WASHINGTON- A 17-year old was killed, and 22 were injured, which involved 12 females and 9 males, in a Sunday gunfire in southeast Washington, DC.
The dead identified as Christopher Brown was a father to a 1-year old son and had another baby on the way. His mother, Artecka Brown, told WUSA-TV that “Brown was an innocent kid … he just wanted to go attend a neighborhood party.”
The incident took place around 12:30 am on Sunday, near the 3300 block of Dubois Place in Southeast in Ward 7. According to the neighbors, there were hundreds of people gathered on the streets for a block party when the shooting occurred.
The D.C Police Chief, Peter Newsham, reported that among the victims was a 22- year old off-duty 1st District police officer who was shot in the neck and injured seriously. She was taken to the hospital where she is in a critical condition now.
Newsham added that a weapon was recovered from the scene and the pieces of evidence collected suggest that they were multiple shooters involved in the attack.
“There were multiple shooters who fired simultaneously. We believe that there were at least four and maybe more shooters who all shot at the same time.”
However, he is concerned that a large gathering of this size happened in the city, despite the district’s COVID-19 guidelines that prohibit the meetings over 50 people.
“I am very concerned that a gathering of that size was able to accumulate without our managers over at the 6th District being able to prevent that. So, we will take a look as to whether that could have been handled in a better way.”
He added that there were officers present on the scene, but, apparently, the number was not enough to break up the gathering of this magnitude. But the manner the officers responded and helped the victims was ‘heroic’, said Newsham.
“The police officers who were there responded in what I would say was a heroic fashion,” When the gunshots were fired, the police officers ran towards the gunshots.”
No arrests have been made as of Monday. Newsham said that “I can’t recall a situation where we have that many folks injured by gunfire in one incident in my career,” and urged people to share any information with the officials that can be helpful in going after the culprits.