham announced at the time. That investigation is still ongoing, but the officer in question is now on full duty status, MPD confirmed to DCist.

Davis, D’Quan Young’s father, told the Washington City Paper in February that he calls the police department every week trying to get updates with more information about his son’s death, so far to no avail. MPD has declined to release the name of the officer, as has Mayor Muriel Bowser’s office. Bowser has chosen before to release information about police-involved killings—in 2016, she publicly identified Brian Trainer, the officer who shot Terrence Sterling.

“Our sympathies are with the family and friends of D’Quan Young and we extend them our condolences as they mourn his death. The District of Columbia treats any MPD officer-involved shooting as a very serious matter,” Kevin Donahue, the deputy mayor for public safety, wrote in an emailed statement to DCist. “Every case is thoroughly reviewed by the independent U.S. Attorney’s Office to determine whether the shooting was justified. We urge the US Attorney’s Office to expedite their investigation and publicly release their findings as quickly as possible so that the family can get  answers on the circumstances that led to the shooting.”

Community accounts have conflicted with public statements from police about Young’s death. Witnesses told FOX 5 they saw the off duty officer ride down the street in his car several times, and then get out and walk up the street “like he was coming to do something.” Soon after they heard a barrage of shots. Newsham publicly said in the days following Young’s death that the officer was in the neighborhood to attend a cookout, and that Young crossed the street to confront him. Newsham said that “quickly thereafter shots were exchanged between the two.”

Young, D’Quan’s mother, has told several news outlets that she believes D’Quan was running away. An autopsy given to FOX 5 showed that three of the five gunshot wounds in Young’s body entered on the back of his body.

Young’s struggle to get information about the manner of her son’s death isn’t exactly unusual. At the vigil on Thursday, Beverly Smith spoke about her two-year struggle trying to get the name of the special police officer who killed her son, Alonzo Smith. In that case, Bowser released nine minutes of body-worn police camera footage, but did not initially release the names of the officers involved.

Several people at Young’s vigil called on Newsham and Mayor Bowser to release the name of the officer who shot Young, expressing shock that MPD confirmed he was back on full duty.

“We found out that the officer took advantage of his situation, and he’s back at work? That’s not acceptable, at all,” said Young’s father Davis. “I just want [Bowser] and the chief to know, that’s very unacceptable.”

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