The man who was accused of being involved in eight dangerous crimes across an 11-hour period in Washington, D.C., had been arrested on felony charges almost two years ago to the day — but they were ultimately dropped by the U.S. attorney’s office.
Police fatally shot and killed Artell Cunningham, 28, of Suitland, Maryland, on Tuesday following a string of carjackings and shootings on Monday that hospitalized a former Donald Trump administration official, who is still in critical condition, and led to the theft of several vehicles.
Court documents from Jan. 23, 2021, show that Metropolitan Police Department officers responded to calls of a shooting at an apartment building near Anacostia and Fairlawn and located Cunningham attempting to gain access to the apartment his siblings were inside. He became “physically aggressive with officers” when officers stopped him from entering the apartment, so they detained him.
“While he was detained Defendant Cunningham advised Officers that if he wasn’t released he was going to shoot them all,” MPD Officer Erica Cephus wrote in the arrest report. “Defendant Cunningham then advised ‘I swear all I need to do is make one phone call and you all will be dead’ ‘I will kill each and every one of you.’”
Cunningham was arrested on felony threats. His charges were quickly downgraded to misdemeanor threats to do bodily harm, on the same day of his arrest, per court records. In February, the United States Attorney’s Office of the District of Columbia dropped the charges against Cunningham, and the case was closed. The U.S. attorney for D.C. at the time was interim U.S. attorney Michael R. Sherwin, who served until March 2021.
A little over two years later, on Monday, Cunningham engaged in eight dangerous criminal activities across Washington, D.C. before being fatally shot by officers in New Carrollton.
The first attack occurred around 5:45 p.m. on Monday when officers located a man shot in the head after being carjacked while sitting in his vehicle on K Street NW. The man was later identified as Mike Gill, the former chairman of D.C.’s Board of Elections and previous employee of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission during the Trump administration. Gill was transported to the hospital with “life-threatening injuries,” according to D.C. police.
Police say Cunningham then fled on foot and attempted a carjacking less than 90 minutes later at 5th Street and K Street at 7:05 p.m. Ten minutes later, Cunningham carjacked someone different on the 300 block of N Street NE near the NoMa Metro Station. He shot 35-year-old Alberto Vasquez Jr., who later died at a hospital from his injuries, and took his 2016 Chrysler 200.
Cunningham abandoned Vasquez’s vehicle in Takoma Park before carjacking the driver of a Toyota Camry in a rideshare in Montgomery County. Shortly before 3 a.m., Cunningham carjacked a Nissan and shot at a Maryland State Police cruiser, hitting the car but not injuring the officer. Approximately 30 minutes later, Cunningham targeted a D.C. police cruiser on D.C. I295, with police reporting no injuries.
Maryland Office of the Attorney General identified Cunningham as the suspect in a release on Tuesday, as well as released the names of the officers involved in fatally shooting Cunningham: New Carrollton Police Sergeant Byron Purnell, a six-year veteran of the department, and Corporal Carlos Batenga, who has five years of law enforcement experience.
The dropping of Cunningham’s charges follows a trend of prosecutors under both the U.S. attorney and D.C. attorney general’s offices declining to prosecute cases, often leading to criminals becoming repeat offenders or escalating to more dangerous crimes. U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves, who took over the position in November 2021, declined to prosecute nearly 70% of people arrested by police officers in 2022, almost doubling the declination rate within the last seven years.
D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb has come under fire for similar prosecutorial tactics, receiving heavy criticism for declining to prosecute several juvenile cases. For example, Schwalb dropped charges against an 11-year-old boy related to assault and robbery, but the child was arrested again for armed robbery less than two weeks later.
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He has actively touted programs of restorative justice and rehabilitation over incarceration, a method preferred by liberal prosecutors and officials, and pushed back against tougher detention sentences.
Hours after Cunningham had committed multiple carjackings — some fatal — on Tuesday, D.C. leaders held a panel discussion on carjacking and youth violence. Schwalb told residents who were demanding accountability for the rising juvenile crime rates that the district cannot “prosecute or arrest our way” out of the crime epidemic.