Wednesday, November 12, 2008

DOWNTOWN

About 40 people were evacuated from the FBI headquarters in downtown Washington yesterday after a fire broke out in a boiler room, officials said.

The fire department was called at 4:15 p.m. to the garage of the headquarters, off Pennsylvania Avenue NW. Firefighters found a utility room on the garage level engulfed in flames.

The blaze was extinguished within 15 minutes, officials said.

No injuries were reported.

Alan Etter, a spokesman for the D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department, said that the fire's cause remains under investigation but that authorities view it as an accidental malfunction.

-- Clarence Williams

Two teenagers were shot and seriously wounded yesterday in Southeast Washington, D.C. police said.

One of the victims is 18, and the other is 17. Each was hit in his upper body in the incident, which occurred about noon near 46th and B streets, a homicide official said.

After being shot, both of the teenagers went to a nearby barbershop, where they were found.

The daylight shooting, which police described as brazen, also sent a bullet through the window of a nearby home. No one inside was hit.

-- Martin Weil