A 28-year-old man was arrested Wednesday in the October fatal shooting of a former aide to a D.C. Council member, according to police, who said in a court affidavit that the accused gunman thought his grandmother had been disrespected by the victim.
Deandre Miles, 28, surrendered to D.C. police and was charged with first-degree murder in the death of DaVon Fuller, also 28, who grew up in the District and graduated from Dunbar High School and the University of Massachusetts.
Fuller was a star football player at both schools and went on to work on D.C. political campaigns and in constituent services for D.C. Council member Brianne K. Nadeau (D-Ward 1).
But a gun arrest and the death of Fuller’s mother derailed his promising career, and his family said he fell on hard times. A man who had been seen as an inspiration in the community became another entry in the District’s 2023 homicide log. He was shot Oct. 16 outside a dry-cleaning store in the 1500 block of Maryland Avenue NE, near Starburst Plaza.
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Two days before he was slain, police said, Fuller was arrested and charged with threatening to kill people after he became angry that his bank card had been rejected at a store in Starburst Plaza. “The system is broken if DaVon Fuller can’t make it,” David Tansey, one of Fuller’s teachers and a mentor at Dunbar, said after his death. “He was a gentleman and a scholar.”
On the afternoon of Oct. 16, police said in arrest warrant affidavit, Fuller and Miles argued inside a check-cashing store. According to the affidavit, a witness told investigators that Fuller approached Miles’s grandmother in the store. The witness said Fuller asked the grandmother, “What you looking at, b----?” The witness told police, “That’s where it started.”
In a statement to police after his arrest, Miles said Fuller “walked up his grandmother almost face-to-face and had his hand on something in his pocket,” according to the affidavit. It says Miles told police that he got between Fuller and his grandmother. But another witness in the check-cashing store told investigators that Fuller did not antagonize anyone.
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Police said in the affidavit that both men left the store and ended up in the bread aisle of a neighboring grocery store, where they again squared off — Miles with a gun and Fuller with a knife — until an employee urged them to leave.
Police said it appears from surveillance video that Miles left the store first and waited for Fuller to exit. The affidavit says Fuller pointed the knife at Miles, who had the gun by his side. Police said the two “postured” as they walked, parallel to each other, until they reached the dry-cleaning shop.
The affidavit says Fuller was walking in front of the storefronts, holding the knife at his right side, while Miles stood on a curb. As Fuller walked by, police said in the affidavit, Miles “begins shooting” at him. The affidavit says Fuller “does not do anything with the knife as he walks past the defendant.”
But Miles told investigators that he fired the gun after he “saw the decedent’s hand start to rise as if he had something in his hand,” according to the affidavit.
A D.C. Superior Court judge ordered Miles detained pending a preliminary hearing Jan. 9. Efforts to reach his attorney for comment were not successful.
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