“Remembering Michael Gill: Victim of Recent Carjackings in D.C. and Maryland”

– Victims and families cope with grief and recovery after carjacking rampage
– Grieving and recovering from carjacking rampage: the impact on victims and families.

Accident – Death – Obituary News : Years before his hair turned gray and his three children became the center of his life, Mike Gill drove a used Jeep through the streets of D.C., a friend recalled. He liked the top down when he picked up Kristina, then his girlfriend, even though it messed up her hair.

Then came one minivan after another, which he used to shuttle their kids to sports games and church until one day they were grown and out of the house, the friend said. Gill, a 56-year-old trade association executive, bought his second Jeep a few months ago, directly from the dealership this time, a consolation for empty-nesting. He told his friends all about it, how its gray exterior shined.

Early Monday evening, he drove that Jeep to pick up Kristina, now his wife, at her law office in downtown Washington. He called her to say he was waiting downstairs. She replied that she was on her way.

Then a man climbed into Gill’s Jeep and shot him.

Michael “Mike” Gill was one of two people shot in a spate of carjackings in D.C. and suburban Maryland that began Monday and went on overnight — a rampage that authorities said was carried out by one man, who was killed by police a few hours before dawn Tuesday. On Wednesday, Gill remained hospitalized in critical condition. The other shooting victim, Alberto Vasquez Jr., a 35-year-old who loved reading to his young daughters, died from his wound.

“He’s a rare combination of personal humility and amazing effectiveness,” said Chris Giancarlo, a former chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission who was Gill’s boss for several years there. Giancarlo, a close friend of Gill’s who shared the story about the Jeeps, added: “He really is one of the more remarkable people of everybody I’ve had the pleasure to work with.”

The man identified by authorities as the carjacker, Artell Cunningham, 28, of Suitland, Md., committed or attempted to commit at least four carjackings in addition to the attack on Gill, according to police. They said he also fired shots at two occupied police vehicles in separate locations while officers from several departments urgently searched for him for hours.

Law enforcement officials said they believe Cunningham was in the throes of a psychiatric crisis when the crimes occurred.

“It was a mental thing going on with him,” said a woman who answered the phone at a residence listed as the home of Cunningham’s mother. “They’re investigating it,” she said, and declined to comment further.

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According to a D.C. police affidavit filed in court, Cunningham threatened to kill officers in 2021 after they encountered him wandering in the hallway of an apartment building and trying to enter an apartment where his siblings were. He was not prosecuted.

When she arrived downstairs from her office, Gill’s wife, Kristina, found him sprawled on the sidewalk in the 900 block of K Street NW, blood pooling around his head and one foot still in the Jeep. She held his hand until the ambulance arrived.

About a mile away and less than two hours later, Erin Catherall, 26, parked her white Mercedes-Benz in front of her friend’s residence in Northeast Washington. She popped open the trunk to retrieve a duffle bag full of clothing she planned to give away. Suddenly, a man dressed in all black ran up to her, standing uncomfortably close near 5th and K streets NE.

“Can I get your car keys, ma’am?” he asked, according to Catherall.

He repeated the request several times, she said, while lifting his shirt to show a silver-colored handgun tucked in his waistband.

At first, Catherall, who works as a consultant and has lived in D.C. for three years, said the juxtaposition of his seemingly benign question against the threat of his gun left her dumbstruck. “He was oddly kind of polite,” she said. “I was very confused about what he initially wanted.”

She said the assailant turned to her friend, who was on the sidewalk, and flashed the gun at her as well. Catherall said she was holding her car keys in her hand. Then she and her friend ran and called out for help, the car trunk still open.

Cunningham ran off, leaving the vehicle, police said.

It wasn’t until the next day that Catherall realized that 10 minutes later and five blocks away, the same man had carjacked someone else — Vasquez, who was fatally shot.

Vasquez’s father, Jacob Walker, 52, said he was told that Vasquez had handed over his keys before Cunningham shot him. That didn’t surprise him, Walker said, because he knew his son was not a fighter. Plus, Vasquez was just learning to walk again after a bad car crash in 2022. “I wonder if that is why he didn’t run away from the shooter,” Walker said.

