A man was fatally shot Monday morning at a homeless encampment along one of the District’s main downtown thoroughfares, authorities said, an incident that comes as tensions flare over rising violent crime and how to address encampments across the city.
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The victim, who has not been identified, was shot in the neck about 9:45 a.m. and pronounced dead at the scene. Police standing outside a nearby convenience store heard a gunshot and saw a man running, who they said was probably in his 30s. By Monday evening, authorities were still searching for the man and investigating what might have precipitated the shooting.
The shooting occurred at a small encampment in Thomas Circle, consisting of little more than three tents, a portable toilet, a scooter and a shopping cart. Residents in the downtown neighborhood said they had long been raising concerns about safety around the encampment, and a nearby condominium building sent an email to occupants on Monday expressing frustration that the city had not acted on the “blight and growing public safety hazard in Thomas Circle.”
Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) launched a pilot program last year aimed at permanently clearing a number of encampments by offering one-year leases to select people living at those locations. The encampment at Thomas Circle, however, was not included in the program. Officials have scheduled a Wednesday afternoon briefing on the incident at the request of concerned residents.
Assistant D.C. Police Chief Andre Wright said that city outreach workers had been in contact with people living or visiting the encampment, and that police had responded to the area several times in the past six months for “minor spats involving weapons” and made arrests.
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“We try to make sure they’re safe and that we’re helping in any way we can,” Wright said, standing at the scene, where a firearm had been seen next to a wooden pallet resting against a small blue tarp. It was not immediately known if that weapon was used in the shooting.
The DowntownDC Business Improvement District said in an email Monday evening that the city will remove all tents from the site and treat it as a “no camping zone” until further notice. The email said outreach teams from the D.C. government were deployed to “offer support and resources to those individuals who remained on-site as of this morning.”
D.C. Council member Brooke Pinto (D-Ward 2) said on Twitter that people living at the Thomas Circle encampment will be moved into PEP-V housing, which refers to D.C.'s Pandemic Emergency Program for Medically Vulnerable Individuals. The program allows individuals who are at higher risk of being severely impacted by the coronavirus to shelter in individual rooms, primarily in area hotels, instead of traditional congregate facilities.
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“[S]adly, another life lost to gun violence,” Pinto wrote. “This site has not been safe.”
The number of homeless encampments in the District increased by more than 40 percent from 2020 to 2021, according to Wayne Turnage, the deputy mayor for health and human services, despite aggressive government programs and an overall decrease in the city’s homeless population over the past several years.
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Experts and advocates say there has been a spike in violence against the homeless nationwide in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. The Monday morning shooting came two months after police linked a man to the shootings of five homeless people in D.C. and New York City, killing two and injuring three.
The incident also occurred amid a rise in homicides in the District. Through Sunday night, 76 homicides had been reported in the city, a 5.5 percent increase over the same period in 2021. Killings surpassed 200 last year for the first time since 2003. Police said they seized about 40 illegal firearms in the District this past weekend.
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Bill Bortz, who lives in the Thomas Circle neighborhood, said he was walking his dog by the small encampment when he heard “a loud crack” from inside a tent “that could only be a gunshot.” Bortz, who is in his 70s, said he called 911.
Wright said detectives were seeking video that might have captured the man and would publish images as soon as they are available.
“We want to talk to this individual to find out what occurred,” Wright said in a news conference at the scene. He said the investigators do not yet know what prompted the shooting.
“This is definitely an unfortunate event,” Wright said. “We’re on it. And I think that with a little more pieces coming together, we should be able to get this case closed.”
Marissa J. Lang and Justin Wm. Moyer contributed to this report.