At least 23 people have been killed in the District this month.

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A shooting in the Columbia Heights neighborhood of Northwest D.C. killed one person and injured eight others on Sunday afternoon, in an attack police chief Peter Newsham called “brazen” and “insane.”

The shooting occurred shortly before 5 p.m. on Sunday, when Newsham says three men came out of a vehicle and shot people at the corner of 14th Street and Spring Street NW. Two of the men had long guns, and one had a pistol, according to Newsham. The shooting left one person dead and eight others injured. Two of the injured were in serious condition, the police chief said.

The street where the shooting occurred houses several businesses, including two restaurants, a convenience store, and a clothing store.  

“This type of brazen daylight activity in a very, very busy block I’m sure is scary for this community,” Newsham told reporters at the scene. “I don’t know what people are thinking if they think they can enter a block and lay down that many rounds. They’re putting everyone in this community in jeopardy.”

Newsham said the shooters in Columbia Heights on Sunday appeared to target a specific group of people, and said the police department was “familiar with some of the players.” 

Around 6 a.m. on Monday morning, there was another shooting on the 1200 Block of North Capitol Street. Two people were taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, WUSA9 reported. 

Prior to this weekend’s violence, there had been 103 homicides so far this year. That represents a 24% increase over last year, according to the Metropolitan Police Department’s website. 

July has been particularly deadly, with at least 23 people killed. There were seven homicides during the second week of the month alone. On the Fourth of July, 11-year-old Davon McNeal was shot and killed in Southeast D.C.’s Cedar Gardens neighborhood.  

“This should not be business as usual,” said D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser to reporters following Sunday’s shooting in Columbia Heights. 

Newsham has repeatedly linked violence in the District to the presence of illegal guns and repeat gun offenders. In 2019, the city saw a 4% increase in homicides, following a 43% spike between 2017 and 2018. Newsham said on Sunday that the city has “got to hold gun offenders accountable.”

The spike in gun violence this year comes at the same time as local activists and elected officials have been debating whether policing is the most effective approach to reducing crime. The D.C. Council voted last week to redirect some money from MPD and put it towards violence interruption programs, restorative justice, and victims services. Activists who have been pushing for more extensive cuts to the police budget say the council has not gone far enough, while Newsham and Bowser have expressed opposition to cutting police funding.

“We wouldn’t want the people on our forces not to have the proper training or equipment that makes for better community policing,” Bowser told NPR in June.

D.C.’s Black Lives Matter chapter responded to Sunday’s shooting on Twitter, arguing that it was further proof that the city needed to change its approach to crime entirely and defund the police department.

“Police CANNOT do what people are begging them to do,” they wrote. “They cannot stop or deter murder. They were created to be reactive. To respond once something is ‘reported.’ Their idea of prevention and deterrence is pure violence and occupation.”

Filed Under: columbia heights, crime, dc, gun violence, gun violence in neighborhoods,