On March 8, 2024, at about 12:09 p.m., officers from the Fifth District responded to the 1200 block of Mount Olivet Road NE and found 46-year-old Jimmy Thomas Jr. in an alley between a restaurant and a liquor store with gunshot wounds. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Thomas was a Northeast, DC resident and was described by family at later proceedings as active in his church and a good, happy son; his daughter was eight months pregnant at the time of his death.

Detectives from the Metropolitan Police Department’s Homicide Branch identified a suspect the same day. Twenty-seven-year-old Damon Clark, also from Northeast, DC, was arrested and initially charged with Second Degree Murder while Armed. Court records and witness testimony say the shooting followed an argument between Clark and Thomas, and surveillance video shown in court reportedly captured Clark shooting Thomas. Clark later turned himself in and cooperated with investigators.

Clark pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter while armed under a plea agreement and was sentenced to 11-and-a-half years in prison, to be followed by five years of supervised release. Did anyone in the neighborhood see or hear anything that afternoon that might add detail to the timeline?