Mourners at Karon Brown’s vigil on Monday night.

Natalie Delgadillo / DCist

Karon Brown’s family huddled in the center of a large group of mourners at Stanton Elementary School on Tuesday night, forming a tight protective circle around the 11-year-old boy’s mother. Many of them wore blue or black shirts printed with a collage of photos of Brown smiling. As his friends, coaches, teammates, and others who knew him stepped up to the microphone to share memories, the huddled group in the middle alternated between laughing and sobbing.

Around them, dozens of people gathered to listen to a service in remembrance of the young boy’s life. They held candles, balloons, and signs against gun violence. “Real men talk it out, cowards shoot it out,” one of them read.

Last week, Brown was shot and killed across the street from Stanton Elementary School, where he’d just finished his last year. He was set to begin middle school in a few weeks. Police arrested 29-year-old Tony McClam in the murder on Saturday, accusing him of shooting into a vehicle where Brown was sitting and killing him.

In the days since the shooting, details about Brown’s murder have begun to emerge. Sources in the police department told WUSA9 that the conflict began in the days and weeks before Brown was killed, as groups of children fought over who would have the right to sell water, cookies, and Gatorade on the corner of Naylor Road and Alabama Avenue SE. According to McClam’s own account of events, recorded in a police affidavit, he went to confront Brown about the previous fights in a nearby McDonald’s parking lot with another adult man and two children. A fight broke out, and Brown tried to flee. A witness driving by the scene told police he saw Brown running away and stopped to ask if he was okay, according to the police affidavit. Brown ran into the witness’s vehicle and asked to be driven home, but as he sat in the back seat, McClam shot into the vehicle and killed him.

McClam told police that he believed he saw the driver of the car leaning over as though he were reaching for a gun, and that he shot into the vehicle in self defense. He said he didn’t know that Brown was in the car. Police wrote in the affidavit that surveillance footage that captured part of the incident did not support McClam’s claim that he feared for his life.

Brown’s mother, Kathren, told DCist days after the vigil that the police account of events doesn’t make sense to her—she never knew her son to sell anything on the street, and she does not believe he was involved in the conflicts officials have described. “Karon never sold anything up there. I just want to know what happened that day,” she says. “I’m so confused.”

Her son used to go to that area with a group of his friends and pump gas at the BP gas station for money, she says. But she felt it wasn’t a safe area and eventually forbade him from doing it, she says.

Kathren Brown says Karon and his brother Quentin had walked to a nearby McDonald’s together that afternoon to get food for their older sister. Quentin returned alone because Karon was taking too long to order the food, she says. “I got on him about that. And I said go back and get your brother,” she says.

Quentin left to find Karon, but again came back without him, she says. He told his mother that there had been a shooting, and he didn’t know where his brother was. “I don’t know what happened between the time that Quentin went to go get his brother and when he came back,” Kathren says.

At Brown’s vigil, community advocates took turns at the microphone to talk about the scourge of gun violence in the District, all its causes, and the lasting trauma it inflicts on families and communities. So far this year, 96 people have been killed in D.C., a 10 percent uptick from this point last year. Most of those people were shot.

Jenari Mitchell, a 19-year-old poet from Southeast D.C., read a poem she wrote a few months ago after losing one of her best friends from high school to gun violence. “D.C. ain’t the same anymore,” she read. “D.C.—death city. D.C.—don’t come. Because my city don’t shine anymore. Too many sons are gone.”

Mitchell says she knew Brown because he used to pump gas for people at the nearby BP gas station to make some extra money. Many of the students she works with in community programs where she volunteers attend Stanton Elementary, she says, and they all knew Brown.

“Growing up in Southeast D.C., you become a victim of gun violence before you even get off the block, before you become a teenager. And you’re living with that from that age,” she says. “Like I’m 19. The first person I lost was my cousin David Holmes, when I was nine years old. And I don’t even remember how many people I’ve lost since David. I can’t even count on my fingers.”

Karon’s coaches, teammates, and others who knew him shared memories of a boy who loved football and good food. He was overcome with excitement when he scored his first touchdown for the Woodland Tigers, one of his teammates said. He loved McDonald’s and eating snacks. He was generous and protective of younger children.

His football team dedicated a football jersey to Brown, promising his family that there would never be another number 45 in the organization ever again. “This number is signed, sealed, and delivered to his family,” one of the coaches said, handing over a framed number 45 jersey.

After several speeches, a dance performance, and a song, Brown’s family stepped in front of the crowd to talk about the little boy they’d lost.

“Karon wanted to be in the NFL. But my cousin can’t do what he wanted to do when he grow up because he’s gone,” a young girl said into the microphone, her voice wavering. “And it hurts me to say this, but whoever did it, I hope they burn in hell. I hope they feel the pain we’re all going through, because it ain’t right what they did.”

Brown’s mother Kathren held the girl tightly. “Karon was loving, funny. Everybody loved him. He was the joy of our lives,” she said. When they finished speaking, the crowd released their balloons.

This story has been updated with additional comment from Karon Brown’s mother, Kathren Brown. 

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