At least four people, including a 12-year-old girl, were shot when a gunman unleashed a volley of bullets in the US capital on Friday, closing several schools and leaving the community on edge before the suspect was found dead hours later.
The suspected gunman was found dead Friday night inside an apartment at the location as Metropolitan Police Department officers conducted door-to-door searches of buildings in the area.
The resounding bursts of rapid fire rattled the normally quiet neighborhood that is home to several schools and universities and dozens of embassies.
An hour after a man shot indiscriminately in the Van Ness neighborhood of Washington, DC, on a busy Friday afternoon, Raymond Spencer updated the page. Wikipedia from the nearby Edmund Burke School.
“A gunman shot up the school on April 22, 2022,” Spencer wrote. “The suspect is still at large.”
Police later identified Spencer of Fairfax, Virginia as a person of interest in the shooting before announcing that a suspect was found dead that night in a nearby Van Ness apartment surrounded by firearms and ammunition.
Police said four were injured in the shooting in the Van Ness area, including a man in his 50s, a woman in her 30s, another woman who was grazed by a bullet and a 12-year-old girl.
As of Saturday morning, little was known about the suspect. Authorities did not say if the shooter was targeting Burke, if he attended or had any affiliation with the school, or what ties he had to the Van Ness neighborhood. But authorities said Spencer’s online fingerprint provided information about the shooting that caused panic on one of DC’s busiest avenues and launched armored vehicles and helicopters into the area during a frantic search for the gunman.
Law enforcement officials with knowledge of the investigation said investigators examined social media posts attributed to an online user named Raymond Spencer, including 4chan, an online message board with millions of users. The user wrote: “Dear God please forgive me” in a message four minutes after the shots were reported.
[Con información de The Associated Press]
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