Northeast Shooting Injures At Least 5

At least five young people were shot Saturday evening when disputes apparently broke out after a community event in far Northeast Washington, according to police and witnesses. Rescue personnel put the number of wounded at seven.

None of the injuries appeared to be life-threatening, but the flurry of gunfire about 5:30 p.m. near Minnesota Avenue and Grant Street sent people shouting and running through the neighborhood .

A teenage witness said the incident apparently stemmed from rivalries between neighborhoods.

"You got people around here that don't like each other," one 17-year-old who said she had been at the community event told a reporter.

After the shooting, she said she saw people "clutching their wounds," looking at their legs, their ankles, their stomachs.

Although police said they could confirm only that five people had been hit, a spokesman for the D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department put the figure at seven. He said six were taken to hospitals and one was found later after he "apparently ran home."

The spokesman said two were 14 years old and at least four others were 18.

Assistant D.C. Police Chief Peter Newsham said police were conducting interviews Saturday night, but that no one had been arrested in the incident.

Newsham, who went to the scene, said it was not immediately clear why the shooting occurred or how many people were involved.

However, teenagers who were in the crowd said the gunfire erupted as people congregated after the community event, which some people described as a block party.

Another 17-year-old said that as many as 150 people had gathered after the event, when arguments broke out among them, apparently reflecting rivalries between youths from different neighborhoods.

People from the neighborhoods "were just beefing," the teen said.

Then shots were fired. Police said each victim was hit once. A witness said at least one person's head was grazed.

Some people living nearby recalled hearing as many as 15 shots, in rapid succession. According to another account, there were two separate bursts.

A neighborhood resident said she heard shots from time to time, "but not that many going off at once."

"I thought I was going to die," the 17-year-old witness said. "Everyone was running. We were running for our lives."

Witnesses said police handcuffed several people but eventually released them.

The shooting occurred near the Minnesota Avenue Station on Metro's Orange Line, but train operations were unaffected, a system spokeswoman said.