City contractor shot to death while installing security cameras at DC pool

WASHINGTON - A mother is heartbroken after someone shot and killed her 24-year-old son while he was working to install a surveillance system at a Northeast D.C. pool.

Daymond Chicas was a third-party contract worker for the District. He was working at the Kelly Miller Pool when he was shot Monday afternoon over a cellphone in what may have been a robbery set up by children.

The grief is still too raw for Brenda Lopez as she is still grappling with the reality that her youngest child was killed.

"They killed him like a dog," Lopez said in Spanish.

"They just kind of attacked him to get the stuff that they wanted from him," said the victim's aunt. "Something that he worked hard for.

Just after lunch on Monday, Chicas and a group of contract workers were laying the electrical work for security cameras at the pool. Witnesses said two kids who looked to be roughly 10 years old stole Chicas' cellphone.

Chicas and another worker ran after the kids up some steps and to a dirt path. The children returned the phone, but as Chicas walked back to the pool, he was confronted by an unknown man who pulled out a gun and shot him in the stomach.

Chicas' mother said as her son lie on the ground, the suspect shot him yet again.

"Over a cellphone and $20," she said. "They had no reason to kill him."

Chicas grew up in Manassas and graduated from Stonewall Jackson High School. He was a young man with a bright future that was cut short over a cellphone. His family said it was a phone that he was already looking to replace.

"I think we are still in shock because he was literally home on Friday," said Chicas' aunt.

"He was a good kid," said the victim's mother. "Why did they kill him? He didn't deserve that death."

Like many homicides throughout the city, it was ShotSpotter that alerted police about the shooting.

So far this year, there have been 70 homicides compared to 46 of them at the same time last year.

Chicas' death happened in the middle of the day in a neighborhood of Northeast D.C. that is under D.C. police's Summer Crime Prevention Initiative. This means this was an already high-crime area and police were deploying more resources to this neighborhood in order to try to drive crime down.