1 dead, multiple injured in shooting near DC funeral home

One person was killed and multiple others were injured in a shooting near a funeral home in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, police said. 

Police did not provide an exact number of victims, but said that at least one person had died and that three others were struck by gunfire and sustained what appear to be non-life-threatening injuries.

A suspect has not been identified and an investigation is ongoing to track the suspect or suspects down.

“At this point, it appears that several of the people on the block were specifically targeted,” D.C. Police Chief Robert Contee said. “We’re unsure why that is.”

“It’s unfortunate that someone would be so brazen to do such an act, let alone at a funeral,” Contee added.

The shooting occurred just after 12 p.m. near a funeral home in northeast Washington, D.C., where a ceremony for a victim of gun violence had just ended, Contee said.

“How low can you be of a human being to target other people at a funeral?” he added.

Additional police presence had been in the area at the request of the family of the homicide victim being honored at the funeral, the police chief said, adding that it was not an out-of-the-ordinary request and that it’s not clear if the family had a specific concern about possible violence.

“I don’t know that they were specifically fearful of violence, but obviously, their loved one died as a result of gun violence,” he said of the family. “There could be some reasonable fear there, you know, you don’t know who killed your loved one, people have concerns about that kind of thing.”