A week ago the Washington Post reported on a case of fraud that took place at an anti-violence group supported by the Washington, DC government. The group was called Life Deeds and according to the report its employees used hundreds of thousands of dollars paid to the group by the city to fund their own lifestyles.
It was 2023, homicides in D.C. were spiking to levels not seen in a generation, and the city was spending millions of dollars to deploy violence interrupters to the neighborhoods where shootings were endemic. They were paid to persuade people to put down their guns, in some cases succeeding...
The D.C. government awarded Life Deeds $3.6 million in violence prevention grants over the course of 15 months from October 2023 through December 2024. The group used more than $411,000 of that money to hire businesses owned by or linked to its own employees or their family members, according to a Post review of thousands of pages of financial records for Life Deeds.
Using taxpayer funds, Life Deeds held events or activities — promoted as opportunities for trust building, community bonding and education — that included lavish dinners, go-karting trips to New Jersey and an alcohol-filled pool party where Life Deeds hired its employees’ companies to provide decorations, refreshments and DJ services, records show.
At the same time, the D.C. government was reimbursing the then executive director of Life Deeds, Allieu Kamara, twice each month for rent on the same building, paying him or his company $60,000 in duplicate payments over one year, according to invoices the group submitted to the city.
Allieu Kamara would eventually plead guilty to fraud and bribery. He gave bribes to a DC city council member who allegedly promised to direct more violence intervention money toward Life Deeds. The city finally cut ties with Life Deeds in December 2024.
The city agency that hands out these grants is called Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement (ONSE). They also employed a group called Progressive Life Center to oversee the distribution of money to these outside violence intervention groups. The city has also cut ties with Progressive Life Center.
Today the Post published a related story about a recent arrest in a murder case. The latest suspect charged had previous worked at Life Deeds. In fact he worked there in 2023 when the murder took place.
A man tasked by the D.C. government with quelling street conflicts as a “violence interrupter” has been charged with first-degree murder in the 2023 killing of a former college basketball star from Baltimore who was shot inside a nightclub.
The 43-year-old suspect, Frank Johnson, is the second man arrested in the homicide of 31-year-old Blake Bozeman inside the Cru Lounge in Northeast Washington, along one of the city’s nightlife corridors. The other suspect also worked as a violence interrupter at the time of the shooting...
Johnson previously worked for Life Deeds, according to documents The Post obtained through a records request. He was terminated from Life Deeds in December 2023, three months after the fatal shooting of Bozeman, after he was charged with an unrelated felony gun possession offense. Johnson was convicted — only to be rehired as a violence interrupter last year for a different organization receiving D.C. government grant funds. Now, he has been fired again following the murder charge, according to the Rev. Judie Shepherd-Gore, the executive director of InnerCity Collaborative Community Development Corporation, where Johnson had worked as a violence interrupter since last year...
In an arrest affidavit filed in D.C. Superior Court, police allege that a gunman — whom police now say was Johnson — fired nine times into the bar’s dimly lit second-floor dance floor, striking Bozeman twice and wounding three others. About 50 patrons scattered as gunfire continued, according to the affidavit.
The violence interrupter fired into a crowd and shot four people, killing Bozeman. The other man arrested for the murder also worked for violence intervention groups.
Fueled by his own brushes with the law and a desire to be a role model for his son, Cotey Wynn began working to prevent bloodshed in the nation’s capital after years in prison.
He joined Cure the Streets, a program run through the D.C. Office of the Attorney General, as a violence interrupter in the Trinidad neighborhood in Northeast Washington where he grew up. He helped people find jobs, brokered peace and answered late-night calls from community members in need, according to a 2020 biography on the attorney general’s website.
Now, he’s a homicide suspect.
Who knows what the Post will publish next week but based on these two stories Washington DC should shut down Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement and stop handing out money to crook and killers.
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