One woman was killed in a shooting in a car on Thursday afternoon, police said. This was the second deadly shooting in Washington, DC in less than 24 hours.
During an update, Third District Commander James Boteler said that they believe the woman, who was driving the car, was stopped at a red light on New Jersey Avenue. After the light turned green, police believe bullets were fired, striking the driver and causing her to crash into a telephone pole.
“The escalation of violence is over stuff that is just nonsensical. People are getting into arguments and immediately going to guns as a result of being able to manage their conflict. That’s not the way to do things in the city,” Boteler said.
Police first got the call around 12:20 p.m. The car crashed right across the street from a fire station and close to Walker-Jones Education Campus. Because police said that this was an isolated incident, there were no lockdowns.
Boteler said that first responders were on the scene very quickly due to the location of the crash and pulled the victim out of the car. She was pronounced dead on the scene despite life-saving efforts.
Police said that another woman was the only other person in the car. They took that woman into custody to question her and did not say whether or not she was a suspect.
“There’s people everywhere and for there to be someone that was shot in the middle of plain sight and plain day was very surprising and scary actually. If we had some restorative systems in place that help these people manage their experience, then I think that these issues that are coming up that are… ending in death and gun violence could be addressed before we even get to that place. But we don’t have any infrastructure in place,” said LeeAnn King, who witnessed the event.
“I really think that we need to hold people that are out here in (the) community, you know, carrying guns and discharge of firearms, accountable for those actions,” Boteler said.
Police recovered a gun from the scene.
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