WASHINGTON — D.C. police shot and killed a man they say was armed after he was found asleep behind the wheel in Northeast D.C. Wednesday morning, D.C. Police Chief Robert Contee said.
Wednesday night, police identified the man as 27-year-old Antwan Gilmore of Capitol Heights, MD.
Just before 3 a.m., an individual contacted police reporting a man "unconscious" in a vehicle at a traffic light on Florida Avenue and New York Avenue. Contee said when officers arrived at the scene they noticed the man had a gun in his waistband.
Contee said officers immediately deployed a ballistic shield and attempted to wake the man up. He said at that point the man was "engaged by officers," shots were fired and the man was shot. After getting shot, the man sped off hitting a tree.
The man was taken to the hospital where he was pronounced dead, Contee said.
Jordan White, who lives in D.C., said she was driving to a friend's house who had just lost a family member around 3 a.m. She noticed the officers around the car, so she turned around and started filming on her phone.
“Nowadays, you just record when you see stuff like that," White said.
She said she saw the officers take turns tapping on the window.
"It was like the first two times they tapped and stepped back," she said. "And it was like the third time they walked up to it and tapped it. And it's like the car jerked a little.”
The video shows the car lurching forward and then stopping for a few seconds, before moving out of frame. White can be heard saying, "Oh my god!" right before WUSA9 counted 10 shots fired.
At least four to five officers engaged with the man during the encounter, Contee said, but the chief believes only one officer fired a shot. The officer was not injured in the shooting.
In White's video, WUSA9 counted at least eight officers around the car before shots were fired.
Chief Contee said at one point, the man woke up.
At this time, the initial officer's bodyworn camera view is restricted because of the ballistic shield in front of the body warn camera. Contee said investigators will have to interview the officer to get more details.
When asked if the man reached for the gun as he was being woken up, Chief Contee's answer was "it's hard to say" because the officer's shield was blocking the bodyworn camera view, again reiterating he needed to interview his officer to learn more.
“Automatically I'm like, What about his family? Like they don't even know this is going on right now," White said. "I saw somebody last moments just like that, you know, like it was just quick.”
Contee said it is unclear if the man in the car was intoxicated, but he said the man was known to law enforcement and police are working to gather additional information. ATF officials are at the scene and plan to trace the man's firearm.
WUSA9 reached out to police for comment on this new video, but they did not respond as of Wednesday night.
“If that was me, I would want somebody to have been there so you can have that, you know, for me to speak for me if I'm no longer here,” White said.
She said her 8-year-old twins were crouching down in the back seat for all of this -- one urging her to leave.
"You teach your kids that those [the police] are the people who protect you, and all that. So now I have to go back and have a conversation," White said.
D.C. law requires that body-worn camera footage be released within 72 hours.
This was the second shooting involving a DC Police officer within 24 hours.
"It's unfortunate that we have to come face-to-face with armed gunmen in our community," Contee said. "It makes the communities unsafe, it makes officers unsafe."
According to Contee, MPD has taken more than 1,400 illegal guns off D.C. streets so far this year.
Traffic was closed on eastbound and westbound New York Avenue Northeast between 4th Street Northeast and North Capitol Streets. The road has since reopened as of 8:30 a.m.
In a separate incident in D.C., the Metropolitan Police Department is investigating another shooting in Southeast by police that left a man injured.
TOP STORY: DC Police: Investigation underway after Southeast shooting involving officer leaves a man injured
According to D.C. Police Chief Robert Contee, the incident began Tuesday after officers observed alleged narcotic usage in the area. Contee said the officer told the man to leave before noticing the man may have been armed and attempted to stop him. That's when police claim the man took out the gun. Contee reports that the officer told the man to stop before the officer shot at the man.
The man shot was reportedly conscious and breathing Tuesday evening, according to the last condition update from D.C. Police. The officer was not injured in the shooting.
