Advocates raise concerns about police response, fatal shooting at Gaithersburg bus stop
Incident also highlights the needs of community experiencing spate of violence leaders say
By
Elia GriffinAugust 17, 2026 12:22 p.m. | Updated: August 17, 2026 12:27 p.m.
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Community and social justice advocates in Montgomery County are calling for a fair and transparent investigation into the death of Elliott Powers, 46, who was fatally shot by police at a Gaithersburg bus stop in July.
Their calls come after police body and dashboard camera footage from the July 12 incident on Lost Knife Road were released Aug. 7. The footage provided new insight into the interactions officers had with Powers before his death and raised questions for advocates about the effectiveness of police deescalation tactics and racial disparities in their responses.
“Deescalation tactics really need to be defined,” Tiffany Kelly, a local activist and Gaithersburg resident, told Bethesda Today on Tuesday. “We need to figure out why [deescalation tactics are] working for others. When everybody who has died in police custody within the City of Gaithersburg, who have been shot by police, why are they all Black men and Latino men?”
In December 2024, Marvin Salamanca Garcia, 35, died after seven Gaithersburg police officers restrained him during an incident in front of the Summit Avenue apartment complex. The officers involved in the in-custody death were not charged in connection with the incident.
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More recently, Powers, who is Black, died about 13 minutes after Gaithersburg and Montgomery County police officers made contact with him July 12. Officers were responding to a 911 call reporting a man loading a gun at a bus stop near the Montgomery Village Crossing shopping center.
It is unclear how many police officers responded to the incident; however, the footage shows at least eight cruisers at the scene. The officers attempted to convince Powers to drop a gun he had in his hand, according to the footage. Throughout the negotiations, officers had their guns drawn and pointed at Powers, who can be heard in the footage at times refusing police orders. He told the officers to leave him alone and to “hurt” him.
At one point during the interaction, an officer walked away from the police line and toward a cruiser in the parking lot behind the bus stop. According to police, when Powers saw this, he raised and pointed his handgun in the direction of the officer. Seconds later, officers fired more than 10 shots at Powers as he sat on the bus stop bench. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
The Maryland Office of the Attorney General’s Independent Investigations Division (IID), which leads all police involved shootings and incidents resulting in death or serious injury, is looking into the incident.
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Investigations can take several months to complete, according to the division. When complete, IID releases an investigative report that details the incident and provides legal analysis and recommendations on whether the officers involved will be charged, according to the division protocol.
The IID has identified the officers involved in the shooting as three Gaithersburg police and three Montgomery County police officers. All officers are on administrative leave through the duration of the investigation.
Robert V., a member of the Silver Spring Justice Coalition who requested only his last initial be used out of fear of retaliation, criticized the excessive police response to the incident and police deescalation protocols.
The coalition was formed in 2018 after the fatal police shooting of Robert White in Silver Spring. The group advocates for transparency and accountability, policing reforms and eliminating violence and harm by police in the county, the coalition website states.
In watching the body camera footage, Robert V. said he did not see an indication that harm was imminent, and the situation was escalated by the large police presence at the scene. Robert V. acknowledged that initially officers made some progress working with Powers and that calling for a negotiator was the first real step of deescalation. Still, he believed that police could have done more to deescalate, including having some officers leave.
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The coalition member was also critical of the decision for one officer to break the “safety perimeter” and go to the cruiser in the parking lot behind the bus stop. From that point, he said officers’ priorities switched to protecting the officer rather than Powers’ safety.
“That distraction created the problem for Powers, and it ended up creating a problem for the police. That officer is the problem. That’s accountability,” Robert V. said.
The Montgomery County Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 35 did not immediately respond to Bethesda Today’s email request for comment on Monday morning.
Racial disparities in police responses
Kelly said in the days and weeks after the shooting she was disheartened by the “silence” of county leaders following Powers’ death. Kelly also is a federal worker for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and ran unsuccessfully last year for mayor of Gaithersburg.
“There was a time when there was a police-involved shooting, especially of a Black person, there was a lot of reaction. People would request information; there would be statements going out,” Kelly said. After the fatal shooting of Powers, “There was silence.”
