What is known from official accounts of the death of Travis Lamar Hampton is this. After Hampton sideswiped their car, three ATF agents chased Hampton, 24, at high speeds to the Glebe Road exit of I-395. On the exit ramp and just off to the side of the road, the agents, in an unmarked rental car and wearing civilian clothes, exited the car and identified themselves as AFT agents. Hampton then opened fire on the agents, striking the car and setting off a gun battle. The agents chased Hampton to a home on the 3200 block of 13th Street South in Arlington, where Hampton engaged in a standoff with Arlington and Alexandria police for eight hours before apparently taking his own life.
What is not known from official accounts is this. Why did Hampton, who had no history of violent crime, react so violently to the ATF agents? Did the ATF agents, who were in the area from out of town for training, have the authority to engage in a mile-long high-speed chase and shoot-out with Hampton? Did the agents follow ATF procedure by chasing after Hampton? Did they get out of the vehicle with guns drawn?
Questions remain unanswered three days after a car chase and shoot out in Arlington that resulted in the apparent suicide of District resident Hampton.
“They certainly did not violate any laws,” ATF special agent Tom Mangan said. “We feel our agents acted properly and heroically.”
Spokesmen for Alexandria and Arlington police said it was their policy not to pursue vehicles involved in hit and runs in most instances.
Hampton, who lives in Southeast, spent 30 days in a Virginia prison in 2002 for marijuana possession. Hampton’s girlfriend of five years, Ebony, said that Hampton once told her that he’d rather be dead than go to jail for the rest ofhis life. But she also said she made Hampton promise her that he would never take his own life.
Ebony told The Examiner that Hampton called her at 3:53 p.m. and told her that he was coming home. He apologized for being late.
During the standoff, law enforcement officials later told her that she could go to the home where he was holed up and try to talk to him through a bullhorn — but they later changed their minds.
Hampton tried to call a friend but hung up when the friend’s mother answered the phone, Ebony said. An hour later he was dead. She sobbed as she thought about his last moments.
“He was just at the end,” she said crying, “and probably just said ‘I can’t do it. I just can’t do it.’ ”
