Washington, DC: Man Shot at Minnesota Avenue Bus Stop Dies, Officer Shoots Suspect in Northeast Washington

A man shot near a bus stop on Minnesota Avenue in Northeast Washington on Thursday morning has died, and the man police say shot him is in critical condition after an officer shot him minutes later in a nearby shopping center parking lot, police and local television reports said.

The shootings happened back to back along Minnesota Avenue Northeast, near the Minnesota Avenue Metro station, on Thursday morning. Interim Chief Jeff Carroll of the Metropolitan Police Department laid out the sequence in a briefing carried by local stations.

According to police, the suspect first shot a man near a bus stop along the avenue. The man who was shot was taken to a hospital in critical condition, and later reports on Thursday said he had died. Police had not released his name in the reports published on Thursday.

A second shooting in a parking lot

Minutes after the bus stop shooting, the same man walked to a nearby shopping center parking lot and fired at a bystander who was coming out of a store, police said. A responding officer then shot the armed suspect with a patrol rifle, according to the account Interim Chief Carroll gave to reporters.

The suspect was taken to a hospital in critical condition, where he remained in the later reports on Thursday. Police did not say in those reports whether the bystander in the parking lot was hit, and no injury to that person was reported.

A closed avenue and a disrupted commute

The investigation shut down a stretch of Minnesota Avenue through the morning. D.C. police and Metro Transit officers worked near the 4100 and 4200 blocks of Minnesota Avenue, and police closed the avenue between Grant Street and Nannie Helen Burroughs Avenue, FOX 5 reported.

The Minnesota Avenue Metro station stayed open for rail passengers, but bus operations at the station were disrupted while the investigation was under way, the station reported. For riders and drivers in that part of Northeast Washington, the closure turned a weekday morning route into a detour around a crime scene.

By Thursday, the case police described had two parts: a man dead after being shot at a bus stop, and the man accused of shooting him in critical condition after being shot by an officer minutes later. Police had not released the names of either man, a motive, or any charges in the reports published on Thursday, and the investigation is continuing.