Daniel Thompson dreamed of one day playing professional football. The 6-foot-3-inch, 300-pound offensive tackle helped pave his team’s way to a city championship. But four days after graduating from H.D. Woodson High School, Thompson’s life was cut short by gun violence in Northeast Washington.
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On the night of June 15, 2003, Thompson was shot near the Minnesota Avenue Metro station as he was on his way home from his girlfriend’s apartment in the Mayfair complex in Northeast.
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A driver who witnessed the crime called police and told them he had seen three men on a walkway leading to the Metro station when he saw the gun flash.
Two of the men fled, and more than eight years later, authorities still have had no luck in finding them.
Authorities believe Thompson was killed by a pair that had already committed a series of armed robberies before they got to him. Thompson was not killed over money. He was robbed only of his Size 14 smoke gray Nikes and a cell phone, which was used just once after the shooting.
The motorist described the assailants as young black men in their teens or early 20s. One stood about 6 feet tall and the other about 5 feet, 7 inches.
The slaying still haunts Thompson’s family members, who remember him as a confident young man who moved to the beat of his own drum.
Thompson, No. 73, was an avid Dallas Cowboys fan, despite living just blocks from the Washington Redskins’ stadium. He dreamed of one day playing football for Louisiana State University.
Just before he was killed, his high school football coach learned that Thompson had been accepted at Allegany College of Maryland, where he would have joined its football team.
Anyone with information about Thompson’s death is asked to call D.C. police at 202-727-9099.
