Mayor Bowser and Police Face Criticism After 10-Year-Old Killed

By Micha Green, AFRO Washington, D.C. Editor, [email protected]

On the evening of July 16, Donetta Wilson gave her 10-year-old daughter, Makiyah Wilson, money for the ice cream truck that had just pulled up in the buzzing Clay Terrace community in Northeast.  Moments later, residents say Wilson was holding Makiyah’s dying body, yelling, “Please don’t let my baby die.”

Makiyah was killed in crossfire on Monday evening after four men jumped out of a black Infiniti, arbitrarily fired shots into the courtyard for less than 25 seconds and then jumped back in the car. Makiyah was shot in the chest.  A woman and three men are being treated for their injuries at local hospital according to The Washington Post.

Wilson is one of the 83 homicides in 2018, up from 57 this time last year.

When violence had an uptick near Memorial Day, the community came out in droves to ask for help stopping the violence.  Mayor Muriel Bowser positioned more police in Wards 7 and 8, where much of the uptick of violence took place.  The mayor then went to the scene of Makiyah’s death Monday night and asked community members to call a police tip line with any information.  Bowser then took Twitter writing “#EnoughIsEnough.”

Yet local activists are underwhelmed with the mayor’s efforts in protecting local lives, particularly those of color.

The D.C. chapters of Black Lives Matter, Black Youth Project 100 and Stop Police Terror joined forces to call out Bowser, Deputy Mayor Kevin Donahue, Chief of Police Peter Newsham and the D.C. Council for neglecting the tenants laid out in the Neighborhood Engagement Achieves Results (NEAR) Act of 2015, and instead prioritizing more police presence.

“For three years, Bowser, Donahue, Newsham, and Councilmembers have had the opportunity to fix the type of problems leading to deaths like Makiyah’s. Instead, for three years our public officials have failed to ensure full implementation of a progressive community-focused approach to violence,” the statement says.

The NEAR Act, calls for the community’s input in protecting its people by identifying leaders, programming, emergency services and more to prevent violence. Yet the organizations calling out Bowser, Newsham and District leadership only say there the only thing to happen is an increase in police presence.

Those who fought for the legislation and studied similar systems in other jurisdictions say, when put into place, the NEAR Act could be lifesaving. Having worked to get the NEAR Act drafted, people like April Goggans, core organizer with Black Lives Matter D.C., are frustrated by the lack of implementation of the NEAR Act and continued deaths.

“The NEAR Act was passed unanimously by the Council three years ago, yet bodies keep hitting the ground. I’m just so angry and so deeply sad,” Goggans said. “Each and every time we go to these murder scenes — some on the blocks we live on — connect families and neighborhoods to resources and support networks to address immediate and long term trauma, I just want to scream.”

The organizations are demanding the local leadership to take notice of the uptick in tragedies in order to see the urgency in employing the NEAR Act.

“We can prevent violence in the District by embracing the proven public-health approaches in the NEAR Act and by committing to addressing the root social causes that lead to violence. We call on every elected official to do just that. Community members and activists must be listened to. Preventative measures MUST be taken to stop violence in the District. We cannot wait any longer.”