Vitina Palmer was driving her 22-year-old grandson from a U.S. Park Police station house in Southeast Washington on Monday when they noticed a white Tesla following them.
The grandson, Asheile Foster, had been arrested on a drug charge the day before. After he was freed pending trial by a judge, they returned to the station in her black Ford Fusion sedan to pick up a watch and a sweatshirt that had been seized.
What followed was a tense encounter detailed in court documents and Palmer’s account in a Wednesday interview that tied what authorities describe as an ambush-style shooting of a Park Police officer Monday night with another shooting that occurred a few days earlier near an Eid al-Fitr celebration to mark the end of Ramadan.
As they left the police station that evening, Palmer said they noticed the white Tesla in the parking lot. She said the Tesla’s driver appeared to follow her as she pulled her 10-year-old car out of the lot with Foster in the front passenger seat.
Palmer, 59, said they didn’t know who was tailing them and became fearful.
She turned on streets big and small — and wide, like Pennsylvania Avenue in Southeast, and fast, as in the portion of Route 295 skirting the Anacostia River — during an eight-mile trip to a relative’s home on Queens Stroll Place SE in D.C’s Marshall Heights neighborhood.
The unmarked Tesla with dark tinted windows stayed behind her, following every twist and turn, Palmer recounted.
Once at the house, she said, Foster got out of the car and approached the Tesla, which had also stopped. He shouted: “Who are you?” and “Roll down your window, roll down your window,” she said.
“Then I heard gunshots,” Palmer said. “I dove to the ground.”
Driving the Tesla was an undercover U.S. Park Police officer. Two law enforcement officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation, said on Wednesday that Foster was being surveilled because police believe he is acquainted with a suspect in a shooting on Friday outside a roller skating pavilion in a federal park along the Anacostia River near where an Eid al-Fitr celebration had been held. An affidavit filed in federal court on Wednesday confirms Park Police were surveilling Foster in connection with that shooting but did not say why.
The officer, whose identity has not been revealed, was wounded in the left shoulder in the 7:30 p.m. shooting. The affidavit said 33 bullet casings labeled “blackout” from an AR-15 style assault rifle and nine casings from a 9mm handgun were found scattered in the street. The Tesla Model Y was struck numerous times, according to the affidavit, including in the side driver’s side window and door, the rear bumper and the trunk.
The officer quickly radioed, “I am hit but I am good,” the affidavit says.
Palmer said she didn’t see who opened fire. On Tuesday, D.C. police charged Foster and his 21-year-old brother, Darren Foster, with assault on a federal police officer while using a gun. The affidavit alleges both fired at the Tesla.
U.S. Park Police Chief Scott Brecht described the attack as an ambush. D.C. interim police chief Jeffery Carroll said, “The officer was targeted inside the vehicle.” Palmer said neither she nor her grandson knew or suspected the Tesla driver was a police officer; but she said they believed they were being followed and they were scared.
A spokesman for the U.S. Park Police declined to comment on Palmer’s account, saying, “We do not confirm details or provide comments on ongoing criminal investigations.” But the 24-page affidavit filed to support charges against the brothers largely confirms her account, and adds many additional details. Authorities would not discuss why a Telsa was used in the operation.
Palmer denied her grandson was involved in the Friday shooting, but she said Asheile Foster was at the park at the time of the shooting participating in the festival marking the end of the Ramadan fast. The law enforcement officials said the officer who was shot was one of the investigators at that shooting. Authorities have said they found no link between the festival and the shooting.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Moxila A. Upadhyaya on Wednesday ordered that Asheile Foster and Darren Foster remain detained and set another hearing for both defendants for Thursday. Their attorneys did not respond to emailed requests for comment.
Asheile Foster had his first of two most recent run-ins with Park Police on Sunday. An affidavit filed in D.C. Superior Court says that he was arrested during a narcotics enforcement operation in the Congress Heights neighborhood of Southeast D.C.
Detectives said they found on Foster clear plastic bags with fentanyl and alprazolam, the generic term for Xanax. He was charged with two counts of unlawful distribution of illegal drugs and two counts of unlawful possession with intent to distribute illegal drugs. The court affidavit says that the officer who was shot the following day led the team that arrested Asheile Foster on Sunday, though there is no indication that the Foster brothers knew or could have known that.
Asheile Foster made an initial appearance in D.C. Superior Court on the drug charge Monday afternoon, where a judge ordered him to be released pending trial. Palmer said she drove her grandson after that hearing from the courthouse to the Park Police operations center in Anacostia to retrieve his belongings.
She said she felt something awry as she pulled out of the police station parking lot to head to the house on Queens Stroll that is owned by her relatives. She lives elsewhere in D.C. She said she made several turns before getting onto Route 295, and “I still noticed the car going the same way.” After getting off Route 295 and onto Pennsylvania Avenue SE, she said she took another series of turns, and “I still noticed that car going the same way.”
Palmer said she eventually turned on to East Capitol Street, and then on to Benning Road, near the home, and told her grandson, “‘I noticed this car following me.’ He said, ‘Grandma, I notice it too.’” Palmer said she saw police officers on Benning Road and nearly stopped to report the suspicious activity. Instead, she drove the few remaining blocks to the house on Queens Stroll Place, taking a circuitous route.
“I made a right turn, then a left turn, then another right turn,” she said. Palmer said that when she stopped in front the house, so did the Tesla. She got out of her Ford Fusion, as did her grandson, who approached the vehicle. That’s when Palmer said she heard gunshots and dove to the ground.
“We did not know he was a police officer,” Palmer said. “I thought it was another regular citizen. … Right now, this is all shocking to me.”
The affidavit provides additional details to this account, including statements from Darren Foster who police said told them he was alerted to the fact a Tesla was following the vehicle occupied by his grandmother and brother, and a third person who is apparently friends with the brothers. Darren Foster declined to tell police who alerted him, but the affidavit says it had to be either Asheile Foster or his grandmother; the grandmother said she did not call but doesn’t know who did.
“Darren Foster was informed that Darren Foster’s family member was being followed and to come outside,” the affidavit says.
A police surveillance camera captured a man identified as Darren Foster appear to shoot at the Tesla, showing him in the street with raised arms and a muzzle flash at the end. About the same time, the court document says Asheile Foster jumped out of the Ford Fusion and stood in the middle of the road, forcing the officer driving the Tesla to swerve around him. It appears Asheile Foster kicked the Tesla and it went by him, the affidavit says.
About the same time, the court document alleges another person with the Foster brothers handed Asheile Foster what appears to be the assault-style weapon, which police assert he fired at the Tesla as it sped away.
After the shooting, police said in the affidavit officers found a black backpack wedged between a rear fence near an alley that contained a rifle-style firearm. In the attic of the home, police said they found a Glock 19 9mm handgun loaded with 17 bullets. In a bedroom, authorities said they found a 3D printer to build part of an AR-15 assault rifle, along with additional ammunition.
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