Gaithersburg Mayor Jud Ashman has not released a statement or commented publicly or on social media about the incident. He did not immediately respond to Bethesda Today’s phone call request for comment Monday morning.
The shooting occurred in Montgomery County Councilmember Dawn Luedtke’s District 7, and Luedtke noted Thursday that she has heard the calls of advocates looking for a response to the shooting from local leaders but felt it was not appropriate for public officials to comment directly with an investigation pending. For the involved police agencies, Luedtke said the state’s investigative process prohibits them from making any statements during the investigation.
“I’m trying to be respectful of the process that the people sought on behalf of transparency in these matters … and part of that larger reform effort,” Luedtke said. “I also am empathetic to the fact that … this is a hard thing to have happen in your community.”
Kelly said that she did not watch the body camera footage of the shooting, noting it can be difficult for Black people to do so, but had discussed the issue with other local justice advocates who viewed the footage. She shared similar concerns about an excessive response, ineffective deescalation tactics and racial disparities in responses.
“Surrounding an individual with police cars is not deescalation,” Kelly said. “I don’t know what their idea of deescalation is, but when no one is in charge and there’s mayhem, that is not a coordinated deescalation plan.”
Kelly added that the shooting highlighted for her the racial disparities in how police respond to incidents involving Black and Latino people, especially men who may be experiencing a mental health crisis.
Powers telling officers to hurt him and kill him during the incident were indicators for Kelly and other advocates that he may have been struggling with his mental health, she said.
On Thursday, the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland released a report and database on police killings in Maryland from 2015 to 2023, offering analysis of data and patterns that contributed to the fatal incidents. According to the report, Black people account for 64% of people killed by police in Maryland from 2015 to 2023.
“Nearly half of all victims were showing signs of a behavioral health crisis or medical emergency when they were killed. Of those cases, 24 of them had someone call 911 to seek help for the person who ended up killed,” ACLU Maryland said Thursday in a press release about the report. “During the nine-year study period, not a single on-duty officer was convicted of any crime relating to the 143 deaths.”
Kelly told Bethesda Today that the Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown “owes us a fair and transparent investigation.”
‘Lack of coordination, lack of priority’
The shooting also highlighted the needs of an underserved community experiencing a spate of violent incidents, Kelly said. One day before the fatal shooting, a man was stabbed in the 9600 block of Lost Knife Road, according to Gaithersburg police. About a week after the shooting on July 23, a man was stabbed in a domestic incident on Lost Knife Road.
In March, police shot and injured 27-year-old Andre Duvall, who fired gunshots at them as they were pursuing him through the Cider Mill apartment complex off Lost Knife Road.
“The story is bigger than Mr. Powers,” Kelly said. “It is about a lack of coordination, a lack of priority, a lack of cultural competency for people that we pay very well to do just that.”
Kelly called on county leaders to take steps to better serve the community in that area.
“If they can’t serve these folks, who are they serving? They cannot serve people who have the least,” Kelly said. “They refuse to do anything except to police them. We need a different, compassionate response for this community, and there has been none.”
The shooting was one reason behind the decision to host a community meeting on Aug. 27 to discuss safety issues in the area. The meeting will be held from 7 to 8:30 p.m. at South Lake Elementary School at 18201 Contour Road.
Luedtke told Bethesda Today on Thursday that it was “heartbreaking” to hear of the fatal shooting of Powers, adding to other violent incidents that occurred recently in the community.
According to Luedtke, the meeting will give Gaithersburg and Montgomery Village residents a space to discuss safety issues in the area.
Residents will be able to meet with representatives of the county’s Street Outreach Network, Department of Health and Human Services, Behavioral Health Services, Crisis Center and Children, Youth and Family Services, Luedtke said. Officials from the City of Gaithersburg, the county and Gaithersburg police departments and Rep. April McLain Delaney are also expected to attend.
“This is for the elected officials to listen. Not to do political grandstanding,” Luedtke said. “This is a meeting for the people, because if even if services are being provided, if they don’t know they exist, that’s a problem.”
Still, Kelly said she believed that the county could do better than a town hall for the community, calling the meeting a “reactive approach to this community really, really going through hell.”
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Originally published at Bethesdamagazine