A 19-year-old man turned himself in to police early Friday morning for the drive-by shooting outside a Metro station last week that left one man dead.
Marcus King surrendered himself to police at the main homicide unit office after he was identified as a suspect and a warrant was issued for his arrest, The Washington Post reports.
Police charged King with murder for the killing of Matthew Shlonsky, 23, who was an innocent bystander to the violence that saw two separate groups firing at each other.
According to police, Shlonsky was getting out of a cab shortly before 5 p.m. Saturday when two groups, one on the sidewalk and one in a passing car, started firing wildly at each other. Shlonsky was not the intended target, but simply got caught in the crossfire.
Police found the car, a stolen Chrysler 300, with bullet holes in it earlier this week. They’ve said they believe the shooting was the result of a dispute over a dice game.
The home of King was raided by police Wednesday night, a few blocks away from where the shooting occured, but he was not home, NBC Washington reports.
Before turning himself in to police, King contacted the NBC affiliate to proclaim his innocence. He told the TV station he was not involved in the shooting, but he had been shot three days earlier in an unrelated incident.
“I was right there in the area,” he said. “I was right there by the barbershop, chillin.”
The high-profile murder just outside a busy Metro station brought more attention to the problem of violence in the city this summer.
The city is grappling with a huge spike in homicides. At 98 so far this year, Washington has seen a 35 percent rise over the same time last year, and is closing in on 105, the total number of murders seen in 2014.
In an effort to fight the crime, Mayor Muriel Bowser announced a new initiative Wednesday that would see the city buy any illegal gun from criminals willing to turn them over to police.
Washington is now offering a reward of $2,500 for a tip that leads police to a gun. If the tip leads to the arrest and conviction in a shooting, the reward jumps to $10,000.
According to Bowser, the Metropolitan Police Department has seized close to 1,000 illegal guns from criminals already this year. The police have taken over 100 in just the last month.
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