D.C. Police Chief Robert J. Contee III said the sniper who sprayed bullets across the Van Ness neighborhood in Northwest Washington on Friday had his sights on a nearby private school, firing more than 200 bullets out his apartment window, with more than 800 unspent rounds in his residence.

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       “The school was certainly in his crosshairs,” Contee said.

       Speaking at a news conference Monday, the chief said Raymond Spencer had six firearms in the apartment on Van Ness Street, and that three were fully-automatic rifles. He said police found thousands more rounds of ammunition inside another residence in Fairfax, Va.

       Authorities said they still have not learned of any connection Spencer, 23, had to the Edmund Burke School or a motive for the shooting that wounded four people, including a 12-year-old. Contee and Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) gathered with other public officials Monday to discuss the shooting that sent panic through the neighborhood along Connecticut Avenue that went into lockdown Friday evening along with the Burke school.

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       Authorities at the news conference also announced the creation of a new Violent Crime Impact Team made up of federal law enforcement agencies to target crime in specific areas where shootings are most prevalent.

       Contee noted that on Friday and Saturday, police responded to a total of 10 shooting incidents with 15 victims, including a man in a wheelchair shot during a dispute, a construction worker directing traffic shot by a person on a ride-share bicycle who was upset with delays, and a man fatally shot and stabbed during an argument at a birthday party.

       The police chief has frequently said that people react to crime differently depending on their “proximity to the pain.” On Monday, Contee said of the recent crime, “This should be painful to all of us.”

       Homicides, which have trended upward for the past four years, are down 10 percent year-to-date.

       The hours of a fearful lockdown at Edmund Burke school

       The shooting in Van Ness erupted as classes were being dismissed at the Edmund Burke School on Van Ness Street near Connecticut Avenue. Police said Spencer opened fire from a fifth-floor residence at the AVA Van Ness apartments. Bullets struck vehicles and shattered a glass walkway connecting two school buildings, plunging the school and the surrounding neighborhood into lockdown.

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       Four people were injured, including a woman waiting to pick up a student, a security guard and a 12-year-old girl. Police said bullets flew nearly a mile, striking terror along one of the District’s busiest and best-known thoroughfares.

       Authorities said they are still trying to determine a motive. Spencer, from Fairfax County, fatally shot himself as police breached his door, authorities said, leaving a sparsely furnished room that police described as a “sniper-nest,” filled with firearms, ammunition and a tripod for mounting a rifle. Police officials said they believe Spencer had searched Wikipedia pages on the recent attack in the New York City subway and a school shooting in Florida, and edited the Wikipedia page for the Edmund Burke School to document his own shooting.

       Residents throughout the city are on edge. A recent poll by The Washington Post found that three in 10 District residents do not feel safe in their neighborhoods. The crime concerns come as Bowser seeks reelection and a June 21 primary is approaching.

       Suspect in shooting that injured 4 found dead, officials say

       On Saturday, the day after the sniper attack, Bowser came under criticism from challengers who squared off at a candidate forum. One of her challengers, council member Robert C. White Jr. (D-At Large), said his proposal to guarantee a job to every District resident would “drive down violence.”

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       Bowser has focused on alternative justice programs but also has called on the Council to approve a budget to hire 347 more officers in the coming fiscal year. She wants to start a path toward building a force now staffed at a two-decade low up to 4,000 officers.

       The D.C. Council’s public safety committee has voted to approve the mayor’s request for the 347 additional officers but most lawmakers have not indicated their support for expanding the department beyond the next fiscal year. Bowser’s proposal has met resistance from some activists, amid calls to scale back the size of the police department after the racial justice protests that followed George Floyd’s killing by a Minneapolis police officer.

       The mayor, in a letter to residents after the sniper attack, said, “Today has been a heartbreaking day for our community. … This epidemic of gun violence in our country, the easy access to firearms — it has got to stop.”