The 93-year-old woman shot and wounded in Northeast D.C. Sunday night was walking through the door of her own home when she was hit, she told News4.
"I was out of my wits," the woman said, clasping her hands together as she spoke through the heavy screen door of her home. She asked that her name be withheld to protect her safety.
The woman -- one of four people shot in the same neighborhood on Sunday -- was returning from a shopping trip and opening her door on the 500 block of Oglethorpe Street NE about 8 p.m.
"I was coming up the steps when I heard all these shots," she said. "My thinking was firecrackers. But I heard folk hollering outside, 'Bullets, bullets, bullets! They shootin', they shootin'!'"
"I felt something in my back," the victim continued.
She received a graze wound in her back. She was taken to a hospital, treated and released.
A man and woman hit in the same shooting also received non-life-threatening injuries.
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The violent day began with a shooting about 2:45 a.m. nearby, on the 400 block of Riggs Road NE.
Marcellus Thomas, 22, was shot and killed, police said. He was shot in the head during a drive-by shooting, relatives said.
He had recently left a hospital after suffering from kidney failure, family members said.
Loved ones were mourning Thomas's death when the day's second round of gunfire erupted. Police believe the two shootings are connected.
Mayor Muriel Bowser -- who used to live on the 93-year-old woman's block -- was at the crime scene Sunday night, alongside police.
A woman who heard the shots Sunday night said she no longer feels safe in the area.
"We should be able to walk freely in our neighborhood," she said.
The 93-year-old shooting victim said she hoped the shooter or shooters would be caught soon.
"It's very scary to think that people like that are loose," she said.
