This story was last updated at 8:55 a.m. on September 3. 

D.C. police shot and killed a teenager in Congress Heights on Wednesday afternoon, Metropolitan Police Chief Peter Newsham said.

Two relatives and police identified the victim as 18-year-old Deon Kay, who is Black.

“He was a good child,” said Earline Black, who identified herself as Kay’s aunt, at a protest outside the 7D police station on Alabama Avenue in Southeast Wednesday night. “I want justice.”

The shooting happened shortly before 4 p.m. in the 200 block of Orange Street SE.

Officers responded to the scene to “investigate a man with a gun” and found a group of people around a vehicle, according to a police statement. Two people fled on foot, and one “brandished a gun,” police said. According to that account, an officer fired once and hit Kay. The second person escaped.

D.C. police shared an image of a gun and said it belonged to Kay.

Police said they arrested two other people: Marcyelle Smith, 19, was charged with carrying a firearm without a license and Deonte Brown, 19, was charged with “no permit,” which appears to refer to operating a vehicle without a license.

The Metropolitan Police Department said in a statement the officers involved in the shooting have been placed on administrative leave, which is standard under the department’s policy.

D.C. Councilmember Trayon White said Wednesday afternoon that he spoke to Kay’s family and said the teenager lives about two blocks from where the shooting occurred.

“Some people say he was shot in the front, some people say he was shot in the back,” White said. “We’ve got to figure out what the truth is and what happened with that situation.”

White said he plans on requesting body camera footage from the shooting. D.C. police said they would release the footage Thursday.

https://twitter.com/DCPoliceDept/status/1301500526291451904

Under an emergency measure passed in June, D.C. is required to release footage from body-worn cameras within five days of a fatal shooting. It also requires the city release the names of the officers involved.

In July, D.C. police released footage of police killings of three Black men in 2018 — Marqueese Alston, D’Quan Young and Jeffrey Price. Under the law, families of the victims can choose to withhold the video from public release.

The last fatal shooting by D.C. police occurred in September 2019.

Hours after the shooting Wednesday, protesters converged outside the 7th District police station. After some initial clashes between officers and protesters, the demonstration remained peaceful.

Dozens of masked officers stood to form a barrier outside the police building, some standing behind bicycles,

“After today we gotta do more than just screaming and yelling,” protester Jimmie Jenkins said into a megaphone. “We’ve gotta get down to City Hall, we’ve gotta get our people registered to vote, we’ve gotta hold people accountable.”

A small group of demonstrators also protested outside Mayor Muriel Bowser’s house.

Early Thursday, another group of protesters with Sunrise Movement D.C., an advocacy group fighting climate change, marched to Bowser’s home in the Colonial Village neighborhood, calling on the mayor to defund the Metropolitan Police Department and fire Newsham.

“If you don’t defund the police, then you shouldn’t bother running for reelection,” a protester said into a megaphone.

The mayor has not made any public statements regarding the shooting as of Thursday morning.

Markus Batchelor, who represents Ward 8 on the D.C. State Board of Education, grew up blocks away from the shooting. He arrived at the scene Wednesday after his grandmother, who lives nearby, alerted family members.

“There’s very little reason that a young man of his age should have been killed in this city,” Batchelor said.

Several D.C. councilmembers expressed condolences and support for the community on Twitter after the shooting.

“Just informed of the incident; yet another unfortunate gunshot death in the community. My condolences to the young man’s family and friends,” At-large Councilmember Anita Bonds tweeted.

Councilmember Brooke Pinto, who represents Ward 2,  wrote that she would join White in his effort to secure police bodycam footage. Pinto, who sits on the public safety committee, received backlash online after she did not say in an initial tweet that a police officer fatally shot Kay.

“You’re correct, this is an MPD-involved shooting and I do not take that fact lightly. We will review the body camera footage and get to the bottom of what happened,” she later said.

“We will know more soon,” said Councilmember Charles Allen. “Tonight, I am grieving for his family, friends & our community.”

Jawanna Hardy, founder of the advocacy organization Guns Down Friday, said she was near the scene at the time of the shooting because she was checking on friends of Christopher Brown, who was killed in a shootout at a block party on Aug. 9.

Hardy said she planned to provide mental health services to residents in the neighborhood and would return to help the community grieve.

“Everyone is outraged,” she said. “It’s just a really bad time for this to happen for our community.”

In another incident Tuesday, a D.C. police officer who works in the Seventh District was placed on administrative leave for discharging their service weapon in Congress Heights.

The officer was responding to reports of multiple sounds of gunshots, according to a press release. The officer did not strike anyone and a person was taken into custody. The Metropolitan Police Department’s Internal Affairs Bureau is investigating.

Colleen Grablick, Jenny Gathright and Victoria Chamberlin contributed reporting. 

This post was updated with information about protests Wednesday morning, body camera footage release, and another MPD shooting incident.