Officials give update after active shooter in DC neighborhood

Good morning. I'm Jeff Carroll, interim chief of the Metropolitan Police Department. I'm here to provide an update regarding the shooting that occurred in the 1500 block of 15th Street Northwest this morning. I want to start out by saying this is very preliminary information. The scene is continuing to unfold. We want to provide you an update with the information that we have so far to this point. So what we know is just before 8 o'clock this morning A call came in for the report of a shooting in the 1500 block of 15th Street inside of a gym. Officers immediately were dispatched to this area. They were on scene within 30 seconds. Once they arrived on the scene, they did locate an adult male that had been shot. However, multiple other calls came out for additional gunshots and victims. At this time, we have located a total of four individuals that were shot here on the scene and transported and one individual who was deceased here on the scene. When officers got on the scene again, they began canvassing attempting to locate the suspect in this case. While they were on the scene, they were able to begin to, of course, clear the building where the shootings occurred. They also began to clear a apartment building in the 1500 block of 15th Street. While clearing that building, gunshots rang out on the seventh floor. And since that time, we have determined the suspect had barricaded themselves in an apartment on the seventh floor of that building. MPD's Emergency Response Team responded to the scene as well as additional resources from many federal partners, our patrol officers here, to coordinate amongst the different agencies and to deploy resources here. Our negotiators with their Emergency Response Team were also able to make contact with the suspect inside of the apartment. They've been talking to him for over the past hour, again attempting to try to resolve the situation. Just moments ago, while communicating with that individual, officers heard a gunshot As a response to that, officers forced the entry into the apartment. When they did that, they located the suspect suffering from a gunshot wound. At this time, the scene is still fluid with that. They're still evaluating that to make sure we clear the entire building. We do believe that the suspect is now contained in that location, and, of course, emergency services will be rendered as appropriate to that. With that, again, this is very preliminary in the investigation. We know that there was a lot of people that were out here this morning when this came out. Our detectives have been interviewing individuals who may have seen or witnessed this. We would ask anyone who did potentially in the area, may have fled the area, to ensure they contact MPD. You can reach us at 202-727-9099 so we can follow with you and interview you. Obviously, there's a lot to this because there are multiple different scenes. What I mean by that is there are different locations where people were shot. I have to say that DC Fire and EMS was on the scene right away. We were able to coordinate with them to get medical treatment to the victims, get them off the scene where they've all been transported to local hospitals. Of those victims, the four that are surviving, one is determined to be in critical condition. At this point, the other three do not appear to be, they appear to have non-life-threatening injuries. So with that, I'll take it up to any questions that you may have. Mark Stone from Sky News. Can you tell us any more about the gunman? Was he known to you? Age? Ethnicity? And can you give us any sense of what the motive might have been at this stage? Sure. As I said, we're very early in the investigation here. We do know based on the lookouts, it's a white male. We do have an idea who he is. We believe there was some sort of a conflict with the apartment building, but we don't have much more than that. That will be part of the continuing investigation. Yes, ma'am. Sure. Again, we're very early in the investigation. We do know there was a conflict between him and the homeowners association of that building. But at this point, we're continuing to look into that. There are videos. Sure. So we do believe at some point there was a fire that was set. The fire alarm went off in the building. The sprinklers in the building did go off. There is a large amount of water inside of that location. So we do believe at some point there was a fire in the building. It has been contained and put out this time. We don't know that for sure. Obviously, we would kind of expect that would be it, but we can't say for sure at this point. Do you believe this? Let's go over here. Again, we're very early in the investigation. We're not sure what the relationship may or may not be. Sure. Of the five victims that were shot, we have a witness who said one was deceased inside the gym. Where were the other four? That is correct. There is one person that was shot and deceased inside a gym. We have some other individuals that were actually across the street working on a construction site. We have the report of another individual who was inside the lobby area or in the alley area. As you can imagine, we're not only investigating, but we're also interviewing those witnesses as they went to different hospitals. So we have officers there. Some are able to be interviewed right away. Some, based on their medical treatment, it's going to take more time to interview to get more details on that. Chief, right here. You said he barricaded himself inside of a unit. Is that a residential unit? Was it his own, or was there anyone else inside the unit when he barricaded himself inside of it? Sure. So right now officers are still clearing the actual unit, but we do believe it was his unit inside of there. He did fire through the door at officers, at least on two occasions, while he was barricaded inside. Thank you. MR. See you, again. Thank This is because it came out as an active shooter. We have people that were actually being killed. So any law enforcement that will be in the area, we would expect them to come to stop that threat immediately. Yeah, I don't have any idea specifically you. about the government buildings. We did push out messaging to the community to avoid this area. We also pushed out a wireless emergency alert to again avoid this area while there was an active threat. And then, of course, once it transitioned into a barricade situation, we pushed that out as well. Can we get your authority? My name is Abdul Berdisa from RVTV. So the shooting happened inside the gym or inside the gym and outside the gym as well? That's what we believe right now. But again, we're very early in the investigation. So an exact timeline, exact locations are still part of the investigation. So the initial call for service that we have, the first shooting was inside of the gym. That's the first call. The motivation, we don't know. Again, we're, you know, we're two hours into the situation. We can't say the exact motivation. That's all part of the investigation. Just a few minutes before we walked up here, it appears to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound. As I mentioned, we were, our negotiators were talking to him on the phone, at which time they heard a gunshot and he stopped communicating with At this point, again, we're out here. I'm not sure what his exact situation is. Medical services, of course, respond in to try to treat him, but we don't have that information at this time. I'm not going to get into specific locations, but he did shoot himself. Again, from what we know right now, I don't want to get into too much information because the investigation is ongoing. We know, at least at one point in time, he had a handgun. We don't know if there's other weapons that are involved or not. Again, that will be part of the investigation, of course, and what we find inside of his apartment. We do believe he was a member of the jam. Mayor, can we get your thoughts on this? What does this say about gun crime? Well, first of all, let me just say this. We're devastated. One of someone was killed in our city this morning, a senseless act of gun violence. I am very grateful to MPD and Fire and EMS who responded. Immediately, quickly and contain this situation. I know many DC residents were awakened to this news and were very scared and listened to all of the directives that MPD provided. So we're grateful to them as well. And MPD will continue to investigate this situation. But this lone gunman has been contained. Thank you. The White House has been briefed, as is my process. Yes. Yes. You praised President Trump about bringing down crimes. Actually, I praise MPD for bringing down crime in this city and I praise our prosecutors and I am grateful, as you can see, the question was asked, is this a typical response? It's not typical to have an active shooter that guns down people in this city. And so all of law enforcement, our federal partners, our local MPD, our fire and EMS, our HSEMA, our 911 have all responded in a way that's professional. That got this situation under control. Yeah, good morning. I'm John Donnelly, Chief of D.C. Fire and EMS. Fire and EMS responded immediately with the police department. Our first units made contact with the first victim that they encountered at about three minutes after the initial dispatch. Thank you very much. It's an active, very confused scene. Ultimately, we transported four patients. Some of them were able to come to us. Some of them were brought to us by law enforcement in order to make the scene work. Three of those patients have non-life-threatening injuries, and there's one serious injury.