A shooting at a Juneteenth celebration on a residential street in Washington, D.C. left a 15-year-old boy dead and several more injured – including a police officer – near Howard University on Sunday night.
The D.C. Police Department reported on Twitter at around 9:30 p.m. that police were responding to a “shooting incident in which multiple people have been shot, including an MPD officer.”
Media later confirmed that two adults and an MPD officer were shot, while the 15-year-old boy was pronounced dead. The officers and adults are recovering in the hospital, reported Local DVM, and police say the officer was shot in his “lower extremity.” Police said a likely-illegal handgun was used in the shooting, and it was modified to contain a higher capacity magazine, but they had not recovered it.
Apparently, the street was the scene of the “Moechella” event which celebrates “the Juneteenth holiday” and “was advertised as ‘a peaceful demonstration.'”
Video has since surfaced showing heavy police presence in the area after the shooting.
Video of the scene after a shooting around 14th and U Street in Washington, D.C.
Several people including a police officer have been shot. | @DCNewsNow
➡️ https://t.co/jSpYA3Eijj pic.twitter.com/Wmbvuc2por
— Jonathan Rizk (@OfficialRizk) June 20, 2022
One video, captured from a higher vantage point, shows police in the area as revelers attempt to leave the area.
Developing: Multiple people have been shot including an officer, at 14th and U St in Washington, DC, according to authorities pic.twitter.com/ls1oQCCqSz
— philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) June 20, 2022
Police Chief Robert Contee described the celebration as “an unpermitted event” and said he would talk with the Attorney General to determine if charges should be placed against the organizers. Apparently, police had already arrived to end the event due to unsafe conditions. Some were then injured due to trampling, and one firearm had already been confiscated prior to the shooting.
“We recovered several firearms in this area,” said Contee, including from one of the victims of the shooting. Police did not fire their weapons at the event.
He added that the long series of events happened from approximately 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
“This is one of the reasons why we don’t want unpermitted events,” said Contee. “We will have having conversations with those persons” involved, “very shortly, and look at what legal actions should be taken as a result of an unpermitted event in this city.”
Chief Contee and city officials provide an update regarding a shooting with multiple victims shot, including an MPD officer, that occurred this evening in the area of 14th and U Street, NW. https://t.co/j2w5yXqvPZ
— DC Police Department (@DCPoliceDept) June 20, 2022
According to Big League Politics, police described the suspect as “a black man with curly hair, believed to be around 5’4,” who was “was wearing all black when he committed the mass shooting.”
Juneteenth was made a federal holiday by Joe Biden and commemorates the day Union troops informed black slaves in then-faraway Texas of their freedom and the end of the American Civil War. The war claimed around 620,000 American lives on both sides combined, which by percentage of population would be the equivalent of 6 million dead today. Of those who died, 360,000 were from northern states.
