A Washington, D.C. father pushed his two young sons to the ground Monday evening as 30 shots erupted around them in the Hill East neighborhood.
The father was walking home from a birthday party with his 8-year-old and 6-year-old sons at 13th and G streets SE about 6:45 p.m. Monday when shots began to ring out.
"The volley of shots went off, and literally the plume of gunpowder wafted over the top of us," the man said. He asked News4 not to identify him because he was a witness to the crime.
He said he saw a man pull up to the intersection, get out of a car with a gun and start shooting toward the Potomac Gardens housing complex.
"The shooters were very brazen. They were standing right in the middle of the street. Broad daylight. Kids around them. People walking their dogs around them," the father said.
Children and adults inside the metal fence around Potomac Gardens were terrified too, resident Robert Woodard said.
"Everybody was screaming," he said. "Everybody was trying to duck and cover."
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No one was reported to have been hurt.
Police set out a sea of evidence markers in the intersection and found that 30 shots had been fired from three different guns.
Wayne Tucker, who has lived in Potomac Gardens for six years, said residents live in fear.
"You always worry. Why wouldn't you worry? I'm hoping it's not my day," he said.
Many homes in the area east of Capitol Hill sell for upward of $1 million, but crime persists. About the same number of assaults involving guns were reported in Ward 6 in the past year as in the previous year, crime statistics show.
A 16-year-old girl, Breyona McMillian, was shot and killed near Potomac Gardens the day after Thanksgiving.
On Tuesday evening, the area was full of police.
"This is unacceptable. It will not be tolerated by this community, and it will not be tolerated by the Metropolitan Police Department. Our intent is to get this case closed," Metropolitan Police Department Assistant Chief Robert Contee said on the scene.
Police are seeking a gray Nissan Ultima and an orange minivan. Anyone who was in the area at the time of the shooting is asked to call police.
