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Suspect Killed in Shooting at New Jersey Avenue and C Street Northwest

Updated: 10:42 p.m.A man was shot and killed by Capitol Police on Wednesday night within blocks of the Capitol after he fired a gun at several officers.Police have not released the identity of the man, who was driving a white Mercedes with a temporary Virginia tag.Capitol Police spokeswoman Sgt. Kimberly Schneider said the incident began shortly after 5 p.m. when officers initiated a “routine traffic stop— at the 100 block of Massachusetts Avenue Northeast.The suspect immediately began to flee the officers in his car, Schneider said, and at Columbus Circle, in front of Union Station, he “nearly ran over— another Capitol Police officer who had stepped out of his car to make a traffic stop for another vehicle. That officer sustained minor injuries, she said, and was not taken to the hospital.The suspect then headed the wrong way down Louisiana Avenue Northwest with two police vehicles in pursuit and nearly hit a second officer who was on his motorcycle near New Jersey Avenue and C Street Northwest. That officer also sustained only minor injuries, Schneider said.The suspect then crashed into a parked car and a marked Capitol Police cruiser in the 200 block of New Jersey Avenue Northwest, about a block from the Capitol grounds, she said.The suspect then brandished a handgun, and police officers verbally commanded him to drop his weapon. It’s unclear whether the man was inside or outside his car, though Schneider said at a press conference soon after the incident that she believed he was inside.“The subject disregarded repeated demands by police officers to put down the weapon that the suspect had,— Schneider said in a press release. “He began shooting a weapon at several U.S. Capitol Police officers. U.S. Capitol Police returned fire, hitting the suspect.—Two officers sustained “non-life-threatening injuries— and were treated at the scene. Those officers administered first aid to the suspect until he was taken to the hospital, where he died.Schneider said she did not know what type of handgun the unidentified man had or how many shots were fired. The officers involved are now on administrative leave, pending the results of an investigation by the Capitol Police and the Metropolitan Police Department.Although police cordoned off several blocks where the shooting took place, an official police notice said that the Capitol complex was unaffected and that all buildings remain open under normal operations.Robert Drumm, an eyewitness from Edmond, Okla., who was near the scene, said he heard more than a dozen gunshots.“I was surprised there were so many shots being fired. There could have been 20 for all I know,— he said.

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