A man who was fatally shot by a deputy U.S. marshal earlier this week in Northeast Washington had a gun and was threatening a woman outside a convenience store before the deadly confrontation, D.C. police said Friday in releasing new details of the incident.
At least one of the marshals on patrol as part of a federal surge of law enforcement in the District reported that 43-year-old Julian Marquette Bailey pointed a gun directly at law enforcement. Bailey’s father disputes that account but said his son carried a firearm.
The new details provided by D.C. police, including a chronology of the incident and an official report, offer insight into the shooting that occurred Wednesday afternoon in the Mayfair neighborhood along D.C. Route 295.
The D.C. police department’s Internal Affairs Bureau’s Force Investigations Team is looking into the incident and will submit its findings to the U.S. attorney’s office, which will determine whether criminal charges are warranted. The U.S. Marshals Service will investigate to determine whether the deputies acted according to their internal policies.
A spokesman for the U.S. Marshals Service said the deputies involved in the incident were wearing body cameras. Video from those cameras has not been made public. The federal surge of officers in D.C., along with immigration actions in cities across the country, particularly in Minneapolis, have raised concerns about heavy-handed tactics that often do not appear to conform to practices by local law enforcement.
Members of the U.S. Marshals Service typically target fugitives wanted on arrest warrants. On Wednesday, they had partnered with U.S. Park Police as part of an effort by President Donald Trump to confront crime in D.C.
The DC Justice Lab, an activist group that advocates for progressive, alternatives to policing said in a statement that District residents “should not be placed at risk because multiple law enforcement agencies show up in our neighborhoods and operate on their own terms without clear and consistent local oversight.”
The spokesman for the Marshals Service declined to comment on the statement.
On Wednesday afternoon, the marshals were on or near Hayes Street NE when they overheard a D.C. police dispatch for an altercation involving a firearm inside a Circle 7 convenience store, officials said.
A U.S. Marshals spokesman described it as an armed robbery call. In a report, D.C. police said a woman called alleging Bailey had been in a “heated dispute” with her and that he followed her to a car and brandished a firearm.
The woman called D.C. police, who responded to the store. The marshals, in a vehicle, overheard the call and went after Bailey in his gray Honda Odyssey, apparently ramming one of the side doors. Bailey got out and “pointed right at us,” the spokesman for the Marshals Service said. D.C. police said its officers were not at the shooting scene.
Bailey’s father, 70-year-old Gibson Bailey, said his son had likely been in Mayfair looking for marijuana to ease the pain of a torn rotator cuff. He said his son recently started carrying a firearm, saying he needed it for protection in the rough area of Northeast Washington where he lived. He said be believes his son would not have threatened police with a gun.
“I’m thinking they saw the firearm and started shooting,” the elder Bailey said. A woman who took video of the aftermath provided it to Bailey’s family, but it only shows what happened after the shooting, not the confrontation itself.
The elder Bailey said he wants a fair and thorough investigation.
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