A man is in critical condition after being shot in an apparent road rage incident on Tuesday afternoon in D.C.’s Third Street Tunnel.
Police say that an argument broke out in the tunnel around 3 p.m. after the driver of a Ford Explorer rear-ended a dark blue sedan. The driver of the Ford Explorer was then shot with a handgun, and the driver of the dark blue sedan fled in the vehicle towards Massachusetts Avenue, according to law enforcement.
Police said the victim was outside of the vehicle when he was shot. But a witness told WTOP that a female driver and a male passenger both got out of the sedan after the crash. The man then pulled out a gun and fired at the driver of the Ford Explorer, who was still in the vehicle, the witness said.
“This was unnecessary,” said Morgan Kane, the First District Commander for D.C. police, during a press conference on Tuesday afternoon. “This is truly tragic that a simple vehicle accident can escalate into a shooting. That, to me, is very sad—it’s heart-wrenching.”
The man was taken to a local hospital with life-threatening injuries, according to an Metropolitan Police Department press release. As of Wednesday morning, he was still in critical condition, per Brianna Jordan, a department spokesperson. Police have not publicly identified the victim, who is a Northeast D.C. resident, according to the police report.
Jordan said the incident “remains under investigation” and that there are no further updates at the moment. It is being investigated as an assault with intent to kill, per the police report.
The incident was captured in surveillance footage shot by nearby security camera. Photos of the sedan show that it sustained heavy damage to the rear in the crash. Police describe the driver as a black female wearing green pants and a black shirt, and the passenger as a black male wearing black shorts and a white tank top.
https://twitter.com/DCPoliceDept/status/1156353317225807872?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Tuesday’s shooting adds another episode to a disturbing series of road rage incidents in the Washington area, as noted by AAA Mid-Atlantic.
In May, a man was caught on video repeatedly slamming his brakes and blocking a woman’s vehicle on the Baltimore Washington Parkway. And in March, an off-duty state trooper was charged with first degree assault for pulling his gun on a driver who changed lanes on Baltimore’s beltway.
“Far too many drivers are losing themselves in the heat of the moment and lashing out in ways that could turn deadly,” said John B. Townsend II, AAA Mid-Atlantic’s manager of public and government affairs, in a release. Nearly 80 percent of U.S. drivers admitted to engaging in aggressive behavior behind the wheel in a 2016 survey by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety.
And the use of guns on the roads may be on the rise as well. Research by The Trace showed that cases of road rage involving a firearm in America more than doubled between 2014 and 2016.
This story has been updated with information from AAA, clarification about which car sustained rear damage, and to reflect that the incident is not being investigated as a “suspected hate crime” as erroneously indicated in the original police report obtained by DCist.
