6-Year-Old Girl Is Killed in Washington Shooting

U.S.|6-Year-Old Girl Is Killed in Washington Shooting

A 6-year-old was killed and five adults were wounded in a shooting in Washington on Friday night, according to the police.

Officers from the Metropolitan Police Department responded at 11:11 p.m. to a report of multiple shooting victims near an intersection in the capital’s southeast, a spokesman for the department, Dustin Sternbeck, said in an email early Saturday.

Ashan M. Benedict, the department’s executive assistant chief of police, later told reporters near the scene of the shooting that a 6-year-old girl had been killed and that three men and two women had been wounded.

“Any shooting that takes place in the city is unacceptable, and again, we’re responding to too many calls of children being affected by gunfire,” he said. “So please help us bring these shooters to justice.”

As of 1 a.m. on Saturday, several blocks around the crime scene were sealed off with police tape. The Metropolitan Police Department said on Twitter that its officers were searching for a dark-colored vehicle in connection with the shooting. No other details were immediately available.

The shooting took place on the other side of the Anacostia River from the Capitol and a few blocks from the headquarters of the Coast Guard.

Homicide rates in large U.S. cities were up more than 30 percent on average last year, according to criminologists. With pandemic restrictions receding across the country, police departments have been concerned about the potential for a rise in violence this summer.

But in Washington, data from the police department indicates that as of Friday, the number of homicides this year — 101 — was exactly the same as at the same point in 2020.