A new mural in Congress Heights memorializes the life of Maurice Scott, a 15-year-old Somerset Prep DC student, days after he was killed in a shooting in Southeast.
Scott was one of three people killed in multiple shootings over the long Memorial Day weekend. Artists unveiled the mural after a vigil for Scott on Saturday night. It’s painted on the side of the neighborhood convenience store where he was struck by a stray bullet.
A GoFundMe page has also been set up to help his family pay for funeral expenses.
Cory Stowers, who teaches digital journalism at Somerset Prep DC and taught Scott, came up with the idea of the mural to help change the energy of the space.
“When [Scott] was killed, it really put the entire school in a hurt place” he says. “We wanted to give the community a space to focus their energy.”
Stowers recruited artist Nessar Jahanbin to paint the mural. They are both part of a group called ART B.L.O.C. DC, which paints murals around the city, and a graffiti crew called The Double Down Kings, which Stowers says is the largest in the city.
The mural’s location holds a particular significance. The convenience store is a common gathering place for students and residents of the neighborhood about a block away from the school.
“I know that our kids go there every day, and that they were going to have to walk through the doors that Maurice was touching when he was killed,” Stowers says. “That would be something that they would have to think about every time they were crossing the parking lot when they wanted to get something from the store.”
Stowers says the community surrounding Somerset Prep is no stranger to tragic deaths. “That store was the site of another killing not too long ago. There’s still a makeshift tribute on the sidewalk.”
Congress Heights is one of several neighborhoods that are target areas for the city’s Summer Crime Prevention Initiative, which is designed to provide extra resources to areas that have high rates of violent crime. The program has been in place since 2010 and has had mixed results. (The other target areas this year are the Langston Carver, Trinidad Kingman Park, Fort Dupont, Benning, Benning Ridge, Marshall Heights, Historic Anacostia, and Washington Highlands.)
The increase is designed to focus on the uptick in violence that typically happens in the summer months. Over the holiday weekend, three other people, including a 9 year old, were injured in the same shooting that killed Scott. Two more people were killed in an apparently unrelated incident in Southeast and five people, including a child, were injured in a shooting outside Barry Farms Recreation Center.
Ward 8 Councilmember Trayon White stated in a Facebook post that Scott marked the 18th child shot in Ward 8 in the past nine months. Scott’s death also brought the number of killings in D.C. this year to 63, which is just one less than the number of killings recorded at the same time last year.
Police are still investigating the shooting that killed Scott, but the 15 year old was not the target, according to Metropolitan Police Department Chief Peter Newsham.
With this new artwork, though, Stowers wants people in the neighborhood to think about Scott’s life and not just his death. “My hope for the community itself and for the all of the young people who are sharing this loss, is that they can look to Maurice as an inspiration and not a cautionary tale.”
This story has been updated to better reflect Stowers’ role with the mural.
