District police captured two men in Florida who are accused of last week’s fatal shooting aboard a Metrobus. Vincent Gray, 21, and Delron Atchinson, 22, were arrested Tuesday morning outside a hotel in Orlando on a warrant for second-degree murder while armed.
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Police had circulated a video late Thursday of two men entering a bus in Southeast Washington and pointing toward the back. Police said Demetrius Emmanuel Thompson, 22, was the target and he shot in the face. Investigators worked to find the identity of the two men in the video.
Thompson’s mother Talaya Thompson told The Washington Examiner that she called the detective assigned to the case on Tuesday, and he told her that the two men had just been taken into custody.
She credits the community for coming together to help make the arrests, saying people prayed and put up posters — and police offered a reward.
“It was a community effort because everybody knew my son,” Talaya Thompson said. “It was a big shock: why him?”
According to a law enforcement source familiar with the investigation, D.C. detectives learned the identities on the two men on Saturday, and on Sunday they received an anonymous tip that the duo were heading to Florida.
Police knew the suspects were traveling in a Ford Focus, and by Monday night they narrowed the location to a Sheraton hotel in Orlando, police said.
The men were captured outside the hotel without incident, police said. A warrant was being drawn up to search the hotel room, and homicide detectives were on their way Orlando to question the men, the source said.
Police said the shooting appeared to be a result of a previous fight between Thompson and one of the suspects. The incident does not appear to be gang related, police said.
Thompson’s family members have not seen the full video, as police warned them it would be too graphic. But Talaya Thompson saw the short clip released publicly to help find the shooters.
“I’m just looking at them, they’re just young kids like my son,” she said. “They’re just kids themselves. What are they doing with guns?”
