4 Die, Others Injured in 2 Nights of D.C. Shootings
By N.C. Aizenman and Keith L. Alexander
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, April 27, 2008
D.C. police are planning a citywide increase in patrols after a night of apparently unrelated shootings left four dead and as many as eight wounded in neighborhoods across the city, officials said yesterday.
After the spate of shootings and killings that broke out late Friday and early Saturday, three more people were shot last night, police said. One of them was wounded about a block from a police station.
"This is definitely a major spike" in violence, Assistant Police Chief Diane Groomes said, referring specifically to the overnight shootings. She spoke by phone shortly after concluding three emergency conference calls with the department's command staff hastily convened by Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier. The violence took place late Friday and early yesterday.
"We're not just going to be using every officer to patrol, like we've already been doing. We're going to start pulling from administrative positions, too," Groomes said.
Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) later joined Lanier at a news conference to decry the latest violence and promise additional action. The city has had 50 homicides this year, the same number as at this point last year. But in recent weeks, violence has been increasing, with 18 killings in April alone. Officials are concerned that violence, which typically spikes in late summer, is escalating early.
Particularly "frustrating," Groomes said, was the fact that one of the homicides -- a 2 a.m. shooting at Morse Street and Montello Avenue NE -- was the eighth slaying in the city's 5th Police District since April 14 and took place despite a major recent effort to boost police presence in the area.
"We had police patrolling just a block away when the shots rang out," Groomes said.
Officers found a 30-year-old man lying dead on Morse Street in front of the Joseph H. Cole Fitness Center, police said.
The Trinidad neighborhood around Morse and Montello was gripped by the crack epidemic during the 1980s and early 1990s, becoming one of the most dangerous in the city. However, residents who stood watching police question youths near the site of the shooting said Trinidad has since become more quiet. The community has a neighborhood watch, and residents recently started a garden club.
"It's not a hellhole. The crime comes and goes over time," said Michelle Gandy, who has lived in the area for 16 years. The biggest problems, she and others said, are caused by people who come from outside the area.
"But the police can't do anything about that," one resident said.
Fenty and Lanier had their news conference in Trinidad, where they were joined by D.C. Council member Harry Thomas Jr. (D-Ward 5).
"We're frustrated, but we are redoubling our efforts to bring peace and tranquility back to the streets citywide," the mayor declared.
The first homicide occurred at 12:30 a.m. yesterday at Eighth and Yuma streets SE. Police said Kenneth Walley, 31, of the 3900 block of Eighth Street SE was found with a gunshot wound.
At 12:55 a.m., police were called to the 3000 block of Stanton Road SE, where they found the body of Billy Evans Middleton, 28. He had been shot in the head.
The shooting at Montello and Morse happened next. Police did not release the victim's name pending notification of relatives.
The fourth homicide victim was found at 4 a.m. in the 2400 block of Elvans Road SE and identified as Eric C. Woods, 20, of Capitol Heights.
The other overnight attacks were in Southeast and Southwest, between 11:30 p.m. Friday and 4 a.m. yesterday, police said. Police said they found eight people who had been shot, one of them injured by a ricochet. Two of the gunshot victims, who were found at 2 a.m. in Southwest, might have been shot in Prince George's County, police said. One woman was stabbed.
Last night, in an outbreak of violence hours after the earlier series of shootings, two men were shot about 8 p.m. in the 1900 block of 14th Street SE. A 21-year-old man was hit in the hand and a 19-year-old in the leg, police said.
Police said the men drove themselves to a hospital.
In a second incident, also about 8 p.m., a youth was apparently shot near 42nd and Blaine Streets NE, about a block from the headquarters of the 6th District police station.
Police said an officer at the station might have heard the shot that wounded the youth.
After being shot, the youth ran to the parking lot of the station and was taken by ambulance to a hospital.
Referring to the Friday night and Saturday morning incidents, Groomes said that police saw no links between them but that the availability of guns and warmer weather might have played a role.
"Of course, when the weather gets better, more people are outside, and in this case, we're hearing of scenes of people hanging out and drinking in groups," she said.
The stepped-up enforcement plan would include many of the strategies already being used in Northeast, Groomes said. "We've been doing sweeps against public disorder and drinking in public. We've been doing gun recovery. We've increased traffic enforcement. We've been knocking on doors of those on parole and those associated with gangs."
The main difference, she added, is that police will broaden those efforts through the city. "After last night, we realize that we don't know where it could hit next anymore. So we've got to expand this Districtwide."
At a previously scheduled meeting in Northeast yesterday, some residents blamed public assistance programs for relocating people without considering existing disputes.
"When you have people who were once neighborhood rivals now being forced to live together, it's just creating problems," Shirley Worthy said.
Others cited poverty and a lack of after-school programs for youths, job training and affordable housing.
U.S. Attorney Jeffrey A. Taylor, who was at the meeting, said prosecutors could jail criminals, but wished "to find ways to prevent the crime from happening in the first place.
Staff writers Hamil R. Harris and Martin Weil contributed to this report.
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