‘I’m not proud of what I did’: Virginia man admits revenge killing
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Version 0 of 1. After he was shot in the leg three years ago, Dijuan Clark told friends and family not to retaliate. When the same simmering neighborhood feud led to his brother’s death last summer, Clark still said police should handle it. “I wanted to show the younger brothers that gun violence is not the right option,” he said in court Thursday. Yet, a month later, Clark shot and killed Saquan “Turk” Hall, the man police believe killed his brother Pierre, tearing apart two families in Alexandria, Va. “I’m not proud of what I did,” Clark, 32, said before being sentenced Thursday in Alexandria Circuit Court to 31 years in prison. “There’s nothing I can say that would bring Turk or Pierre back.” The twin shootings in June and July last year sparked fear and anger in the Old Town North neighborhood, with attendees at a large community meeting blaming police for not engaging more, the city for not lighting the alleys, and the young people involved for perpetuating the violence. Former mayor William D. Euille (D) and other local leaders have since worked to defuse tensions and prevent another revenge killing. It was after police executed a search warrant on Hall’s home last summer that he was murdered by Clark. Patrice Hall described learning in the early morning of July 2, 2016, that her 23-year-old son was dead and rushing to the scene, unable to reach him. “I’ve had to relive that night over and over in my head as if it happened just yesterday,” she testified in court Thursday. “I’m up reading, praying, for these nightmares to go away.” She said she does not believe that her son killed Pierre Clark, although police have closed the investigation into that slaying and said Saquan Hall was their only suspect. Detective William Oakley testified Thursday that there was not enough evidence to arrest Hall when the young man was killed. Hall’s sister Kentrice said that even if her brother was involved in Pierre Clark’s death, what Dijuan Clark did was inexcusable. If Hall had been found guilty in that slaying, she testified, “I would go to the jail every weekend to visit my brother, instead of going to the cemetery.” She said she no longer feels safe in the city where she was born and raised: “I’m ready to move out of Alexandria and never look back.” Hall left behind a 3-year-old daughter and a 2-year-old son. Their mother, Tykia Jackson, testified that he was a doting father who spoiled the children. They ask constantly for their daddy, she and other family members testified, especially when they see pictures of him. On her daughter’s recent birthday, the girl was crushed when she learned her father wouldn’t be coming, Jackson said. “He took my kids’ father away, a father who was there for his kids every day, and it kills me,” she said. Clark’s defense attorney, Gary Smith, said his client had not planned to kill Hall last year on July 2. Clark ran into Hall and his friends by accident, Smith said, and got into an argument that escalated into gun violence that night. Clark pleaded guilty in March to second-degree murder. Janice Bates, 67, testified that the night of the shooting she heard increasingly loud and angry voices outside her house. Looking out the window, she saw Hall hide behind a car while gunfire came from across the street. He ran down the block as police approached and then came back toward her, a gun in his hand. Prosecutors said Clark shot Hall in the back as he ran and in the head as he lay wounded on the ground. “An individual can never take violence into his or her own hands,” Judge Lisa Kemler said in sentencing Clark to 43 years in prison with 12 suspended. He also must pay $5,000 in restitution for the cost of Hall’s funeral. Gloria Clark said her son had been brooding over his brother’s death and spending his free time at a memorial tree near the alley where the 28-year-old died. “This just took a toll on him,” she testified. She too said she was haunted by her son’s death and unable to sleep through the night. “It’s still fresh,” she said. “Everybody has lost; two young men, two lives are lost. Over something that’s really senseless.” |