photo by random lady
“Dear PoPville,
My husband, our teenage son, and I live on Capitol Hill. On Saturday night, July 22, our 16-year-old was confronted by a gunman, shot at multiple times, and forced to hide under a blanket in the woods for an hour with strangers on Kingman Island.
He’d gone for an evening jog and came upon an armed man standing over someone in a field. The gunman pointed his gun at him and shouted.
Our son turned and ran back to the couple with a dog he’d just passed on the trail to warn them, shots and more shouting from the armed man behind him. The little group ran into the woods and hid under a blanket while the shooter searched for them—for an hour or more while firing in their direction. Our son called us at home to say he’d be missing curfew (he has a dry wit). He stayed on the phone with us as we listened to the gun shots ourselves, the couple called the police, and our son said, “Pray for me,” in a moment of vulnerability.
We had him on speaker as we sped to the scene and found maybe a dozen MPD cars outside the RFK Fields gate of the park. A helicopter with search lights circled overhead. More cops came, an ambulance, fire engine, K-9 unit, officers, detectives while we were held outside the gate — for an hour. Finally, the shooter was rolled out on a stretcher sitting up, shouting incomprehensibly at us as he passed. Yet more waiting while our son and the couple were interviewed. As you can imagine, our entire family is shaken. No parent should have to hear their terrified child ask for prayers while listening to the gunfire meant to harm him. No young person should be targeted for the simple act of going for a jog on a summer’s evening.
While our son showed incredible courage and grace under fire, he is clearly suffering from trauma and we are hoping to get us all crime victims’ trauma support. We are in contact with the couple he sheltered with, and we believe they are also experiencing trauma from this incident. We don’t know the status of the shooting victim. Crime and gun violence in the district is out of hand.”