Marilyn Walker had just picked up her sister and nephew in Northeast D.C. and they were heading to a birthday party when stray gunfire killed her sister, Pamela Thomas, on Wednesday afternoon.
“My glass shattered in the back; I heard a pow,” Walker told WTOP’s news partner NBC Washington. Thomas, 54, was hit by gunfire. Her son got out of the back passenger side, and hollered, “My mom got shot.”
Walker said she got out of the driver’s seat. “I ran around there, she was slouched over in the backseat of my car.”
Officers who were nearby came running as they heard screams coming from Walker’s SUV.
“I was screaming, ‘Why,'” she recalled.
Detectives said Thomas was not the intended target of the gunfire. A youngster was shooting at someone else as Walker drove near the 600 block of Division Avenue in Northeast, near Marvin Gaye Park.
Thomas was pronounced dead at the hospital shortly after the shooting.
Police chased the shooter, who may have been as young as 15.
“I advise you young folks to put the guns down,” Walker said. “Pick up more books. Stop the violence. Stop killing one another.”
Walker asked the young shooter to surrender. “This boy, my nephew, lost a mother that was so dear to him. Please turn yourself in; don’t make them have to come and get you.”
D.C. Police and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ Washington Field Division are offering a reward of up to $40,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible, by calling police at 202-727-9099. Anonymous information can be sent to the MPD text tip line, by sending a text message to 50411.
