The Metropolitan Police Department has released surveillance video capturing an early morning drive-by shooting in Northwest D.C. on camera. Eleven people were injured when gunmen opened fire in front of a crowd outside an apartment building.
Gunmen in two cars opened fire about 2:45 a.m. on a crowd of people outside Tyler House, an eight-story, subsidized residential building on the south side of New York Avenue at North Capitol Street.
The wounded - the youngest of whom was 17 - were struck mostly in the arms and legs, D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier said. Assistant Police Chief Peter Newsham said the seriously injured victim was wounded in the back. None of the injuries are considered life-threatening.
Lanier said detectives believe that one of the vehicles involved in the shooting may have been a dark-colored BMW, and the other a may have been a light gray or silver sedan.
Detectives have been given surveillance video that shows the cars and, possibly, part of the shootings, Lanier said. Police plan to release the video to the public, in hopes of generating tips that may lead them to the gunmen.
The shooting occurred across New York Avenue from the Big Ben Liquor store, on the northern edge of the District's up-and-coming "NoMa" (north of Massachusetts Avenue) district.
Cranes loom overhead, marking new construction that is rapidly filling the empty lots that once dotted the area. New condos, stores and office complexes are being built among apartment complexes that for decades have housed lower-income city residents.
The development activity comes despite sporadic bursts of violence in the neighborhood, including shootings on consecutive weekends in October, outside Big Ben, that wounded a total of seven people.
Police at the time said that those shootings may have stemmed from a dispute between residents from north of New York Avenue, around 1st and O streets NW, and people living at Tyler House to the south. No arrests have been made. No one died in the October shootings, but a 14-year-old boy who was shot in the abdomen was seriously injured.
Police spent hours at the intersection early Monday, collecting evidence such as spent shell casings from the latest violence. Officers also were interviewing witnesses and victims scattered at three city hospitals.
Authorities said it was too early to know of a motive in the shooting. They were investigating whether some or all of the victims may have come from a large nightclub located less than a block away, and whether events at the nightclub from earlier in the evening may have been a factor in the shootings. The club closed about 15 minutes before the shooting.
As the sun rose hours later, a steady stream of motorists flowed past police vehicles on New York Avenue, headed to work downtown. But aside from investigators, there were few people on the sidewalks as rush hour got underway.
One man who lives two doors away from Big Ben emerged from a basement apartment for a walk with his dog.
He said he had slept through the gunfire - and he had to be reminded of the shootings in October, which had occurred right outside his front door.
"It's not as bad as it seems on TV," said the 30-year-old man, who did not want to give his name. "The liquor store brings a lot of drunk people to the corner, but that's about it."
Police are urging anyone with information about Monday's shooting to call 202-727-9099.
Reader Comments
....where were the POLICE....sorry folks YOU ARE ON YOUR OWN.....better be prepared to defend yourselves or be that VICTIM!
A call to escalate violence, death and destruction if ever I heard one.
Damn you American hippy filth-bags, with your namastes, your John Lennon worship, and your lust for fire-arms. You just want it every possible way, don't you? You want the police to protect you, but at the same you want to have them as non-human "pigs". You want it all. Well let me tell you - Well you can't have it all. The police are more or less as powerless as you, more or less as corrupt as you, and more or less incompetent as you, and like you: The police don't make the law, nor do they create their own working conditions.