A gunman opened fire at a garbage collection facility in Northeast Washington, killing one sanitation worker and seriously wounding another.
At about 6:15 a.m. Tuesday, a man dressed in a dark blue D.C. Department of Public Works jumpsuit entered the gates at the solid waste management facility in Brentwood and started shooting, police said.
It was during the middle of a shift change when shots rang out. Dozens of workers scrambled for cover behind garbage trucks. One of the victims tried to get inside the building but the door appeared locked, witnesses said.
District officials identified the victim who died as a 24-year public works veteran, 51-year-old Larry Hutchins, of Suitland. The other victim, who was not identified because he is a witness to the crime, had worked for the department for about two decades. He was expected to survive.
A law enforcement source said Wednesday afternoon that investigators have a suspect but did not yet have him custody. Police said they were questioning about 90 witnesses.
Sanitation worker Jovan Stewart said he arrived at the facility minutes after the shooting stopped. He called Hutchins a good man who taught him how to ride on the back of the garbage truck and drive it. Stewart said co-workers told him the shooter was not targeting Hutchins.
“He was trying to put fear in everyone who wears the DPW uniform,” Stewart said.
The shooting came about six months after D.C. Protective Services had conducted a security assessment of the facility and called for more lighting, security cameras and officers. The assessment was taken after a person was fatally stabbed outside the Brentwood facility. Public Works officials rejected the recommendations, which also included closing the lot entrance that the gunman used on Tuesday.
“There is no security,” said James Ivey, head of the union that represents about 750 city sanitation workers. “If they had a camera, at least it would have been caught on film.”
Many of the new workers come straight out of jail or prison without the proper counseling and training to begin employment, Ivey said. In the past three months, a worker broke a chair over at the solid waste plant at Bryant Street and another employee was stabbed in the chest at 11th and O streets NE, Ivey said.
Mayor Adrian Fenty vowed to add more security.
“We should have absolutely beefed up security before today,” Fenty said.
Trash pickup was canceled Wednesday to allow workers to get counseling and police to question witnesses.
