A woman shot at the corner of Wisconsin Avenue and Water Street was located by police near 20th and L streets Oct. 11 around 10:30 p.m., according to Metropolitan Police Department Communications Director Dustin Sternbeck.
The woman sustained non-life-threatening injuries after being shot while sitting in the passenger seat of a car, Sternbeck wrote in an email to The Hoya.
“Officers located an adult female [who] had suffered from multiple gunshot wounds as a passenger in a vehicle,” Sternbeck said. “Our [Washington, D.C.] Fire and [Emergency Medical Services] partners arrived on scene and transported her to a local hospital with non-life threatening injuries.”
MPD officers from the 2nd District Station responded to the area after a reported shooting, according to Sternbeck. The victim was found conscious and breathing at 20th and L streets after she had been shot in the stomach.
The shooting was not random, and the suspect is still at large, Sternbeck said.
The suspect is a black man who wore a mask and drove a black Dodge Neon with purple neon lights around the license plate, according to an Oct. 11 MPD tweet.
MPD is asking anyone with information regarding the shooting to contact its detectives.
This shooting is not the first to occur at the Georgetown waterfront. Nineteen-year-old Kennedy Javier Amaya-Olivares died after a double shooting that hospitalized another victim on the 3500 block of Water Street around 3 a.m. July 8, 2017, according to The Washington Post. Another shooting was reported in the same area May 29, 2016, according to WUSA9.
The homicide rate in D.C. has risen by 43 percent this year, while the rate of assaults with dangerous weapons has decreased by 10 percent as of Oct. 23, according to MPD’s 2018 Year-to-Date Crime Data.
This trend stands in contrast to most major U.S. cities, which have seen lower murder rates in 2018. Homicides are down 35 percent in San Francisco, 20.9 percent in Baltimore and 23.2 percent in Chicago, according to a Sept. 20 preliminary report by the Brennan Center for Justice.
The District has taken measures to address the recent spike in violent crime, with the D.C. Council Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety hosting a public oversight roundtable on MPD programs combatting violence Sept. 25. In June, MPD Chief Peter Newsham demoted Regis Bryant, the police commander of the 7th district, following a surge in homicides in his jurisdiction, according to The Washington Post.
Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) has also introduced legislation to reduce gun violence in D.C., banning the possession of 3D-printed “ghost guns” and other undetectable firearms without serial numbers, on Sept. 17.
