A community in Southeast D.C. is devastated after learning on Monday that another teenager was shot and killed.
The victim has been identified as 16-year-old Jamal Jones. Police said he had no fixed address.
People in the neighborhood said they heard about 30 shots fired in rapid succession, followed by the sound of cars speeding away. Police responded to the shooting, where a teenager was hit in the 2300 block of Green Street SE near Fort Stanton Park just before 4 p.m.
Jones was found near an apartment building, and efforts at CPR were unsuccessful. He was pronounced dead on the scene.
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“Another mother, you know, gets the call that, or a loved one or a guardian, gets the call that their child is deceased,” Asyiah Timimi said.
She runs a life skills center near the scene called Rehabilitating Our Community is Key, but she couldn’t get to the scene in time because of another death in the community.
“I mean why, why are you killing kids? I mean what is so bad that you need to take another person’s life instead of just talking with them?" Timimi said. "I’m not getting this. I'm not understanding this. It’s really not making any sense."
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She said she has tailored her curriculum and that it includes healing work for her students. Her service is one of several that work with youth and gun violence in Anacostia.
Presto Gray, who works with Project Purpose DC, was on his way to a gathering of mentors and mentees from the community who meet to talk about the trauma, loss and how to prevent gun violence.
“We're at these crime scenes all too often man, so, I hate to say we’re desensitized, but we’re fighting an uphill battle every day,” Gray said.
News4 video shows children coming home from school and walking past the crime scene and yellow tape.
“Things the kids are seeing all too often, unfortunately,” Gray said.
“We need to start reaching out to our youth a little bit more and finding out what problems they’re going through mentally,” Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Kimberly Little said.
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A crime camera near the scene captured video that will be used in the investigation.
Officers are looking for a blue Honda that fled the scene, police said.
Stay with News4 and NBCWashington.com for updates to this story.
