Update, Feb 9: A D.C. judge on Monday dismissed all charges against Cotey Wynn, a violence interrupter who was arrested in December and charged for the killing of a man in 2017. The Washington Post reported that D.C. Superior Court Judge Danya Dayson found that there was no evidence directly linking Wynn to the crime, and ordered him released from jail.

Original Story:

A D.C. man who works as a violence interrupter in Trinidad was arrested and charged Friday for a killing that occurred almost four years ago.

The Metropolitan Police Department said in a press release that 39-year-old Cotey Wynn allegedly shot and killed 53-year-old Eric Linnair Wright on 12th Street NE between H Street and Florida Avenue on Feb. 17, 2017.

According to a police affidavit, Wynn was identified by multiple witnesses who viewed footage from private security cameras at nearby residences. His cellphone was also tracked to the general location of the shooting.

Wynn has been charged with second-degree murder while armed, and was set to make his first court appearance on Saturday afternoon.

Wynn has worked in Trinidad in recent years as a program supervisor for Cure the Streets, a violence interruption program run by D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine’s office. Violence interrupters, often men and women who have criminal histories themselves, work to diffuse simmering conflicts between individuals and groups before they become deadly. Racine’s office manages Cure the Streets in a number of neighborhoods in wards 5, 7 and 8.

“Cotey’s workdays are completely booked with community engagement activities. Whether helping people find employment, hosting a local event, or mediating a conflict. Sometimes Cotey and his team receive calls in the late hours of the night from community members who need their help, because, as he says, ‘the community loves our program, they trust us,'” reads a profile of Wynn on the attorney general’s website.

The profile also says that Wynn had been shot five times in his early years, was first incarcerated in 2004, and ultimately served a decade in prison. After returning to his community, he still faced troubles, pleading guilty to drug charges in 2017 — the same year he was alleged to have killed Wright. At the time of his arrest, D.C. police say Wynn was under the supervision of the Pretrial Services Agency.

Wynn started working as a violence interrupter in 2018, and quickly attracted media attention for his history and transformation. In its own statement, Racine’s office said the Wynn alleged involvement in the 2017 killing came before he was hired to work as a violence interrupter.

“This case will now proceed through our criminal justice system where Mr. Wynn is presumed innocent. We are confident that justice will be served once this process is complete. Our hearts go out to the family of Mr. Wright, the victim in this case, and to the affected members of the community. The important work of the Cure the Streets team will continue,” said a spokesman for Racine’s office in an email.

Violence interruption efforts have slowly expanded in D.C. in recent years, largely as advocates like Racine and some D.C. Council members have started pushing for non-police tools to combat the city’s rising homicide tally. Other than Racine’s office, the D.C. Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement also runs violence interrupters in targeted neighborhoods.

Racine’s office calls Cure the Streets an example of “community-driven public safety work.” It adds that violence interrupters “know first-hand about the challenges high-risk individuals in their community face and they are committed to helping those individuals overcome and thrive.”

In an interview with DCist in mid-June, Wynn said his team of interrupters had negotiated a truce after a shooting were seven people were shot, though none fatally.

“We’re on the ground, we know the people in the community… so it’s not hard to get in contact with the parties involved. And once we get in contact… we just basically talk to them, offer them ways of encouragement to get to the bottom of the issue,” he said. “I am very proud of my team and all the work we did.”

But violence interruption programs have faced uneven funding, prompting budget battles between Mayor Muriel Bowser and the D.C. Council, some of which have grown more intense as calls have gotten louder for police funding to be redirected to other agencies and services.

In a tweet early on Saturday morning, the D.C. Police Union expressed thinly veiled criticism of violence interruption efforts, contrasting a statement from Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen praising them with an image of a news headline announcing Wynn’s arrest.

Tony Lewis, Jr., a community activist in Northwest D.C., said that despite the incident, violence interruption efforts more broadly have been working. “The role of a Violence Interrupter increases public safety on 2 levels …. those people not only stop violence from happening but it gives employment/purpose to individuals that decrease the likelihood that they themselves will be involved in violence,” he tweeted. “IT WORKS.”

Other than Wynn’s arrest, violence interrupters in D.C. have faced a number of personal setbacks and tragedies. In October, Lorraine Marie Thomas, who worked with Cure the Streets, was killed in the Washington Highlands neighborhood where she had helped negotiate a truce between warring factions. And a year prior, Clarence Venable, who was training to be a violence interrupter, was killed after he left a Cure the Street training.