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Last Fourth of July, the death of Kevin Sutherland—a 24-year-old who was fatally stabbed aboard a Red Line train—sent waves of grief across the District. Now, a part of him is being memorialized at the station where he was killed near.
Metro on Friday announced that it is displaying the former American University graduate student’s photography of D.C. at the NoMa–Gallaudet station. Sutherland’s photos depict iconic monuments like the Jefferson and Martin Luther King Jr. memorials as well Union Station and fireworks above the National Mall. His family asked Metro to exhibit his images.
“Kevin had many gifts and he was becoming a very talented, self-taught photographer,” Sutherland’s father Douglas Sutherland said in a statement provided by Metro. “We will never stop wondering about the beauty he would have captured had his life not been cut so short.”
According to reports and court papers, Sutherland had been on his way to see friends on July 4 when Jasper Spires, 18, allegedly stabbed him dozens of times. Spires, prosecutors have said, had attempted to rob Sutherland of his cell phone when the situation escalated. Witnesses told the Post last summer the suspect then robbed other passengers.
A D.C. Superior Court grand jury indicted Spires in May on first-degree-murder-while armed and other charges related to the incident. But, according to the Connecticut Post (a paper in the state Sutherland hailed from), Spires rejected a 30-year-plus-parole plea deal later that month. Now 19, his next court appearance is scheduled for early September.
Sutherland’s work is being displayed through Metro’s Art in Transit program. You can see more of his photos here.
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