Political activist Chris Crowder, who took on the powers that be in an in-your-facefashion, was gunned down in a D.C. park near his Mount Vernon home early Saturday morning.
Crowder, 44, was found at about 3:43 a.m. Saturday with several gunshot wounds to his body. He was lying next to the wheelchair he had used since a 1990 shooting had left him paralyzed from the waist down.
Another man was also shot and was taken to a nearby hospital where he remained in critical condition, said police spokesman Sgt. Joe Gentile. Police would not release his name because the man is a witness to the shootings.
Crowder was often seen at City Hall and was particularly interested in issues dealing with the homeless, affordable housing and youth. City observers say he signed up to run for D.C. mayor because he was frustrated that his voice wasn’t being heard.
“He saw things that he thought were wrong and he wanted speak out,” said Dorothy Brizill, of the watchdog group DC Watch. “He didn’t just observe, he participated.”
On Sunday, homicide detectives canvassed the neighborhood, searching for clues and witnesses. At the site of the shooting, in the 600 block of Emmanuel Street NW, friends and family had erected a makeshift shrine in Crowder’s memory. Roses, teddy bears and candles were placed on a upright wooden pallet. Some friends wrote notes:
“We’re going to miss you. God has appointed you the mayor of heaven,” wrote one person.
“It’s not over yet, the fight has just begun,” wrote another.
Crowder, who had had filed to run for District mayor under the D.C. Statehood Green Party this year, had a reputation as an agitator who stood up to the political and social establishment. In 1995, five years after he was shot while a law student at Howard University, CBS’s Mike Wallace interviewed him about the shooting and his boisterous political activism.
Wallace asked what he would say to his shooter.
“Man, do you know how much you’ve sidelined me?” Crowder replied. “Do you know how much pain I have to go through certain days?”
In May, Crowder took on Bill Cosby during the comedian’s “Call Out” tour stop in D.C. Crowder accused Cosby of hosting a “watered-down dialogue.” Cosby jumped off the stage and over to Crowder, who was sitting in his wheelchair, and told the activist, “You don’t deserve an audience with me.”
