A man was fatally shot outside a shoe store Wednesday morning in the Benning neighborhood of Northeast Washington, police said.

       The shooting occurred in a shopping plaza at Shoe City, in the East River Park Shopping Center in the 3900 block of Minnesota Ave NE, police said. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

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       Officers responded about 11:40 a.m. and found the victim with multiple gunshot wounds in front of the shoe store, next to a post office.

       Cmdr. Darnel Robinson of the Sixth District station said it appeared the victim, whose identity was not immediately disclosed pending notification of relatives, had been targeted.

       The gunman was last seen running behind a McDonald’s next to the shopping plaza and toward Minnesota Avenue, police said. Robinson said police recovered a weapon at the scene.

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       Tyrell Holcomb, an advisory neighborhood commissioner for the area, came to the shopping center after the shooting. He said the city needs more resources to deal with violence.

       “This is the second shooting over here that’s taken place in broad daylight,” Holcomb said, referencing the April shooting of 38-year-old Tiffany Wiggins, which occurred a block away.

       Holcomb said he has petitioned for violence interrupters who work in communities to mediate disputes and try to prevent shootings.

       “The violence interrupters need to have resources beyond MPD in order to prevent stop things like this from happening since they’re the first line of defense when things like this happen,” Holcomb said.

       A few hours later, about 5:30 p.m., D.C. police said, another man was shot and critically injured two blocks from the shopping center, in the 4100 block of Minnesota Avenue NE. It could not immediately be learned whether the shootings were connected.