Ronald Coleman

On a Monday in the spring of 2007, the traffic moved past 1st Street and New York Avenue in Northeast Washington, D.C., as it did on any other workday, when violence quietly reshaped everything for one man. Ronald Coleman, a 49-year-old African-American man from Washington, D.C., was killed in the area around that intersection, struck down near the crossing of 1st Street and New York Avenue NE where the city's grid opens out toward the highways.

Police later described the incident in sta ...