Police investigate killing of beloved teen gunned down in his DC home in front of stepfather
Police are investigating the shooting of a “good person” who was gunned down in the hallway of his DC home that has left his family reeling.
Ronald Price Jr. struggles to recall watching how he watched his 16-year-old stepson Breon Austin got murdered right before his eyes. Price was headed to his kitchen to get some food and Austin, he said was headed out the door and stopped short to pick up his cell phone that he dropped.
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Just then, a masked intruder burst through the back door of the home and unloaded a barrage of gunfire, striking Austin and killing him on Friday. Price witnessed the gruesome execution.
“The worst thing you could ever see is your child being killed in front of your face,” Price, 45, said Monday. He was surrounded by family and friends on the front porch of the family home in the 700 block of Princeton Place NW, The Washington Post reports.
The assailant fled in what police described as a gray, four-door sedan with a sunroof and stickers on the driver’s side.
Austin attended Woodrow Wilson High School. Makhi Mitchell, 19, a senior at Wilson High was a friend of Austin’s as well as his twin brother. He described Austin as a light-hearted guy who always cracked jokes on the school bus.
He said he was also a budding entrepreneur and sold tee shirts with a logo he designed. Austin aspired to one day be a fashion designer.
“He was our little brother, he looked up to us,” Mitchell said. “He was just a good person. There was no negative energy — he was just positive. . . . He wanted to go places like the rest of us,” Mitchell said.
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His family doesn’t know what led to Austin being targeted but his brother Derro Austin said he wishes things: “It could have been handled differently.”
“If there was some type of problem, they could have come to us.” He said Breon “was an all-around good kid, and the way he went out was unnecessary,” Price added.
Kimberly Martin, the school’s principal said classmates all spoke highly of Austin.
“Breon was the friend that could make people smile when they were feeling down and out, and Breon was that friend that would give anything to help someone in need,” Martin wrote in an email.
A social worker, she said, described Austin as “definitely social, respectful and charismatic. . . . he had a charm about himself that makes him memorable.”
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