DC Man Sentenced To 40 Years For Fatal Shooting In Recreation Center Parking Lot

WASHINGTON, DC — A D.C. man was sentenced to 40 years in prison Monday after being found guilty of first-degree murder and other charges for a fatal shooting in Northwest D.C. in 2016.

After a trial in D.C. Superior Court, a jury found Herman Cook, 50, guilty in February 2020. He was sentenced on Monday by Judge Juliet J. McKenna.

According to the government’s evidence at the trial, Cook was standing in a parking lot on Aug. 8, 2016, shortly after 7 p.m., behind the Emery Recreation Center in the 5700 block of Georgia Avenue NW.

The homicide victim, Donald Johnson Jr., drove into the parking lot to meet a friend. Cook and Johnson had been close friends decades earlier but became estranged at some point in the early 1990s, according to the U.S. attorney’s office.

As captured on video surveillance, after Johnson got out of his car to talk to the friend, Cook walked up to him and shot him multiple times at point-blank range. Johnson was struck four times, including twice in the back and once in the neck. Cook then walked away in the direction of his home on 13th Street NW.

Johnson, 45, was pronounced dead later that evening.

Cook fled to Baltimore that night, according to prosecutors. He was arrested on Feb. 21, 2017, in Baltimore and has been in custody ever since.