Police say gunman fired at officers at least twice; one victim critical

Police believe the gunman set a fire and are still seeking a motive

Police believe a fire was set inside the Logan Circle apartment building and that it has been contained, interim Metropolitan Police Department chief Jefferey Carroll said. While barricaded in one of the building’s apartments, the gunman fired through the door at officers at least twice. The shooting began Thursday morning inside a gym in the building, killing one person and wounding four others; one of the four injured people is in critical condition and the others have non-life-threatening injuries. The neighborhood sits about a mile (1.6km) north of the White House.

Police said the male suspect was “contained” after barricading himself in one of the apartments. While he was barricaded, he “did fire through the door at officers at least on two occasions,” Jefferey Carroll, the interim chief of the Metropolitan Police Department, said at a news conference.

Negotiators had been on the phone with the suspect when they heard a gunshot and he stopped communicating with them, according to Carroll. Officers forced their way into the apartment and saw that the suspect had what appeared to be a “self-inflicted gunshot wound.” Police later confirmed he had died.

Carroll added that police “believe there was a fire that was set” in the building, and said it has been contained.

Of the four people injured in the shooting, one is in critical condition and the others have non-life-threatening injuries.

Authorities are still working to establish the exact timeline of the incident, the suspect’s motivation and other details. “We believe there was some sort of a conflict with the apartment building, but we don’t have much more than that,” Carroll said.

Washington DC Mayor Muriel Bowser called the shooting a “senseless act of gun violence” and said the White House had been briefed.

Jonathan Csapo, a BBC producer who lives in the building, said a fire alarm went off and that he heard gunshots very close by as he came out of a fire escape. “I could see the smoke, I could see the flash. We just all started running. That was our first instinct,” he said.

“We immediately ran and took cover behind a barricade, a little brick structure just near the building,” Csapo said. A building manager then took him back inside, to a safe room, he said. “And then everybody started screaming,” he said.

Michael Carney told the Washington Sun he was on a treadmill at the Vida Fitness gym when the shooting started. He said he heard “one pop,” which he assumed was an exercise ball bursting, before seeing a victim on the floor who had been shot. “Everyone was kind of just hiding behind planters and stuff,” he said, adding that a fire alarm was pulled.

Once outside the gym, Carney said, he heard five or 10 shots that seemed to be coming from a nearby alley.

Another witness, who was not named, told the Washington Sun she heard “an enormous, loud thing” in the fitness center and more shots outside the gym after being evacuated. “I thought something had crashed or fallen,” she said. “I didn’t know it was a gunshot until later.”