Vasquez had lived in the D.C. area since he was 11. Walker described him as a boy who loved sports, who was crowned homecoming king in high school, and who grew into a man devoted to his family and two daughters, ages 10 and 7. Walker said the family has not yet told the girls what happened to their dad. “We don’t know how,” he said. “We’re trying to do the best we can.”

“In all of this, I have been thinking of the impact that it has on everyone. Not only my family, but the shooter’s family, and the other gentleman’s family, the one that is clinging to his life,” Walker said. “There is also the police officers who have to deliver the news. … We are normalizing. That should not be normal.”

Less than three hours after Vasquez was slain near the NoMa-Gallaudet Metro station, Cunningham carjacked a ride-hailing driver in Takoma Park in Montgomery County, stealing a Toyota Camry, police said. Then he attacked the driver of a Nissan Rogue in Prince George’s County’s University Park area.

Authorities said that about 2:30 a.m. Tuesday, someone in a Nissan shot at a Maryland State Police cruiser stopped at the scene of a disabled vehicle along southbound Interstate 95 at Route 198. The trooper was climbing out of the cruiser when a bullet struck its hood. He was not injured. A half-hour later, according to D.C. police, the Nissan was used in a drive-by shooting of a marked D.C. police cruiser on D.C. 295 at Exit 1. At least one bullet struck the driver’s-side door, police said. The officer was not hurt.

About 4:30 a.m., police said they located the Nissan, with no one in it, on Annapolis Road in the New Carrollton area of Prince George’s County. While officers were looking for the driver, a man walked up to them and displayed two firearms, according to Thomas Lester, a spokesman for the Maryland Attorney General’s Office. Lester said both officers fired at the man, later identified as Cunningham, who was pronounced dead at a hospital.

On Wednesday, the Maryland Attorney General’s Office identified the officers who shot Cunningham as Byron Purnell, a sergeant with six years on the force, and Carlos Batenga, a corporal who they said has “a total of 5 years of law enforcement experience.”

Efforts to reach them for comment were unsuccessful.

On Wednesday, as word of Gill’s grave condition circulated among his friends in Washington, they described him fondly.

Michael Bennett, a former chairman of the D.C. Board of Elections during part of Gill’s three terms as an appointee to the board, recounted long nights together in a conference room awaiting election results. They would order some type of chicken, one of Gill’s favorite foods, and invariably joke about who got to eat the last piece. They talked about their kids, how to handle the transition from high school to college, and how to make the District’s elections more fair.

When Bennett’s daughter died from bone cancer, he said, Gill made a point to show that he cared.

At work, Gill’s current and former bosses described him as instrumental in some of their biggest professional achievements.

At the Housing Policy Council, a trade association where he serves as a senior vice president, the association’s president, Ed DeMarco, described him as smart, witty, and outgoing: “It is a joy to see an individual that is equally passionate and dedicated to their professional life and to their personal life.”

During his time as chief of staff to Giancarlo, the former chairman said, Gill was key in facilitating the agency’s first collective bargaining agreement with its union, instituting a new pay and performance system, and leading efforts to modernize the agency’s technology infrastructure.

Gill’s friends and colleagues are devastated by the senseless violence that has left him fighting for his life and taken the life of Vasquez. They remember Gill as a remarkable person, devoted to his family and dedicated to his work.

As the community mourns and grapples with the aftermath of these carjackings, they are reminded of the impact that such violent acts have on everyone involved, from the victims and their families to the shooter’s family and the police officers tasked with delivering the tragic news. It is a stark reminder that this level of violence should not be normalized.

Authorities believe that Cunningham was in the midst of a psychiatric crisis at the time of the crimes. This tragic event serves as a reminder of the importance of addressing mental health issues and providing support to those in need.

As the investigation continues, the community hopes for justice and healing for all those affected by these senseless acts of violence..

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