Four people were injured in Washington by a shooter who committed suicide before being arrested.
A man committed suicide as he was about to be arrested on Friday after shooting and wounding four people and triggering a spectacular deployment of security forces in an affluent neighborhood of Washington, police said.
Four people, including a 12-year-old girl, were injured on Friday afternoon by gunfire in the Connecticut Avenue-Van ness neighborhood in the northwest of the US capital, where many embassies and schools.
Three of the injured, taken to hospital, are in stable condition. The fourth victim, in his 60s, was treated at the scene.
“The suspect we believe is responsible for this is now deceased,” Washington Police Chief Robert Contee said Friday night at a press conference.
According to him, the individual killed himself when the police had just burst into his apartment, located on the fifth floor of a building, in which the investigators discovered “a sniper-type device with a tripod”, at least six firearms – including scoped assault rifles – and “many, many ammunition”.
The shooter’s motive remains unknown, but “obviously his intent was to kill and injure members of our community,” the police chief added.
Residents evacuated quickly
A video circulating on social media, apparently filmed from the shooter’s perspective, shows people running for cover under automatic weapon fire. “It looks very authentic,” said Mr. Contee, specifying however that this video had to be appraised, and that he did not know if it had been shot live or published afterwards.
After being called around 3:20 p.m. local time (7:20 p.m. GMT), a large number of law enforcement officers, equipped with rifles and imposing bulletproof shields, had cordoned off the area, confining schools and a university.
The facts took place in a neighborhood in the north-west of the capital, which is rather well-to-do and usually quiet. Many residents were quickly evacuated from the area where numerous detonations sounded, according to videos shared on social networks.
The Washington police, in the same afternoon, announced two other shootings in other districts of the capital. 226 homicides were counted in the city in 2021, a figure up 14% from 2020.
“We are determined to help the residents and to stop gun violence,” the Democratic mayor of the American capital, Muriel Bowser, told the press. “Easy access to guns must end.”