Two US Marshals shot and killed a man while trying to arrest him Southeast D.C.

Tyrone Turner / DCist/WAMU

U.S. Marshals shot and killed a man in Southeast on Tuesday while attempting to arrest him on several warrants, police say.

Police offered few details Tuesday afternoon as officials said the investigation was ongoing. Days later, the man was identified by the Washington Post as 22-year-old Alaunte Scott, a D.C. resident and father of two. According to Scott’s mother, he had recently graduated from Pathways, a D.C. goverment program that connects individuals at-risk of being involved in gun-violence with education and job training resources, the Post reported.

The Metropolitan Police Department responded to a call to assist the U.S. marshals in the apprehension of a man in his early 20s near the 4300 block ​​of Third Street SE around 1 p.m., per D.C. Police Chief Robert Contee.

The marshals attempted to “engage” with Scott, but he ran away. After a short “short foot pursuit,” during which Scott allegedly produced a firearm, the officers began apprehending the man and shot him, according to Contee.

 

Scott was rendered aid on the scene, but he died.

“Right now, we are in the very preliminary stages of the investigation,” Contee said. “So, obviously, some of the things that we are talking about and are learning, could change in short order.”

It remains unclear what weapon the man brandished or how many times the U.S. marshals shot him. Officials also would not share what Scott was wanted for or the contents of the warrants that led U.S. Marshals to pursue him.

As of Friday, D.C. police had not released body camera footage of the officers on the scene, but officials have said the footage will be reviewed as a part of an investigation. The U.S. marshals were not wearing body cameras at the time, according to the Post. Spokespeople for MPD and the U.S. Marshals did not immediately return DCist/WAMU’s request for comment on Friday morning.

“There were various warrants, particularly the one we had was a legitimate warrant. Basically, that’s what led us to pursue the guy today,” Robert Dixon, United States Marshal for the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, said. “So, I don’t think it’s particularly interesting or particularly valuable to go into specifics of the other warrants but they were for throughout the DMV area.”

The shooting occurred less than 24 hours after D.C. police shot at a man in Columbia Heights on Monday night. The man later died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to police.

Officers responded to the 1400 block of Park Road NW to investigate reports of shots fired in the area. On the scene, they observed a man who “matched the [description of] one of the persons of interest,” according to Assistant Police Chief Leslie Parsons.

“Officers gave that subject verbal commands to stop, they wanted to talk to him. The individual refused to stop, one of the officers then announced to his fellow officers that the individual had a gun in his hand. At that point, officers… did discharge their firearms in the direction of the suspect. The suspect fled the scene on foot,” said Parsons.

The man was then found nearby in an alleyway with an apparent gunshot wound. Police have not released the name of the man. Officers were wearing body-worn cameras at the time and had them turned on, and police said the footage will be reviewed in an investigation. D.C. law requires body-worn camera footage to be released to the public, and for the officers involved to be named, within five business days of a use-of-force incident.

According to the Washington Post, the officers were deputy U.S. Marshals. A 2021 Marshall Project investigation found that from 2015 to 2020, marshals across the U.S. shot at least 177 people. 

Tuesday afternoon’s fatal shooting marks the first killing by law enforcement in D.C. this year. Last week, Fairfax County police officers fatally shot a man in Tysons while responding to a call of alleged theft at the Tysons Corner Center.

In January, an MPD officer shot and seriously injured 38-year-old Steven Shaw while investigating an alleged assault. The officer, Alex Rosario-Berroa, mistook Shaw – who was sitting in a vehicle and unarmed – for the suspect in the assault. Police later confirmed Shaw was not the person they were looking for, and arrested someone else. The U.S. The Attorney’s Office for D.C. will investigate the shooting to determine whether Roasrio-Berroa will face any criminal charges.

Also this year, the U.S. Attorney’s Office has declined to bring charges in two separate police killings. Lieutenant Jason Bagshaw, an MPD commander known by activists to use aggressive policing tactics, won’t face charges for fatally shooting Lazarus Wilson at the Wharf last summer. The USAO also did not bring charges against MPD officer Reinaldo Otero-Camacho, who fatally shot 31-year-old Kevin Hargraves-Shird in Brightwood Park in July 2022. The family of Hargraves-Shird plans to file a civil suit against the officer.

Last year. D.C. police shot five people, three of them fatally, according to MPD.

This story has been updated with additional information from police and Washington Post reporting.

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