A 17-year-old girl hid a baby under acar before she was gunned down as drive-by shooters fired into a crowd of teens in Southeast Washington on Thursday night, D.C. police said.
The gunmen drove up in a stolen car and began firing into a crowd of teenagers outside 4639 Benning Road SE at about 11:35 p.m., killing 17-year-old Cynthia Gray, who was holding a friend’s 7-month-old baby, and wounding three other teenagers, said Capt. C.V. Morris, head of the violent crimes unit.
Morris said police haven’t determined the motive for the shooting or explain why someone would shoot into a crowd of teens and at a girl holding a baby.
It was an act of “cowardice,” Morris said.
As the gunmen opened fire, Gray placed the baby underneath a vehicle before the two men got out of the car, Morris said.
Gray was shot several times in the face at close range, Morris said.
The baby was unharmed, but a 19-year-old girl and two 18-year-old boys were shot several times each.
Gray was taken to Prince George’s Hospital where she was pronounced dead. The other three teens will survive, Morris said. Their names are being withheld because they are considered witnesses.
Morris said that closed-circuit cameras that D.C. police are planning to install could have helped identify the shooters.
Police said the shooters’ car had been stolen in a carjacking in Prince George’s County about 35 minutes before the drive-by shooting on Benning. Police found the car early Friday morning dumped back in Maryland.
Gray’s boyfriend, Ronnie Graves, 17, had been shot to death a month earlier just blocks away, but Morris said police have found no connection between the two killings. No one has been arrested for the Graves homicide, Morris said.
Anyone with information about this case is asked to call police at 202-727-9099.
