H.D. Woodson basketball player shot hours after big double OT playoff win

WASHINGTON - A D.C. high school basketball player was shot and wounded near his home in Northeast Thursday night. It happened just hours after his No. 1-ranked team won in a double-overtime thriller.

Kavon Montgomery plays for the undefeated H.D. Woodson Warriors and played a significant role in the team's win. He scored 8 points in the huge win over Gonzaga in the D.C. State Athletic Association tournament semifinal game at Verizon Center that kept the team undefeated.

Woodson is scheduled to meet Friendship Collegiate in the championship game at the Smith Center at George Washington University on Sunday.

If the Warriors win, it will be the first time a city school has gone undefeated since 1985.

But after the game Thursday night, Montgomery was in his Clay Terrace neighborhood and shot in the back. It left his mother deeply shaken.

"All I know, I came from work, I got a phone call saying that my son was shot … and the boy told me, 'Come and get your child,'" said Percellia Montgomery. "They said my son was arguing with somebody. They was fussing and arguing."

According to the police report, the 18-year-old was shot in a parking lot off 54th Street, NE. According to his mother, he then ran for safety.

Percellia Montgomery said all sorts of thoughts raced through her mind as she dashed for home.

"My child was going to be dead," she said. "What could you tell me when you kill my child? I don't have an understanding when you take my child away from me. I'm sick and tired of this. I'm tired of all these people getting killed. Something needs to stop. It needs to end."

The police report says the teenager did not see the shooter and did not know who did it.

But his mother said her son was was trading insults with another man when he was hit with a graze wound to the back. She thinks her son knows who did it, but he isn't saying.

As for Sunday and the upcoming championship game? Montgomery's mother said her son will be on the court.

"I think my son is going to make it," she said. "I want out of the projects. I want out of here. It's time to go."

The neighborhood where Montgomery lives has struggled with crime over the years. There have been several police shootings in the last year.

According to D.C. police's crime mapping program, there were three murders in the same area where Montgomery was shot in the last year. In addition, there have been 23 robberies and more than 27 armed with a dangerous weapon crimes.