According to court documents, Kentrell Flowers, 18, of Southeast Washington, was driving a silver Toyota minivan when he pulled up next to a parked unmarked government vehicle and stopped. According to the indictment, a deputy was sitting inside the vehicle when Flowers exited the van’s right rear passenger door, approached the deputy and pointed a handgun through the window in an apparent carjacking attempt.
The deputy pulled his service weapon and fired several shots, striking Flowers in the mouth, according to court documents. A second deputy arrived on the scene in a separate vehicle and also fired his service weapon, police said.
Authorities said another person in the van whose vehicle was taken fled the scene and the vehicle has not been recovered.
A spokesman for the U.S. Marshals Service said the two deputies involved in the shooting were part of a unit guarding the residence of the U.S. Supreme Court justice. The deputies were assigned to protect Ms. Sotomayor, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
Flowers was taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, where he remained as of Tuesday. He was charged in U.S. District Court with armed carjacking, possession of an unlicensed handgun and possession of a large-capacity ammunition loading device. Police said a black and silver Smith & Wesson handgun was found at the scene.
Online court records did not list an attorney for Flowers.
Details of the shooting were earlier reported by the Daily Mail.
A D.C. police spokesman said the shooting is under investigation by the department’s internal investigations division.
D.C. police said carjackings in the District are down 46 percent, with 258 carjackings in the first six months of 2023 compared to 482 during the same period last year.
Aaron Schaffer, Spencer S. Hsu and Justin Jouvenal contributed to this report.
