Playground Shooting Is Probed

Two Boys in SE May Have Been Targeted

Two youths who were shot and wounded while playing basketball in Southeast Washington on Wednesday night may have been targeted by the gunman, D.C. police said yesterday.

The victims, 11 and 15, suffered injuries deemed not life-threatening and were recovering yesterday at their homes in the Benning Terrace area, police and relatives said.

Police officials said the incident began when a dark minivan pulled up to the playground in the 4400 block of G Street SE about 8 p.m. At least one gunman opened fire, hitting the 11-year-old in the arm and the 15-year-old in the back, police said.

The boys were taken to Children's Hospital. Their names were not released by police because they are considered witnesses. No one else was injured in the gunfire.

"It's bad when kids can't even play basketball," the mother of the 15-year-old said in an interview yesterday. She spoke on the condition of anonymity, saying she feared retaliation. She lost a son to violence in 1997.

"They can't play outside without getting shot at," the mother said. "You can't imagine what I'm going through."

Police said they believe that the youths may have been targeted because no one else was nearby at the time of the shooting. Detectives had no motives or suspects, however, and officials urged anyone with information to call investigators at 202-727-4515.

Inspector Alton Bigelow of the 6th Police District said police were stepping up patrols in the area in response to the violence.

On Wednesday night, police initially identified one of the victims as a 14-year-old, but yesterday they said that boy was 11.

The 15-year-old's mother and other residents said police were not doing enough to protect children in the area.

"There has been too much shooting around here," the mother said. "The police wait until a shooting and then send more police to monitor" the situation, she said.

"Then it dies down and it happens all over again," she said. "They need to get something done about this neighborhood."

The mother said that her son, an eighth-grader at a D.C. school, was resting but that doctors were unable to remove the bullet.

She said that she did not know why anyone would shoot her son and that she did not know the other boy. The other boy's parents could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Sheila Carson-Carr, an advisory neighborhood commissioner who represents the area, said police need to step up sustainedpatrols.

"It's a lack of policing," Carson-Carr said. "These kids weren't doing anything bad. They were doing what children do. They were where they should have been."