An arrest has been made in the death of a 23-year-old woman who was shot along with three others as she stood outside a corner store in Southeast D.C. earlier this year.
Jasmine Lashai Light, of Southwest D.C., was shot on Jan. 17 on the 2000 block of 16th Street SE. At the time of the shooting, Police Chief Peter Newsham and D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser were just blocks away, speaking about gun violence and pleading for information in the death of a 14-year-old boy.
Torey Stockton, 20, was arrested Thursday as he was being released from D.C. Jail for carrying a pistol without a license, Newsham said at a press conference Friday. He has been charged with first-degree murder in Light's death.
Stockton opened fire on Light and three others from a moving car, Newsham said. The shooting stemmed from a dispute, but Light was not the intended victim, police say.
Relatives said Light attended culinary school and wanted to be a chef.
"Jasmine was known by a lot of people. Nobody could say anything bad about Jasmine," Light's uncle Andre Light-El told News4.
Newsham called Light's death "completely needless and completely necessary."
"To see a young woman have to lose her life merely by coming to a convenience store with some of her friends and have to lay here on the cold pavement of our city streets for absolutely no reason, it's something that will stick with me for the rest of my life," Newsham said.
