After a man was killed in a shooting Saturday in Southeast D.C., police are still searching for a suspect, a motive, and like so many residents of the District, answers to the gun violence.
Kirsten Oldenburg didn’t hear the gunfire that claimed the life of 27-year-old Devonte Waters on her street, or the shot that crashed through her living room window.
"I'm still looking for the bullet," she said.
The shooting happened in the 400 block of 12th Street SE.
Oldenburg said she's not sure if anyone knows the solution to the gun violence. Meanwhile, her neighbors keep a tally, comparing the shootings in the area by the volume of gunfire they hear in their Capitol Hill neighborhood.
Those who live within earshot say there weren’t as many shots Saturday night as there were 11 days ago.
On Oct. 6, a shooting on 12th Street just a block away claimed the life of 26-year-old Aaron Wiggins, after a dispute following a flag football game on the field behind Watkins Elementary school.
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“And then on the 10th of October, there was one at 17th and A, another homicide,” Oldenburg said. "This is not a D.C. problem. This is a national problem."
The crime statistics Denise Krepp, an advisory neighborhood commissioner in the area from East Capitol Street south to Massachusetts Avenue, keeps back up the anecdotal evidence.
“We’ve had three homicides on Capitol Hill in eight days. That’s in addition to the carjackings,” she said.
Krepp said D.C. needs to have stricter penalties for violent offenders.
“We have a mayor that is saying, ‘I need more help. I need to hire more police officers.’ But that is not the message that we are hearing from the D.C. Council,” she said.
There is a $25,000 reward being offered in this case. Anyone with information is asked to call police at 202-727-9099 or leave an anonymous tip via text at 50411.
