July 16th, 2021 – It was just past 9PM when Lamonica Jeffrey (she/her) was woken up by her son. She had no idea how long of a night she was about to have.
“There’s someone at the door,” he whispered. Lamonica got up from her bed and walked out into the hallway, turning on the lights of her 5-bedroom apartment in Brookland Manor, an affordable housing development in Northeast DC owned and managed by MidCity Development.
“No one ever comes to our door,” she told the Washington Revolutionary. “So, I came to the door and said, ‘Who is it? You’ve got the wrong door.’” Lamonica continued to wait, expecting to hear footsteps walking away from her apartment or the building’s door to open downstairs signaling the departure of an unexpected visitor. When all she received was silence, it was apparent that the visitor remained at her doorstep.
Raising her voice, she repeated herself. “I said you have the wrong door!” This time, she was not met with silence, but instead the jingling of her doorknob as the intruder began attempting entry into her apartment. Now on full alert, Lamonica motioned for her children to go into their rooms and used two phones to make two simultaneous phone calls, one to her children’s father and the other to 911.
“With [the father] on the one phone and 911 on the other, I said to them ‘Miss, I am about to die. Someone is trying to get into my apartment. They’re trying to get in.’ I was thinking there’s no way their father was about to make it here. He lives all the way in Southeast [DC]. So I said to myself, ‘I can’t die. I’ve got my kids, I’m not going to die.’ As the intruder continued to attempt entry, wriggling the doorknob and lock, Lamonica Jeffrey prepared to defend her home.
Lamonica is 50 years old and a mother of 10. She has served as Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner (ANC), has run for Ward Council Member, and describes herself as a “lifelong learner.” No matter where she finds herself, she has always found a way to engage in her community to “build relationships” and “strength.”
As a child, Lamonica lived in Northwest DC with her grandmother in Ward 3 until the 7th grade when she first experienced displacement and the effects of housing injustice. “Everything changed when the landlord decided to sell the house and my grandmother couldn’t afford to live there anymore.” Lamonica moved across the river – to Southeast. “I grew up learning and speaking Spanish in the schools in Northwest. I loved my classes. When we moved, those classes didn’t exist and I had to learn how to fit in again. I didn’t want to adapt, I wanted to be me.” Lamonica explains further, “When you look at my adulthood, you’re looking at me after I’ve spent years to build my confidence. I wasn’t always adaptive.”
Lamonica moved to Brookland Manor in November 2013 and has called it home ever since. “When I first moved here, I didn’t know anyone in the community. No one knew me because I had moved from Ward 8. It was pretty quiet.” It wasn’t long after she moved that she first started facing hostilities from the MidCity management staff on the property. “Ever since I moved here, living in the same building as the management office, even when I saw management in the halls they would never speak or even give eye contact.”
It was this sort of treatment that led Lamonica to feel like she was being bullied, and over the next three years she worked to develop her network at Brookland Manor, culminating three years later when she ran and won a seat as Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner for Ward 5C running under the slogan “People Over Politics.”
During her time as ANC, she became intimately familiar with the development plans of MidCity for turning Brookland Manor into the RIA mixed-use development that MidCity describes as the “centerpiece of the revitalized Rhode Island Avenue Corridor.”
Her thoughts on redevelopment are complicated: “I had never opposed the redevelopment because change is always good and I believe mixed-income communities thrive. I believe that I can learn from someone that is doing things differently from me, and I believe that people can learn from each other when they are in different places in life.”
“But the opposition to redevelopment is based on the exclusion of family-sized units in the development plan. There is disrespect to families like my own that live in 5-bedroom units, units that will not be replaced when redevelopment occurs.” Lamonica asserts that it is because of families like hers that Brookland Manor’s management has facilitated a hostile environment designed to push people to move out voluntarily.
Under the current development plan, the number of affordable housing units MidCity is obligated to build is equal to the number of units currently occupied prior to the development. However, DC property law states that any residents who move out prior to development are considered to have “voluntarily” moved, and MidCity would therefore not be obligated to provide housing for them.
Furthermore, Lamonica revealed, the lack of 3-, 4-, and 5-bedroom units in the development plan would mean that families currently housed together would be split up into separate units in the new RIA community. Legally, this would only work for family members older than 18 that would otherwise be considered dependents. For Lamonica, whose 10 children are all younger than 18, MidCity has to resort to other methods to avoid providing housing for her family in the new development – even if that means punishing her for keeping her family safe.
With the lights out and an intruder attempting to gain entry into her home, Lamonica retreated into her bedroom to retrieve her Glock 43X, her personal defense weapon loaded with 9mm hollow-point ammunition that is designed to shatter upon impact and not puncture through a target. She has been licensed to own the firearm in the District of Columbia since October 9, 2020, and prior to purchasing it has had extensive pistol training. “I don’t like to fight,” she says, but emphasized that despite this she is very comfortable defending herself if she needs to. “I’m a member of the NRA, and I have spent hundreds of hours training and becoming familiar with my gun and ammunition.”
She was still on the phone with 911, but at this point had lost contact with her children’s father. “The police are at the location you gave us, don’t worry,” she was told by the 911 dispatcher.
“I looked out my window and didn’t see anyone. I didn’t know where the police were, but they sure weren’t at my building.” With no police and an immediate threat mere feet away from her, Lamonica Jeffrey knew what she had to do.
She positioned about 7 feet from the door and gave one last warning before preparing to do what she hoped she never would: use lethal force to defend herself and her family. She fired a shot into the door not more than two feet above the ground, causing the intruder to cry out in shock. But instead of leaving, the intruder still continued their attempt to break the lock, now getting more frantic with the mechanism. Lamonica fired another shot, again with no effect on the intruder.
The hollow point rounds were working as intended by not puncturing the door, and it appeared that the intruder internalized this as non-threatening. Resigned, Lamonica continued waiting – fearful, but ready to make her stand if her door were to be breached.
Minutes later, DC Metropolitan Police of the Fifth District finally arrived – they had gone to the building on the next block over, despite clear and explicit descriptions from Lamonica of her building’s large sign with bold letters that read “Management Office.”
Her intruder ran down the stairs and promptly surrendered to the police. The MPD officers entered the home, collected Lamonica’s two spent shell casings as evidence and left her with a report, the traumatic episode finally drawing to a close – or so she thought.
Nearly a month later, on August 25, 2021 Lamonica was serviced with a threatening letter from MidCity’s lawyers that read in all capital letters: “30-DAY NOTICE TO CORRECT THE LEASE VIOLATION”, alleging that her behavior was “criminal.” The letter further states that the discharge of a firearm inside her unit is a “threat to the health, safety, and welfare of the community” and that if she does not “refrain from the possession or use of firearms at the Premises” within 30 days, “this letter shall be deemed a Notice to Quite and Vacate.”
The Lease Agreement Lamonica showed the Washington Revolutionary makes no reference to restricting firearm possession within a resident’s domicile. Furthermore, even if Brookland Manor were deemed a “Gun-Free Zone” under DC city code, section 22–4502.01(c) states that this would not apply to persons such as Lamonica who are legally licensed to carry a firearm in the District of Columbia and lives within 1000 feet of the “Gun-Free Zone.”
“I feel like I’m bullied,” Lamonica says. Even though the letter she was served is written to look like an eviction, she knows it isn’t and she isn’t scared to stand her ground. “Like I said, I don’t like to fight,” she says, her voice resolute. “But I will.”
The Washington Revolutionary 