Before D.C. police killed Justin Robinson, he worked to stop violence
"The 25-year-old understood the city’s crime problem better than most, because he had been on both sides of it.
Twelve hours after D.C. police officers opened fire on a man working with the city to quell violence, a teenage boy from Southeast Washington texted his teacher.
“Hey, don’t you got two twin sons?” asked Jesiah Swann, 14, referring to the identical twins he had heard longtime educator Sheldon Pinder talk about as if they were his own.
“One was killed this morning,” came the response.
Jesiah was quick to text back: “Oh my goodness. Is it the one that was telling me that I should always follow my dreams?”
Yes, the teacher confirmed. It was.
The Sept. 1 police killing of Justin Robinson, a 25-year-old Southeast Washington native, set off a wave of anger across the District. It came as the city was already reeling over the arrest of a council member, the death of a police officer and the expected sentencing of two officers in a murder case.
Robinson’s death meant losing someone who understood the city’s violence better than most, because he had been on both sides of it.
From an early age, those close to him had noticed his desire to help other kids growing up in a part of the District where childhood is often interrupted by gunfire. That was true even after he became caught up in it, serving time in prison for his role at the age of 16 in a murder that unfolded the day of his older brother’s funeral. Although Robinson did not pull the trigger, he said the shooter “could smoke” the victim, a young man from a rival neighborhood.
That Robinson knew what it was to get into serious trouble with the law, that he had served his time and come out of it wanting something different, made him credible to those he tried to reach — formally, as a violence interrupter for D.C.’s Cure the Streets program, and informally, through his onetime teacher.
“They talk about him being locked up,” said Pinder, who was an associate dean at Ballou High School when Robinson was a student. “He was. But he paid his time, and he came back out and changed the community.”
Outrage over Robinson’s killing spilled into the streets last week after the release of body-camera footage of the shooting. Videos show officers responding to reports of a car crashing into a Southeast Washington McDonald’s and finding Robinson unresponsive inside a banged-up Mercedes. A handgun, according to police, was seen in his lap.
In the videos, police move in as Robinson stirs, shouting at him to keep his hands off the weapon. He rolls the driver’s side window partway down and is met with a gun. Robinson reaches toward it — and, according to police, grabs it — and an officer threatens to shoot him in his “[expletive] face.” Moments later, the officer fires 10 shots, while a second officer fires another.
Two weeks later, much about the incident remains unknown. But as a funeral was held for Robinson on Thursday, a portrait was emerging of a man who from a young age found himself, as he once put it, both “behind the gun and in front of the gun” — and yet was seen by many as holding untold promise.
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The Washington Post reviewed records from Robinson’s criminal case and talked to people who knew him at different points in his life, including his teachers, mentors and young people he tried to help. One of them was Jesiah, who said meeting Robinson inspired him recently to stay late at school, where he used a computer to sign up for a College Board account and pore over universities.
The high school freshman recalled the advice Robinson gave him: “Stay consistent, don’t get into the streets, be myself and do what I have to do to make my family proud.”
It’s a conversation he’s continued to replay in recent days as he’s watched people around him mourn and march and call for “Justice for Justin.”
‘I know what the pain is like’
For Robinson, violence had long been a part of life.
The mama’s boy in a pair of twins, each given “J” names, he had spent much of his childhood in a part of Congress Heights that many refer to as “MLK” or “Da K.” Prosecutors described the area in a 2021 drug trafficking conspiracy case as “one of the most notorious in the city in terms of drug and gun violence.”
Robinson’s father was in and out of his life, according to court records. But his mother, who worked as an apartment leasing officer, raised him with “a lot of love” in a home where other kids often gathered, said family friend Shawn Roberts. The twins were so close that Roberts still refers to them as a unit.
He remembers telling Robinson: “There’s a difference between you and other people: You have a strong foundation. You have a great mother looking after you.”
The Post attempted to reach several of Robinson’s family members. An attorney for the family said they were not yet ready to speak to reporters.
