US

DC Police, Secret Service investigating drive-by shooting just steps from White House

Patrick Howley Political Reporter
Font Size:

Businesses near the White House were riddled with bullets in a two-block drive-by shooting this weekend, prompting a Secret Service investigation.

Two of those bullets entered the window and hit the walls inside Brewood Engravers & Printers at 1701 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, just a block from the White House, in a shooting that occurred at approximately 2:30 AM early Saturday morning. The office building entrance, next door to the shop, also has a window boarded up.

The Caribou Coffee at the corner of 17th and Pennsylvania, right across the street from the White House — and normally, a large Secret Service presence — has a wall-length window boarded up. An employee inside Caribou confirmed that a shooting took out the store’s window.

White House staffers have reportedly held meetings at that particular Caribou Coffee to avoid having to record their interactions in White House visitor logs.

A Secret Service agent investigating the matter Monday told Mark Perlman, the manager of Brewood Engraving, that the incident appears to have been a two-block shooting. No motive is known at this time. The Secret Service does not know how many suspects may have been involved, but believes that the shooters were in a car and were not targeting any specific business.

At least one 9 mm bullet was found inside Brewood Engravers.

“We were there assisting our partners, which we do,” a Secret Service spokesman explained to The Daily Caller, referring questions to the Metropolitan Police Department, who the spokesman said is leading the investigation. “We found out Saturday morning,” the Secret Service spokesman said.

The spokesman declined to comment on whether the White House may have been a target in the shooting.

A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police Department said 6 properties were damaged by the early morning gunshots and that Secret Service is on the scene.

“Well, on Saturday morning about 2:30, there was a car running down the street and somebody was shooting with a nine-millimeter handgun,” the Brewood Engravers manager told TheDC, relaying his conversation with the Secret Service investigator. “Two bullets hit our window. They hit Caribou Coffee. So they were shooting for about two blocks down Pennsylvania Ave.”

“They’re hoping to get video and hopefully see who perpetrated the crime…No products hit. Just the walls and the window,” Perlman said.

It’s “very weird” that something like this could happen so close to the White House, Perlman said. “Usually this is a pretty safe section of town.”

President Obama wasn’t at home in Washington at the time of the shooting. He’s still on vacation in Hawaii.

Vince Coglianese contributed to this report.

A boarded up window at Caribou Coffee at the corner of Pennsylvania Ave. and 17th Street NW (Photo by Vince Coglianese/The Daily Caller)

A boarded up window at Caribou Coffee at the corner of Pennsylvania Ave. and 17th Street NW (Photo by Vince Coglianese/The Daily Caller)

A bullet hole in the window of Brewood Engraving, just steps from the White House (Photo by Vince Coglianese/The Daily Caller)

A bullet hole in the window of Brewood Engraving, just steps from the White House (Photo by Vince Coglianese/The Daily Caller)

Follow Patrick on Twitter