A 4-year-old girl is among at least four people wounded in shootings in D.C. overnight Tuesday.
The child was shot in the face and received a wound that is not believed to be life-threatening. A woman also was hurt. The shooting occurred at about 12:35 a.m. in the 5300 block of East Capitol Street NE.
At about 12:50 a.m., 10 rounds were fired into a home on Uhland Terrace in Northeast. Police are looking for a dark-colored vehicle. No one was reported injured.
Just a few minutes later, a man was shot in the 200 block of Newcomb Street SE. Police said he was conscious and breathing when taken for treatment. At about 5 a.m., a man was found suffering from a gunshot wound near 14th and Taylor streets NW. He was taken to the hospital and was expected to survive.
The rash of shootings overnight Tuesday came as D.C. residents were troubled by violence over the weekend. In Columbia Heights, a man was killed and eight other people were shot and wounded when three men jumped out of a car and opened fire on a busy sidewalk.
It’s against this backdrop that D.C. Council members will soon decide whether to cut $15 million from the Metropolitan Police Department’s budget. A council hearing was underway Tuesday afternoon, but the council has pushed back voting on the budget to Thursday.
In downtown D.C. later Tuesday, opponents of police budget cuts warned the move could drive crime higher, reduce staffing and hit the District’s budget hard.
“Everything is being rushed through the city council on an emergency basis, which doesn’t allow for public hearings. It doesn’t allow for government testimony. It doesn’t allow for expert witnesses and it certainly doesn’t allow the robust discussion that’s required,” said Gregg Pemberton of the D.C. Police Union.
Area Neighborhood Commissioner Teresa Edmondson, who represents part of Columbia Heights, said she didn’t think more officers were the answer.
“You can’t arrest your way out of social ills. It has to be a collective collaborative effort by city leaders that say, ‘OK, this is not working. Let’s try something else. Let’s try solving this from a public-health approach,” she said.
Black Lives Matter co-organizer April Goggans said the District already knows what works and communities across all eight wards are ready to step up; they just need the financial support.
“We’ve had answers that have worked and they’ve all been violence intervention and violence prevention,” she said. “… As much money as we spend on police, is it having the benefit of saving lives that we want it to have? That’s the fundamental question.”
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and Chief of Police Peter Newsham have vigorously defended the budget Bowser presented in May. Amid nationwide racial justice demonstrations, protesters and some city lawmakers have called for officials to dramatically rethink public safety.
D.C. police say 106 people have been killed so far this year, marking a 20% increase from the same time last year.
Stay with News4 for more on this developing story.
