Fatal shooting of teen goes down as D.C.’s 200th homicide this year

Mayor Muriel Bowser on Wednesday lamented a “bad year” for the District as the nation’s capital surged past 200 homicides for the year this week, hitting the grim milestone at the fastest pace in more than a quarter century.

The Metropolitan Police Department said two shootings within an hour on Tuesday — a teen gunned down in Northwest and a man caught in the crossfire of a shooting in Southeast — became the latest homicides of 2023.

Acting Police Chief Pamela Smith revealed at the teen victim’s crime scene that the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner recently ruled eight undetermined deaths as homicides, bringing the total this year to 209 — a 35% increase from the 155 killings at this point last year.

It’s the fastest the District has reached 200 homicides since 1997, when the city recorded 303 slayings by year’s end.

“This is a bad year. I can’t sugarcoat that,” Ms. Bowser said at a press event in Anacostia. “I certainly wouldn’t try to tell that to anybody who’s listening to gunfire outside of their homes or who has lost a loved one.”

The mayor said many of the deadly shootings are driven by personal disputes that are difficult to anticipate and prevent.

Ms. Bowser said residents should note warning signs of violence after friends or loved ones become involved in conflicts — during hospital visits, at the workplace or in schools.

The third-term mayor, a Democrat, underscored her frustration with the ongoing bloodshed. “If you can show me the cure to gun violence, we’re all looking for it,” she said.

As Ms. Bowser spoke east of the Anacostia River, a public roundtable was being held downtown on the mayor’s choice of Chief Smith to lead MPD and the city out of the crime crisis.

Chief Smith, a veteran of the U.S. Park Police, was named the District’s acting chief in July. Though she has had less than three months to turn things around, some residents want a more urgent approach to the crime wave.

“When crime is at a 20-year-high, [Ms. Bowser] chooses a park ranger when we need a Marine general at war,” Brian Mulholland, a Ward 6 resident, said at the meeting hosted by council member Brooke Pinto, chair of the public safety committee.

Chief Smith said the teen boy was shot during a conflict that erupted after class at Dunbar High School.

The boy was talking with another group of teens around 3:45 p.m. near the intersection of New Jersey Avenue Northwest and P Street Northwest.

At some point in the conservation, police said, a member of the group pulled out a gun and shot the teen multiple times. The boy died while being treated at a hospital.

Authorities said one of the two Black males sought in the case was wearing a black hoodie and jeans and the other wore a gray hoodie and black and red shoes.

They were last seen heading east on the 300 block of P Street Northwest.

A shootout in Southeast roughly an hour later killed a bystander in the crossfire, the police chief said. The man was caught in an exchange of gunfire between the occupants of two vehicles around 4:45 p.m. on the 1300 block of Savannah Street Southeast.

Police pronounced the man dead at the scene.

“We have had two members of our community killed by senseless acts of gun violence,” Chief Smith said near the site of the teen’s slaying. “We have too many guns on our streets, and, as a community, we need to do everything we can to stop this violence from plaguing our city.”

Chief Smith urged anyone with information about the shootings Tuesday to come forward.

The District didn’t mark its 200th homicide last year until Dec. 27.

The District has recorded more than 200 homicides for the third straight year, which hasn’t happened in nearly two decades.

Multiple people were killed in shootings around the city in recent days.

Police said 16-year-old Jamal Jones died Monday from gunshot wounds he sustained around 3:40 p.m. on the 2300 block of Green Street Southeast.

Later that night, police said, Tangia Tates-Little, 40, was mortally wounded by gunfire in the 5100 block of Fifth Street Southeast. She died at the scene.

A man was gunned down inside a nightclub on H Street in Northeast over the weekend. Three other people were injured in the shooting.

The man, 31-year-old Blake Bozeman, was a husband and father of three. He was a college basketball player at Morgan State University in Baltimore, where he graduated in 2015.

“We saw him that day. He came by that morning with the children,” Mr. Bozeman’s father, Todd, told local Fox affiliate WTTG. “I got people calling me, telling me to ‘Be strong.’ What does that mean? That’s my baby boy — my only one.”

D.C. politicians tried to address violent crime by passing emergency legislation this summer that gave judges greater leeway to keep adult and juvenile suspects behind bars ahead of their trials.

The temporary law expires Oct. 18.

Ms. Pinto, Ward 2 Democrat, proposed legislation last week that would enshrine that emergency power into law.

She also has proposed that former gun offenders out on parole be subject to warrantless police searches at any time. Her proposal would require judges to write memos explaining why they released defendants pretrial.

Correction: An earlier version of this report cited an incorrect statistic provided by the city on the percentage increase of homicides. This story has been updated with the corrected statistic.