An eighth grader on his way to an after-school program was fatally shot Thursday afternoon after stopping to talk with a friend at a Metro station, the victim's mother told News4.
The victim, 14-year-old Avion Evans, attended Ida B. Wells Middle School.
Police say someone pulled out a gun and fired into a small crowd of teens who were fighting on the platform at the Brookland station, located at 860 Monroe St. NE. Security officers were on the platform when Evans was shot and were able to get other riders to safety, Metro Transit Police Deputy Chief Maurice McKinney said.
Medics rushed Evans to a hospital, but he didn't survive.
Avion's mother, India Wells, said she got a call about the shooting from one of Avion's friends. She rushed to the station. Now, she says, she's just trying not to fall apart.
D.C. police are still looking for the shooter. They quickly released a few photos of the suspect but don’t know who he is.
Wells sat on the front porch of her Northeast D.C. home Friday and asked a question that at the moment has no answer: Why did the gunman fire into the crowd?
"And that’s what hurts the most, because why? Why? I don’t understand. I don’t understand. Why? Why?" Wells asked. "I am at a loss for words."
She said Avion was not someone who got into many fights and so she keeps asking the same question.
"Losing my son to violence? My son wouldn’t harm nobody," she said. "Now he would defend himself, but, you know, he was a sweet kid. He was very smart, intelligent, very debative. A little bit arrogant," she added with a rueful chuckle. "Just keeping it real, but he was a good kid."
Wells said her son was on his way to an after-school program and had stopped to see a friend at the Brookland Metro station when he was shot. She has looked at the photos of the suspected shooter but said she doesn’t recognize him.
Police say the gunman and all the other teens on the platform ran after he opened fire.
"To pull out guns and to think that it's OK to take somebody off this Earth — like, you don’t know what you're taking from a family?" Wells said. "Put the shoe on the other foot. What if that’s your family? You have to think about your brother, your mom, your sister, like — anything can happen, so you've got to come to your senses and think before you act."
Wells said Avion loved to run track, work with computer graphics and debate.
She said hopes police make a swift arrest.
Wells said Avion had recently lost two of his brothers. When asked about the circumstances, she said she wasn't ready to talk about what happened.
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