A National Guard member was shot in the leg in Washington after troops broke up a fight and returned fire on a gunman who pointed his weapon at them.
D.C. police said early Monday they were investigating a late-night shooting near the 400 block of 8th Street SE after National Guard members stepped into a street fight and one of them took a bullet in the leg. The injured Guard member and the alleged shooter both were treated at local hospitals for injuries described as non-life-threatening, and the suspect was placed under arrest.
ABC News reported that the confrontation began around 11 p.m. Sunday when Guard members moved in to break up a fight. A person involved in that fight then allegedly opened fire, striking a Guard member in the leg.
D.C. Interim Police Chief Jeffery W. Carroll described what happened next at the scene.
"National Guard immediately gave commands to that individual to put down the gun."
The gunman did not comply. Carroll said the individual then turned the weapon on the troops.
"That individual then pointed the weapon towards National Guard members, who returned fire to the individual."
Carroll said three National Guard members fired back. At least one round struck the individual in the abdomen. Police said the suspect was taken into custody after the exchange.
Both the wounded Guard member and the alleged shooter were treated in local D.C. hospitals. Officials described their injuries as non-life-threatening. The Metropolitan Police Department said it was investigating the shooting.
Police did not release the suspect’s name in the initial account. They also did not name the Guard members involved, specify charges beyond the arrest, or describe what started the original fight. No other injuries were reported in the early police statements.
The sequence laid out by police is straightforward. National Guard members intervened in a street fight. Someone pulled a gun. A Guard member was hit. The troops ordered the gunman to drop the weapon. He pointed it at them instead. They returned fire, stopped the threat, and police made an arrest.
That is the job frontline forces are supposed to do when disorder turns violent. Guard members did not hang back while a fight escalated into gunfire on a D.C. street. They moved in, took fire, and answered it. One of their own paid for that decision with a bullet in the leg.
Taxpayers expect order in the nation’s capital. When a fight becomes a shooting, the people willing to step between civilians and a gunman are the ones carrying the risk. Sunday night, that risk landed on a National Guard member who left the scene in an ambulance while the alleged shooter left in handcuffs.
Lawful force met a man who refused to drop his weapon. That is how a street fight ends when someone brings a gun into it, and when Guard members still do their duty.
