Gunmen fatally shot a 17-year-old Southeast girl several times in the face and wounded three other teens in front of an apartment complex late Thursday.
The shooting occurred at about 11:35 p.m. outside an apartment complex at 4639 Benning Road SE, said Capt. C.V. Morris, head of the Metropolitan Police Department’s Violent Crimes Branch.
Cynthia Gray, of the 600 block of 46th Street Southeast, was carrying a friend’s 7-month-old baby when a gold Cadillac pulled up in front of the complex.
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Capt. Morris said at least one man lowered his window and began shooting from the car, and at least two men got out and continued to fire. He said Miss Gray was shot a number of times in the face at close range.
“Before her demise, Miss Gray was able to put the child under a vehicle to avoid the shots,” Capt. Morris said, adding that the child was not harmed.
Capt. Morris said police have no motive in the shooting and he wouldn’t comment on whether Miss Gray had been targeted.
“This is a pretty much a cowardice act, if you ask me,” he said. “Again, we just don’t have any rhyme or reason behind it.”
He also said there was no evidence of a connection between Miss Gray’s killing and the July 24 killing of her boyfriend, Ronnie Garner. Mr. Garner, 17, was shot in the head and killed along with another man in the 4700 block of Alabama Avenue Southeast.
No arrests have been made in that case.
Capt. Morris said police were not aware of any threats that Miss Gray had received and were not aware of her having been a witness to her boyfriend’s shooting.
He said the car the shooters traveled in had been reported stolen during a carjacking committed by a lone gunman on Suitland Road in Prince George’s County half an hour before the shooting. Police recovered the vehicle in Seat Pleasant yesterday.
Two 18-year-old men and a 19-year-old woman also were shot.
One man was shot in both legs and the other man was hit in the back. They were taken to area hospitals where they were admitted in critical but stable condition.
The woman suffered a gunshot wound to her right arm. She was taken to an area hospital in stable condition.
Capt. Morris said the three victims are expected to recover.
The D.C. Council last month approved a change in the city’s curfew as part of a package of emergency anti-crime legislation. The curfew was moved from midnight to 10 p.m. in what Metropolitan Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey described as an effort to keep children safe and out of trouble. However, the curfew only applies to children 16 and under.
Another provision of the legislation authorized the deployment of about 50 neighborhood surveillance cameras. Seven cameras are operational and another 18 are expected to be installed within the next week. Police are expected to announce that one of the camera locations will be in the area of Thursday night’s shooting on Benning Road.
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