Johnson, 23, an African-American mother of two, was shot in the chest at point-blank range by policeman John Fitch, who is white. Fitch has been placed on administrative leave with full pay while the D.C. police department investigates the shooting.

The June 7 rally is the second major action called to demand justice for Johnson. A May 14 march from the Galen Terrace apartment complex—where Johnson was killed as she stepped from her apartment into the hallway—to the Seventh Precinct police station drew nearly 200 people. Made up initially of friends and fellow residents of Galen Terrace, the action drew in dozens of passersby and onlookers as it made its way to the local police headquarters.

Other smaller demonstrations have taken place in the complex itself, including an April 28 candlelight vigil the Monday following her murder, where residents spoke out in protest against the killing by the cops. Below the window of Johnson’s first-floor apartment residents maintain a memorial to her made up of flowers and stuffed animals.

In an attempt to justify the shooting, Fitch and three other cops on the scene claim Johnson had a gun and refused to drop it when ordered to do so.

Galen Terrace residents, however, tell a different story. The May 10 Washington Post reported that attorneys for Johnson’s family, Gregory Lattimer and Malik Shabazz, announced at a news conference that they had three witnesses, including a six-year-old girl, who maintain Johnson had her hands up and was unarmed when Fitch shot her.

Numerous residents of the apartment complex told the same story to Militant reporters who have visited the scene. Dacia Hammonds, the mother of the six-year-old who witnessed the killing, said her daughter is traumatized by what she saw.

“She keeps saying over and over, ‘Thank you, Charquisa,’” Hammonds said. “She just doesn’t understand why the media doesn’t report the story the way she saw it.”

Hammonds, Deborah Timms, and Rochelle Dobbins described to the Militant the sequence of events that led to the murder. Police, they said, were responding to reported gunfire near 15th and V Streets SE. Spotting two youths in the area, they followed them into the apartment complex. Children in the complex had been playing with firecrackers throughout the day. Anticipating the danger posed by confused cops, residents called out to them as they drove into the complex that the noise they were hearing was from firecrackers.

One of the four white officers in the car, Fitch, got out and followed the two teenagers into their building. Their apartment was next to Johnson’s. Hearing the discussion in the hallway, Johnson emerged from her apartment to find out what was taking place. Fitch turned and fired without warning, striking her in the chest, witnesses said.

Adding insult to injury, residents recount, the cop turned Johnson face down, placed his knee in her spine and cuffed her hands behind her back. Almost an hour elapsed before an ambulance arrived to take her on a half-hour journey to Howard University Hospital. Johnson was pronounced dead shortly after her arrival.

For more information on the June 7 demonstration, call (202) 726-0029.

John Hawkins is a member of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 400. Glova Scott contributed to this article.  
 
 
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