An 18-year-old man has been identified as the suspect in the shooting at a Northwest Washington, D.C., hotel last month that left a woman dead and several others injured, police announced Friday.
Gerald Thomas, of Temple Hills, Maryland, is wanted for second-degree murder while armed. An arrest warrant has been issued by the D.C. Superior Court.
The shooting occurred in the early morning of Jan. 27 in the Days Inn located at 4400 Connecticut Avenue NW, in the Van Ness neighborhood.
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The gunfire erupted during a party in a room, police said.
Officers responded at about 3:30 a.m. and found three women shot, with at least one in the lobby and another in a room, police said.
The women were taken to hospitals, where one of them died from her injuries. She was identified as 20-year-old Dasha Cleary, of Waldorf, Maryland.
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Two men sought treatment on their own and suffered injuries that were not life-threatening, authorities said.
It wasn't immediately clear what led to the shooting, but D.C. police chief Robert Contee Jr. said in a press conference after the incident that there had been an exchange of gunfire and that they believed the people involved knew each other.
The Days Inn is located in a commercial area with some homes and several businesses. Authorities said after the shooting that members of the community had complained about the hotel before.
Records show D.C. police have been called to the hotel 278 times over the past two years, which they confirm is a big increase over previous years. According to Contee, the hotel’s address has been subject to 73 calls for service since July for incidents ranging from welfare checks to assaults to drug complaints.
The majority of calls police have responded to at the hotel are for what’s listed as “disorderly disturbance.”
