On the morning of Tuesday, March 18, 2025, a dispute outside a shoe store on the 3000 block of Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue, Southeast, in Washington, D.C., turned fatal. Derrick Howard, a 39-year-old male from Baltimore, Maryland, was shot and killed at approximately 11:00 a.m. When Seventh District officers arrived at the scene, they found Howard unconscious and not breathing, suffering from a life-threatening gunshot wound.
Despite the life-saving efforts of the emergency responders, he was pronounced dead.
The investigation into the death of Derrick Howard led detectives to identify a suspect. On Wednesday, September 17, 2025, the Metropolitan Police Department arrested 31-year-old Andre Townsend of Upper Marlboro, Maryland, in connection with the shooting. Townsend was subsequently charged with Second Degree Murder While Armed.
Court documents revealed that the altercation leading to the shooting stemmed from a dispute between two groups gathered outside a shoe store for a new item release. During a court hearing, a detective testified that surveillance footage showed a man, identified as Townsend, raising his arm as shots were fired, and the victim, Derrick Howard, falling to the ground. The identification of Townsend as the shooter was reportedly made by three independent witnesses who were shown a photo array and Instagram pictures. While Townsend could not be directly identified from the surveillance video, cell phone data placed him in the area of the shooting at the time of the incident. A judge found probable cause to move forward with the charges against Andre Townsend.
