Boy, 15, killed in D.C. concert shooting was ‘screaming out for his mom,’ witness says
A 15-year-old boy killed in a shooting at an unpermitted Washington, D.C., concert on Sunday was yelling for his mother before his death, a witness said.
Authorities say three other victims, including a police officer, were also wounded in the shooting, which occurred at around 6 p.m. at the Moechella music festival that commemorated Juneteenth.
Witness Daniel Dyson told local news station Fox 5 DC that he was near the 15-year-old, who has not been identified, when the teenager was shot.
“He was screaming out for his mom,” Dyson said. “And it’s hurtful to hear that, man. And no one was able to help him.”
Dyson added that it “bothers” him that the teenager was killed.
“It don’t matter what you color is — your race, what kind of uniform you’re wearing,” Dyson told the TV outlet. “It needs to come to a stop. And if it don’t it’s going to be innocent kids dying every day because people don’t want to do this.”
The scene after the shooting in Washington, D.C. on Sunday. (Bryan Olin Dozier/NurPhoto/Shutterstock/)
Teen dies, 3 others shot including cop, during downtown D.C. music concert Moechella
Authorities have not announced any suspects or arrests.
The officer who was wounded in the shooting was in stable condition Sunday after being hospitalized, police said. The cop is expected to be OK after being shot in a lower extremity.
“I was sitting next to a cop,” Dyson told Fox 5 DC. “Next thing you know, shots rang out. He did not want to stay down. He proceeded on. He was shot in the leg. And he kept moving. He went to the fire. He did not run away.”
Several hundreds of congertgoers attended the event in downtown D.C., where people were playing music on a truck, Washington Metropolitan Police Department chief Robert Contee told reporters after the shooting.
Contee says the other two victims were in stable condition.
“At some point during the course of this gathering there was some type of incident or fight that happened between some of the individuals who were in attendance,” Contee said.
“That incident was broken up. Shortly thereafter there was a secondary incident — we’re unsure of what that incident was, but people started to scatter at that point.”
About 100 officers responded to the scene but none fired their weapons, Contee said.
He said the incident played out over about two hours, with the concert being broken up by authorities. Officials then tried to help concertgoers whose legs were trampled amid the mayhem.
Juneteenth, which became a national holiday last year under the Biden Adminstration, recognizes the emancipation of enslaved African-Americans in the United States.
