Attorneys for Natasha Kay urge D.C. Superior Court to reject the Attorney General’s bid to overturn the verdict holding police liable for Deon Kay’s 2020 death.
Washington, D.C. — Today, attorneys for Natasha Kay, the mother of 18-year-old Deon Kay, have asked the D.C. Superior Court Civil Division to reject the Attorney General’s attempt to overturn a $655,000 jury verdict that held the Metropolitan Police Department responsible for Deon’s 2020 shooting death.
The request comes just weeks after the Attorney General’s Office, defense counsel for Metropolitan Police Department Officer Alexander Alvarez, asked the court to overturn the verdict. In July, a jury found Officer Alvarez liable for the wrongful death of Deon Kay, awarding $655,000 in damages. Instead of accepting the verdict, defense attorneys filed a renewed motion on Aug. 29 asking the court to set aside the judgment, grant a new trial, or slash the damages awarded.
“This motion is nothing more than an effort to sidestep accountability,” said Yaida Ford, counsel for Natasha Kay. “The jury carefully weighed the evidence and reached a just verdict. For the District to now argue that the life of Deon Kay is worth less—or that his death does not warrant responsibility—shows exactly how little value the Office of the Attorney General, MPD and its representatives place on the lives of Black and Brown residents.”
“I am deeply disappointed that instead of accepting responsibility for my son’s death, the Attorney General’s office and the D.C. police are fighting to take away the justice the jury delivered,” Natasha Kay said in a statement. “Deon’s life mattered, and this verdict was one of the few ways our family has been able to find some measure of accountability. Trying to erase that verdict feels like they are once again denying Deon’s value as a human and our family’s pain.”
The renewed motion filed by the defense claims that Deon Kay was contributorily negligent for his own death, that jurors were confused about the difference between negligence and battery; that expert witnesses for the family were unqualified, and that damages awarded by the jury were excessive. Ford strongly rejected these arguments, calling them a continuation of a troubling pattern.
“Each of these claims is part of a deliberate attempt to rewrite the facts and avoid the truth,” Ford said. “Deon was an 18-year-old with his whole life ahead of him. To suggest that his death was somehow his fault, or that the conscious pain he endured in his final moments is unworthy of recognition, is not just legally wrong—it is morally bankrupt.”
Ford emphasized that the stakes of this case go beyond one family’s fight for justice.
“This is bigger than Deon Kay,” she said. “This case is about whether our city allows police officers to kill Black teenagers and then argue in court that their lives had little to no value. The Metropolitan Police Department is trying to create a precedent that excuses unjustified killings and discounts the humanity of Black and Brown residents. We cannot allow that to happen.”
On September 2, 2020, Officer Alvarez fatally shot Deon Kay in Southeast. After years of legal battles, a jury ruled in favor of Kay’s mother, awarding damages for both economic losses and Deon’s conscious pain and suffering. The verdict followed a DC Auditor’s report in 2021 that said the officers involved “acted recklessly and without a plan.”