People who knew Robinson described seeing in him a softness. Ephrame Kassaye, the owner of Mellon Market in MLK, remembers a 10-year-old Robinson walking around the neighborhood, full of warmth. “I love you,” Kassaye would tell him. He would reply: “I love you more.”
Childhood friend TaRajah Ruffin said Robinson would walk him to the bus stop after football practice, because even though they never mentioned it, the area could be intimidating at night.
There were just two years between them. But Ruffin looked up to Robinson, whom he called Twin.
“He just was a real powerful person,” he said. “It’s a small city with a lot of attitudes and pride. He was one of the ones that, oh, if he says something, everybody was kind of like, ‘Okay, it’s Twin saying it, all right.’”
Justin Robinson, left, stands with his godfather, Sheldon Pinder, right, at Ballou High School in Washington, D.C. (Video: Courtesy Sheldon Pinder)
Former staff at Ballou High School said Robinson helped break up fights and counsel teens. But he was also running into trouble of his own, getting arrested and suspended twice and ultimately switching to his school’s alternative program. In court records, he’s described as saying he saw friends and family pass in and out of jail and decided he could make a name for himself being tough.
Pinder, the former associate dean, chalks it up to Robinson falling into the wrong crowd. He was a kid who was “living life to what the youth think life is supposed to be — getting money and living without a care in the world.”
After Robinson’s older brother, Robert Brandon, was shot to death in 2016, it was hard to tell how the then-16-year-old was feeling, said Angela Nivens, the former dean of students at Ballou.
“He had known so much at such a young age,” she said. “It’s like he carried that weight.”
For his brother’s funeral on Feb. 24, 2016, Robinson wore a brand new all-white outfit. He was still wearing those clothes when he stopped at a convenience store and bumped shoulders with Demetrius Medlay, who was from a rival neighborhood, according to court records. The two exchanged words. Robinson left, court documents say, and returned 10 minutes later with a gun he flashed before driving off.
A man from his neighborhood, Kevin Grover, was standing at a corner. Passing him, Robinson said Grover could “smoke him.” Minutes later, Grover shot Medlay twice in the chest with a semiautomatic weapon. The 22-year-old collapsed outside of the store and was soon pronounced dead.
After pleading guilty in 2018 to assault with intent to kill, Robinson told a court official that he learned to be smarter, more patient — to not associate himself with “just anybody.” Of Medlay’s loved ones, he said, “I am sorry for their loss. I have lost multiple family members and friends and I know what the pain is like to grieve and to want justice.”
He was sentenced to five years and spent time in federal prison, followed by a stint in a halfway house. On the first day of 2022, he walked out a free man, and by April of this year, he was working for Cure the Streets. He said in a video shared on social media that he wanted to show people there was “more to life than going to go grab a gun.”
On the day he died of gunshot wounds, he was wearing the program’s black and yellow jacket, with the city’s flag on the sleeve.
‘Credibility, relationships and influence’
The thinking behind Cure the Streets, a program overseen by the D.C. attorney general’s office, is one that guides similar programs across the country: Sometimes the people best positioned to help fight gun violence are those who have lost loved ones or their freedom to it.
The initiative is one of several District-funded efforts that try to tackle one of the city’s most concerning issues — violent crime — by building relationships with the people considered most at risk of being swept into it. Another is called Credible Messenger, which is administered through the city’s Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services.
Launched in 2018, Cure the Streets aims to stop retaliatory shootings and mediate problems between beefing neighborhood groups. Program officials look to hire violence interrupters who have “credibility, relationships and influence” in high-violence neighborhoods and train them in conflict resolution, according to a city summary. They often recruit people who were formerly incarcerated and want to use their influence for good.
Nivens, the former Ballou High School dean of students, saw Robinson’s involvement in the program as fulfilling a conversation they had after his arrest. Standing in her office, she asked whether he would turn his experience into an opportunity or let it fester. At first he didn’t say much, just shrugged. Nivens remembers saying everything would be okay and telling him: “You do believe that, though, right? You have to believe it for it to happen.”
