Man pleads guilty to sparking shooting that killed DC educator

WASHINGTON – A Washington, D.C., man pleaded guilty Monday to inciting a shooting that left a district educator and father dead in July 2021.

Jonathan Brown, aka “Tsunami,” 31, of Northeast, was charged in early 2023 with 10 drug and weapons offenses, including armed second-degree murder. On Monday, he pleaded guilty to two counts: conspiracy to distribute cocaine and manslaughter while armed. The latter count carries a mandatory minimum sentence of five years in prison and a maximum sentence of 30 years.

Brown was arrested nearly two years after 31-year-old Kervin Sanches was shot and killed near the intersection of 7th and O Streets NW on July 21, 2021. Sanches, a father of four, was the dean of Imagine Hope Community Charter School in the northeastern United States.

According to court documents, Brown was at the intersection with other people associated with the “7th and O Crew,” also known as the “Kennedy Dog Pound.” In a separate case filed in May 2022, federal prosecutors charged 13 alleged members of the crew with running a cocaine and fentanyl smuggling operation from their territory near the intersection of 7th and O in Shaw.

Sanches was visiting friends in the area when Brown pulled a gun from his waistband and began shooting at an unknown person who approached him and other suspected members of the group. The other man then began firing back and bystanders ran away while Brown and the man continued shooting – firing at least 25 shots in total. Sanches was hit by a bullet while fleeing the scene and succumbed to his injuries on the way to the hospital.

As part of his confession, Brown acknowledged that without his decision to open fire, “the shooting in the city would not have happened and Sanches would not have died.”

Brown is scheduled to be sentenced before U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton on August 8. He will be given credit for the approximately 15 months he has spent in custody since his arrest.

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