Third DC shooting in a week breaks out at popular restaurant
Dani Repass
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Two men are injured after gunshots sent several people running for cover on a busy D.C. intersection Thursday night.
“I think this kind of speaks to the brazenness of some of the criminals in this community,” said Chief of Metropolitan Police Robert Contee. “We are just seeing a proliferation of firearms in our community.”
The shooting occurred at 8:20pm around 14th & Riggs Street near the popular Le Diplomate restaurant, where President Biden and VP Harris were seen eating just weeks ago. A video posted on Twitter shows bystanders abandoning their tables and running away from the sound of gunshots. D.C. Councilmember Brooke Pinto said that anywhere between 20-30 shots were heard.
“Just had to barricade myself with Keylin in a restaurant when a shooting broke out in DC on 14th street,” D.C. resident Tori Taylor tweeted. “The only thing I could think of was: ‘statistically this was bound to happen to me at some point’ and I truly f**king hate that. Thankfully we are safe and unharmed.”
Two unidentified men were found injured but breathing by police after the shooting. One of the men was shot in the chest, while the other was shot several times in the arm. Both men were taken to a nearby hospital for treatment, and both men’s injuries appeared to be non-life-threatening at the time. Chief Contee said in a press conference that investigators believe one of the men was targeted, while the other may have been an innocent bystander.
“I saw [the man who got shot] running back and forth trying to escape the gunfire,” a bystander said in a video posted on Twitter Wednesday night.
There has been an outbreak of crime in the last week, although data points to violent crime rates being down 2% compared to last year. Last Friday, a six-year-old girl, Nyiah Courtney, was shot to death while riding a scooter outside her home. Five adults were also shot, though their injuries are non-life-threatening. Last Saturday, three people were shot outside of Nationals Park while game attendees cheered on their favorite players. Police say two of the victims were specifically targeted, while the other, a woman, was an innocent bystander.
“It was a very intense situation. People were crawling under the bleachers, under their seats,” an attendee at Nationals Park said. “It was one of those moments where you’re like, ‘What is going on, what is happening?’”
101 people have been killed in Washington, D.C. so far this year. Police are still seeking information on the suspects responsible for the shooting on 14th & Riggs, the shooting that killed Nyiah Courtney, and the shooting at Nationals Park.