The mother of a 22-year-old man who was killed by D.C police officers sued the police department on Friday, two years to the day after her son died.
Marqueese Alston was fatally shot in Southeast D.C. on June 12, 2018. Chief of Police Peter Newsham said officers fired at him after he shot at them. Witnesses said they never saw Alston with a gun or heard cross-fire.
His mother, Kenithia Alston, has filed a $100 million wrongful death lawsuit against the police department and the officers involved.
“We got Black Lives spray-painted across Lafayette Square. Do Black lives really matter? If your accounts are true about what you said my son did – release the body-cam,” she said in a statement released by her lawyers with the Georgetown Law’s Civil Rights Clinic.
The attorneys say Alston was shot between 12 and 18 times. His mother heard from a friend that her son had been killed and saw news reports before police contacted her, the suit says.
Police said Alston ran from officers, fired at them using an illegal handgun in an alley between 1st and Wayne streets SE and was shot by officers.
