A shootout at a Southeast DC apartment complex that killed community activist Timothy Delonte Dawkins may have had another target.
At a preliminary hearing Thursday, MPD Detective Michael Murphy testified that video captured by a surveillance camera at the apartment complex showed two men exchanging gunfire and Dawkins falling to the ground.
“They seemed to be shooting at each other,” Murphy said. “I don’t know if the decedent was the intended target.”
One of those men, Todd Green, was ordered held Thursday after Judge Robert Morin listened to Murphy’s testimony and found probable cause to believe that Green shot and killed 24-year-old Dawkins.
Dawkins was found dead from an apparent gunshot wound on August 21 around 7:00 pm in front of an apartment complex on the 4200 block of 4th Street Southeast. Three days later Green, 22, was arrested on suspicion of second-degree murder while armed in connection with Dawkins’ death.
Surveillance video shown in court Thursday showed Dawkins walking behind another man toward an apartment building moments before the shooting. A third man is seen walking toward Dawkins and the other man holding a firearm with an extended clip and firing the weapon in Dawkin’s direction.
The video then shows Dawkins and the man running away from the shooter. Then the man fires back at the shooter and runs away. Dawkins falls to the ground, apparently shot.
Green was identified as a suspect after a police officer viewed the surveillance video, Murphy said. That officer identified Green as the man shooting in the direction of Dawkins and the other man. The officer had seen Green on a daily basis, and once served him with a barring notice, court documents state.
A felony status conference is scheduled for October 25.
An earlier version of this report identified the man walking near Dawkins as his “companion.” A relationship between the men has not been established.
