D.C. police have arrested the man suspected of shooting a driver after a minor car crash last week on Interstate 395 in the 3rd Street Tunnel.
The incident left a man with life-threatening injuries and closed all northbound lanes of the D.C. highway for three hours during the height of rush hour.
Daquan Brooks, 21, was charged with assault with intent to kill, police told News4. In another incident, he was charged with assault with a deadly weapon in connection to a double shooting in the 4800 block of Benning Road NE.
A witness to the 3rd Street Tunnel shooting on July 30 said a man shot the driver in the neck after the driver "tapped" the car in which the shooter was riding.
The witness told News4 his coworker was driving the gold SUV that hit a dark-colored, four-door sedan on I-395 near the Massachusetts Avenue exit shortly before 3 p.m.
The woman driving the sedan got out and screamed at them, the witness said. Then a man who was her passenger got out.
“I’m thinking he’s coming to grab her out of the way, tell her to calm down, and before I know it, I heard the pow,” the witness said.
Instead, the passenger shot the driver of the SUV in the neck.
Both people in the sedan got back into the car and drove off toward Massachusetts Avenue.
“I make that this was unnecessary,” D.C. police Cmdr. Morgan Kane said. “This is truly tragic that a simple accident, vehicle accident — it’s an accident — can escalate into a shooting. So that to me is very sad, it’s heart-wrenching and it’s very unnecessary.”
Mayor Muriel Bowser condemned the shooter and called for further gun restrictions.
“We have to stop guns from being in our city, where minor incidents, minor disputes, can erupt in gun violence,” she said.
The victim was conscious and breathing when he was taken to a hospital, but he had life-threatening injuries.
Police were looking for a dark-colored, four-door sedan with damage to its rear.
The witness said he believed the car in which the shooter was a passenger had Maryland license plates.
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“I tried to get the tag number, but they had a bicycle rack on the back of the car, so I really couldn’t see the tag,” he said.
Northbound I-395 was closed for about three hours, reopening at about 6 p.m. Tuesday.
