from: ASHRAF KHALIL, Associated Press
Posted Feb 1, 2023 / 1:29pm EST
Updated: February 1, 2023 / 1:40 p.m. EST
WASHINGTON (AP) — A gunman shot three people and killed one in a shooting spree Wednesday morning in the nation’s capital that began on a city bus and ended in a subway tunnel after passengers attacked and disarmed him.
Authorities were still pieced together the chaotic series of events that resulted in the shooting of two people with gunshot wounds to the leg and a Metro worker. The shooter is in police custody and has not been publicly identified.
Ashan Benedict, deputy chief of the Metropolitan Police Department, hailed the “heroic actions of our citizens, our community, to disarm this gunman.”
But he added: “The fact that our citizens had to intervene with armed gunmen is disturbing to me.”
The violence began just after 9 a.m. when the man began brandishing a gun and confronting passengers on a city bus in the south-east of the city. The man chased one of the passengers off the bus and shot him in the leg, Benedict said.
The man then walked down the escalator at the nearby Potomac Avenue subway station, confronted someone who was buying a subway pass, and shot that person in the leg as well. Both victims recovered at local hospitals.
The gunman then went down to the platform and began confronting a woman there. A Metro employee tried to intervene and was shot and killed. The identity of the transit worker who was killed was not released, but Benedict said her “heroism must be recognised”.
The man then tried to board a subway train and was apparently confronted and disarmed by the passengers. He exited the train car and was taken into custody by police officers who found his gun on the tracks, Benedict said.
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