Tarek Boothe, a 27-year-old Black man from Alexandria, Virginia, poured his energy into cooking, art, and family, building a life that friends and relatives describe as full of warmth and promise. Loved ones later wrote that he was an aspiring chef and artist whose presence brought joy to the people around him, a devoted son and brother who often stepped into a father-figure role for his younger sister.
On the evening of January 31, 2022, Boothe’s workday at a marijuana dispensary tucked off a Georgetown alleyway came to a troubled end. He and a coworker, Ranje Wade Chin Reynolds of Beltsville, Maryland, had worked together at the dispensary at 1204 Eton Court for about two years, and the two men were considered friends. According to prosecutors, something between them ruptured that night; an argument flared at work, simmered, and then followed them out into the winter streets of Washington, D.C.
Shortly after 6 p.m., Boothe left the dispensary and walked toward the heart of Georgetown, making his way to the corner of 33rd and M Street NW near the 3200 block of M Street, a bustling strip of shops, restaurants, and heavy commuter traffic. There, in the middle of the early-evening rush, he perched on a low wall to wait for his ride home, unaware that the earlier dispute had turned deadly in the mind of the man he had once trusted as a friend. Witnesses later described the scene as ordinary Georgetown chaos—shoppers, students, workers heading home—until it was pierced by sudden violence.
Investigators and prosecutors said Reynolds followed Boothe from the dispensary to the corner, sat down beside him for a short time, and then walked away, only to return seconds later with a gun. In what one student witness later characterized as an execution-style act, Reynolds raised the weapon and shot Boothe in the eye at close range, a single blast that left him gravely wounded on the sidewalk. The impact knocked him from his seat, creating a long trail of blood along M Street that crime-scene specialists would later trace as they documented the aftermath. Despite rapid medical response and transport to a hospital, Boothe died from a gunshot wound to the head not long after the attack.
The shooting stunned Georgetown. Police officers who responded around 6:12–6:15 p.m. found Boothe unconscious in a corridor that is both a high-end shopping destination and a busy commuter route. The city’s police chief publicly described the attack as targeted, and detectives quickly released surveillance images of a person of interest, asking the public for help. The Metropolitan Police Department issued a reward flier offering up to $25,000 for information leading to an arrest and conviction, turning Boothe’s photograph into a citywide plea for answers as his family grappled with the shock of losing him on a crowded street where they had once walked together.
While family and friends mourned and raised funds for funeral expenses, the man suspected of pulling the trigger disappeared. Evidence presented in court later showed that Reynolds left the United States just days after the killing, flying to Jamaica on February 3, 2022. For months, the case hung under the shadow of his absence as investigators worked with federal partners and international authorities. The break came on August 16, 2022, when Reynolds was arrested in Kingston, Jamaica, on a U.S. warrant charging him with first-degree premeditated murder in Boothe’s slaying. He was extradited to Washington and made his first appearance in D.C. Superior Court, where he was ordered held while the case moved toward trial.
At trial, jurors heard from former coworkers, an ex-girlfriend, police officers, and bystanders who had crossed paths with Reynolds in the hours surrounding the shooting. One witness described picking him up in Georgetown that night despite the heavy police presence, while another recounted the chilling way he left the scene as if nothing extraordinary had occurred. Prosecutors argued that the conflict at the dispensary was trivial compared with the devastation that followed, saying Boothe “just wanted to go home to his family” when he was hunted down on M Street. After reviewing the evidence, a jury found Reynolds guilty on May 5, 2025, of first-degree murder while armed and a related firearm offense in connection with Boothe’s death.
The courtroom filled again on October 31, 2025, for sentencing, this time with anguished voices from Boothe’s family echoing through the proceedings. His mother described her son as uplifting and good-natured and spoke of the agony of burying a child who had been left alone on a city sidewalk to die. A cousin read statements from his sisters, one of whom likened his death to a “black hole” that swallowed their family’s future, while another recalled suffering a panic attack when she learned her brother had been killed. Judge Jason Park, moved by their words and by what he called the substantial premeditation involved in the crime, sentenced Reynolds to 48 years in prison, followed by supervised release and gun-offender registration. In the judge’s view, Reynolds had walked away from a “tragedy that has caused a life sentence of heartache and sorrow,” leaving those who loved Boothe to carry the weight of his absence far beyond the courtroom walls.
