WASHINGTON — Three people have been shot at the Benning Road Metro Station in Northeast D.C. Thursday morning around 9:30 a.m. Metropolitan Police Department officers say they are assisting Metro Transit Police in their investigation and that there is no ongoing threat to the community.
Details about what led up to the shooting are still under investigation. Right now, Metro Transit Police believe the shooter in this case left the scene after shooting a woman and two boys. Police believe the shooting followed a fight. Preliminarily, one of boys, a 15-year-old boy, is thought to have life-threatening injuries after being shot in the thigh. He is in critical condition according to police. The other boy, also 15, was shot in the foot and a 34-year-old was shot in the ankle; both are expected to survive their injuries.
Police are searching for three juvenile suspects in this case. A preliminary investigation found that the suspects were involved in a fight with the teenager who was shot in the thigh on the Benning Road Station platform. The woman and the other boy were struck by stray bullets while sitting on a bench nearby, police said.
Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) said in a tweet Thursday that Blue and Silver Line trains are bypassing Benning Road Station due to police activity.
"We are all concerned, as there were two shootings at Metro stations in the last two days," Metro tweeted Thursday. "Unfortunately, Metro is not immune to society's increase in gun violence. We want to thank MetroTransitPD and our law enforcement partners for their quick response to these two incidents. We also want to thank our rail operator as well. She repowered through and kept customers from potential danger. More officers deployed in our system allows us to quickly respond – combined with the hiring of crisis intervention and enhanced videos – all tools we use to keep the Metro safe."
This shooting comes less than 24 hours after a separate shooting occurred at Metro Center Station. In that shooting, police investigators say an off-duty FBI special agent shot and killed a person after an alleged altercation on a Metro platform.
That shooting remains under investigation as well, and details about what led up to the fight between the agent and the person who was shot have not been made public.
These two incidents follow other disturbing stories on Metro trains over the past year, including stabbings and sexual assaults. According to Metro's crime stats, aggravated assaults are outpacing pre-pandemic levels.
WMATA's CEO Randy Clarke told WUSA9 in August the agency is trying to fill a shortage of police officers and considering other staffing changes at stations, along with more video surveillance.
He also said he's counting on more riders to make the system safer.
"When there's no one at a park, the park kind of gets run down and is kind of seedy. When a park is vibrant and active throughout all hours of the day, most people will go, 'That's a great park,'" Clarke said. "Same thing on Metro. The more people that are actually in the system, the system ends up being safer."