Editor’s Note — The copy was changed due to a detail that was misinterpreted.
WASHINGTON (DC News Now) — The Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) said that a teenager was shot and killed in Northwest D.C. on Tuesday afternoon.
Police said at about 3:45 p.m., officers were dispatched near Dunbar High School for a shooting.
When officers arrived at the intersection of P Street and New Jersey Avenue NW, they found a teenage boy who had been shot.
Police said he was walking home from Dunbar High School and started talking to a group of teenagers. Someone in that group pulled out a gun and fired multiple times.
The boy was taken to the hospital where he was died.
Jahi Green, whose son goes to Dunbar High School said she’s tired of the crime.
“At what point does it stop?” she said.
Green said he’s fed up with the violence nearby the schools and wants to see preventative policing.
“[Police should] walk and be out here really on the beat and really in the mix with everybody else and then they’ll be more worried about it,” Green said.
Acting Police Chief Pamela Smith showed her frustration at a press conference following the shooting.
“We are sick and tired of the gun violence in this city,” Smith said.
Just an hour later, Smith said a man was killed on Savannah Street SE, caught in the crossfire of people in two cars shooting at each other. She called both deaths “senseless.”
“Each one of these homicide victims is a member of our community,” Smith said. “They are more than just numbers. Each one is someone’s family member that was taken too soon.”
Smith said while preparing for her confirmation hearing, she found eight undetermined deaths, later ruled homicides by the Office of Chief Medical Examiner. Those eight weren’t included in the total homicide count, which brings the total to 209 this year as of Tuesday night. She said her team will now be instructed to create a procedure to “ensure these cases and any future cases are added to the official homicide count upon ruling.”
“If we got 209 murders, like something’s going on in this city. It’s an epidemic. It’s sad,” Green said.
Smith said they have been working with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to track down illegal guns, but they need the community to help get them off the street.
“What we found is that there are a lot of illegal guns coming into the District and they are people that know who’s committing these crimes and we need folks to just stop this senseless act of gun violence in our district,” Smith said.
According to the DC Police Union, this is the first time since 2002 to 2004 that there have been more than 200 homicides three years in a row.
The annual homicide rate was less than 90 in 2012, 104 in 2013 and 105 in 2014, according to DC Police Chairman Gregg Pemberton.
