Carmelo Duncan Washington D.C one year old toddler shot dead in latest victim of surge of gun violence and 15 year high in city homicides. Killer sought.
A community is in outrage following the latest spurt of violence in Washington D.C claiming the life of a 1 year old boy who was fatally shot while riding in his father’s car earlier this week.
Carmelo Duncan was riding with his father and older brother Wednesday night when a shooter opened fire into the vehicle in a Southeast neighborhood of Washington, D.C., authorities said. The 15 month old toddler was taken to a hospital only to mortally succumb to his injuries.
The shooter remains at large and there’s still no description of a suspect.
‘There are no words for the sense of loss that our city will feel when they hear of this heartbreaking tragedy,’ Mayor Muriel Bowser said in a statement.
‘Our thoughts and prayers are with the angel we lost, his loved ones, and those who know the agony of this terrible loss,’ she wrote.
Targeted shooting?
Bowser also urged anyone with information about this ‘heinous crime’ to contact authorities immediately.
A $60,000 reward is being offered for information leading up to an arrest and conviction in the case. The Metropolitan Police Department, the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives have contributed to the reward and are all working on the investigation.
The child’s father and 8-year-old brother were not injured in the shooting. It remained unclear if the shooting was targeted or simply an instance of the vehicle and its occupants haplessly crossing into gun-fare territory.
Carmelo is the youngest victim to be fatally shot this year in D.C., which has seen its highest number of homicides in 15 years in the nation’s capital, according to The Washington Post.
Rampant gun violence: A way of life?
‘We cannot tolerate senseless gun violence, and we must continue to come together to have the tough conversation about what we must to do to eradicate it,’ Bowser said.
Duncan’s killing in the Marshall Heights neighborhood marked a grim milestone for the city, which has experienced 187 homicides this year as of Friday, according to figures from the Metropolitan Police Department. The last year homicides reached that mark was 2005 when there were 196 killings in the city foxnews reports.
Police Chief Peter Newsham called it ‘the most tragic news’ during a news conference Wednesday. He told reporters that investigators believe the shots came from another moving vehicle, a dark gray SUV that was seen driving in the area at the time of the incident.
‘This can’t happen in our city,’ he tweeted on Thursday along with a plea for help from the public.
In a tweet, Black Lives Matter DC addressed the killing, saying communities are bound to ‘love and protect one another.’
‘There is no way to express the deep agony caused by losing a child. No one can ignore the anger the murder of a child ignites,’ the post read. ‘WE, the community, have a duty to love and protect one another. #WeKeepUsSafe is much more than a hashtag. It’s a way of life.’
