A series of 911 calls were reportedly received about a Saturday cookout happening in Southeast D.C., which later on turned into a mass shooting.
On Monday, Mayor Muriel Bowser held a news conference along with the public safety officials to address the “horrific” mass shooting that happened in a massive cookout on Saturday evening.
The Southeast D.C. cookout mass shooting
According to Fox 5, the event had digital fliers “billed on social media,” as the “5th Annual Cookout” at 3300 block of Dubois St. Southeast.
911 calls were rolling in that evening, most of which were complaints about the cookout. Almost 30 of those calls happened before the mass shooting transpired, according to the spokesperson for the Office of Unified Communications (OUC).
Fox 5 quotes OUC’s statement, saying:
“Callers’ complaints were regarding blocked streets, party guests not social distancing nor wearing masks, and crowd size in general. Four calls were related to ATV’s and dirt bikes that were also in the vicinity of the block party at 3300 block of Dubois PL SE.”
The tragedy took the life of a 17-year-old teen, identified as Christopher Brown, severely injured an off-duty female police officer and 20 others were reportedly shot.
Among those injured were 12 women, 9 male victims. Moreover, 16 of those people are between the ages of 20-29 years old, per WUSA9.
Meanwhile, the severely injured 22-year-old off-duty police officer was shot on the neck. Washington Post highlights that D.C. Police Chief Peter Newsham confers that her condition has improved since the incident. However, “she is not out of the woods yet,” says Newsham.
Authorities are looking for at least four shooters
Reports have it that the authorities are looking into four perpetrators behind the mass shooting. One of the weapons was discovered on the scene, and police found at least 100 bullets as well.
ABC News quotes Newsham, saying:
“Everybody who attended that event, everybody who has information, has a civic responsibility to let us know who was responsible for this. This is absolutely ridiculous. This is unacceptable.”
Footage from the mass shooting in DC this is horrible pic.twitter.com/dX5jP47ado
— Lee Davinci (@Lee_DaVinci) August 9, 2020
It turns out, the police were aware of the event happening in the city. Although, the said cookout didn’t have a permit. Newsham confirmed that there were police at the gathering but not enough to break the event.
According to Newsham:
“My understanding and this is preliminary and subject to change so take it with a grain of salt please, is that there were officers here. There were not sufficient officers to be able to move a crowd of that size.”
He further explained that he will talk with the management team to confirm if everything that they could possibly do was done accordingly. “Because we can’t tolerate these types of gatherings in our city during COVID-19, it’s just too dangerous,” says Newsham.
As of the moment, the United States is still struggling to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, having 5,251,446 confirmed cases, and 166,192 deaths, per the Worldometer.
Washington alone has 41,740 active cases, with 1,701 deaths reported.
Mayor Bowser expressed on Monday’s news conference saying, “We need people to socially distance, wear a mask and don’t settle your problems with guns.”
As of this writing, no arrest has been made yet. The police are looking into the possibility of a video footage being taken, which will lead them closer to the shooters.
Featured image courtesy of Alexey Topolyanskiy/Unsplash