Bullets went flying through homes and vehicles in a neighborhood in Northwest, D.C., Saturday, days after police met with the community to quell fears about rising crime.
Officers with the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) responded to reports of a shooting on Crittenden Street in the Petworth community Saturday night. Residents said bullets went whizzing through at least three houses, damaging several cars in the process. One person was in the middle of a birthday celebration with a pregnant friend and a small child. No one was injured during the incident, reports WJLA.
“When I heard it, pow, pow, pow, pow, I was like ‘oh lord get down,'” resident Sharron Cook told WJLA. “I threw my grandbaby in the corner with my girlfriend. I had a girlfriend there who was pregnant too.”
Cook’s neighbor had just gone to bed before the storm of bullets were fired and also escaped uninjured.
“It came through here and it hit the wall on the inside and I sit right here,” resident Roger Sattler told WJLA. “This is where my head is 15 minutes beforehand. If they’re kids, did the kid realize they could have actually potentially killed someone.”
Shootings and homicides are plaguing the District this year after a 54 percent jump in the homicide rate in 2015. Mayor Muriel Bowser regularly points to crime statistics that show a marginal decrease in general crime this year, however the homicide rate is only 13 percent lower than last year’s disturbing spike in murders. Homicides in the city are historically high, with 110 so far this year. There were a total of 105 homicides in 2014 and 88 in 2012.
The apparent random shooting comes in the wake of several violent crimes and homicides in the Ward 4 community of Northwest, D.C. Residents gathered with Police Chief Peter Newsham and members of the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) Thursday to quell fears that violence is on the rise across the city.
A teenage girl died last Monday after a fight on a Metrobus spilled onto the street and an 18-year-old girl allegedly stabbed her with a steak knife. The community remains fearful following the stabbing, along with a double homicide that claimed the lives of two men and several other incidents.
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