She recalled holding both of his hands as he smiled and told her, “No, I believe. I believe.”
Although community violence interruption programs have seen results in other cities, their effectiveness locally remains unclear. A report by the D.C. auditor found that some community leaders could point to cases of violence interrupters bringing peace; others did not even know they existed. University of Maryland and Johns Hopkins University researchers said they are conducting a review of the city’s programs but that it’s too early to share results.
The programs have faced additional scrutiny in recent weeks following the arrest of D.C. Council member Trayon White Sr. (D-Ward 8), who is accused of accepting bribes over contracts centered on violence interruption. White’s indictment focuses on his relationship with an organization that had contracts with the Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement and the Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services. Cure the Streets has not been mentioned in his case.
During a Monday news conference in which authorities released footage of the Robinson shooting, D.C. Police Chief Pamela A. Smith praised the programs, describing their efforts to mediate and resolve conflicts as “instrumental” to the work of her agency.
‘Violence is just not the way’
Outside the Marion Barry Avenue McDonald’s where Robinson took his last breaths, hundreds gathered more than a week ago for a vigil, releasing orange balloons into the sky.
There, his older sister said police should have been able to handle the situation without gunfire. Among the crowd were mothers of other Black men and boys killed by local law enforcement, including Pamela Brooks, whose son Amir was fatally injured fleeing from Prince George’s County police in 2014.
“This is a sorority I wouldn’t want nobody to be a part of,” she said.
The U.S. attorney’s office for D.C. is investigating Robinson’s shooting and whether charges are warranted against the officers, who have been identified as Vasco Mateus and Bryan Gilchrist. Police officials said they will review how officers are trained to respond to unresponsive people in cars with guns. Many questions remain, including what led up to the crash, why Robinson had the weapon, whether officers followed protocol and how they decided on their approach.
Meanwhile, the killing has reverberated across the city’s Black neighborhoods, inflaming long-standing tensions between police and the communities they are sworn to serve. By the time the body-camera footage was released, simmering tensions boiled over as people took to the streets to protest. Police said they were investigating whether a handful of overnight burglaries and attempted burglaries at local businesses were connected to the demonstrations.
Another protest came Tuesday, when more than a hundred people marched between the 7th District police station and the McDonald’s where Robinson was shot. Around 10 p.m., D.C. police said, some people threw bottles and rocks at officers, leading to several arrests. But for most of the night, the protest was peaceful, with people carrying signs calling for justice and locking arms in a show of unity.
When word of Robinson’s death reached the mother still grieving the son whose killing sent Robinson to prison, she felt no urge to join those marching. Tiffany Medlay said her first thought, instead, was, “An eye for an eye.”
She viewed Robinson as having played a pivotal role in her child’s death. It hurt to watch people fight for him when, she said, “nobody fought for my son.”
After seeing the police footage, though, she thought of Robinson’s mother. Her feelings grew more nuanced.
“When I saw them shooting him, it broke my heart,” she said. “It really made me feel some type of way. I was really upset. So I just want people to know that violence is just not the way.”
In Pinder’s view, Robinson had been working toward that same cause. He acknowledged not knowing all the details of his former student’s “run-ins with the law.”
But he had seen so much potential — in Robinson as a child coming up under tough circumstances and in Robinson as a man trying to keep young people from making the same mistakes he had.
Pinder spent part of Wednesday with three boys he had introduced to Robinson, each with a story to tell.
There was 12-year-old Quintus, who did not want to share his last name. When Robinson found out about his slipping grades, he said, Robinson promised him $20 for every A and $10 for every B. Quintus ended up making the sixth-grade honor roll.
There was 11-year-old Da’Kahri Richardson, who said Robinson had “a very positive attitude, and it made me want to be positive.”
There was his brother Da’Zari Richardson, 10, who said Robinson showed him how to “do better for myself and do better for others, too.”
Pinder listened as those children talked about the differences Robinson had made in their lives. He then took the next day off from teaching. He spent it at Robinson’s funeral, then in a park on Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue, where Robinson’s friends and family gathered to celebrate his life."
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