The Justice Department will not pursue criminal civil rights charges against the Washington, D.C., police officer who shot and killed Deon Kay, an 18-year-old black man.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia announced on Thursday that it was closing its investigation into the September fatal shooting because prosecutors could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the Metropolitan Police Department officer “committed willful violations of the applicable federal criminal civil rights statute.”
The officer who fatally shot Kay was identified as Alexander Alvarez, who joined the department in 2018. He was placed on administrative leave while the investigation took place.
Kay died on Sept. 2 when officers responded to a call about people displaying firearms inside a vehicle. As police approached the car in a Washington-area parking lot, Kay and the others exited and ran. Body camera video shows an officer running toward Kay with his weapon drawn and shouting, “Don’t move” repeatedly. When the officer got close, Kay raised his arm with a gun in hand before he was shot.
Kay tossed the gun, which was found approximately 98 feet from where he was shot, but the federal “investigation did not determine whether Mr. Kay tossed the gun deliberately or in response to being shot at,” the DOJ statement said.
The Metropolitan Police Department administered emergency medical measures, and Kay was transported to George Washington University Hospital, where he died approximately 45 minutes after the shooting, the U.S. attorney’s office said.
Another person who was in the vehicle with Kay was also found with a firearm.
The shooting of Kay sparked protests throughout Washington, including demonstrations outside of a police precinct and at the home of Mayor Muriel Bowser. Some of the protesters demanded that Police Chief Peter Newsham resign or be fired by Bowser. He remains on the job.
The protests were reminiscent of others this summer around the country and the world in response to police-related incidents involving other black people, including the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis and the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
At a funeral that took place in Washington, D.C., in late September, Kay was remembered by family and friends as a young man who had a bright future ahead of him. A pastor who spoke, Walter Staples, talked about policing and social injustice. “We’re caught in between the black and the blue. We’re caught in between what is good and what is bad. We’re caught in between what they say is justified and what is unjustified,” he said, according to the Washington Post.
