Carjacking suspect killed in D.C. in shootout with police from Pr. George’s
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Version 0 of 1. Police from Prince George’s County shot and killed a carjacking suspect Monday night after a chase into Southeast Washington, authorities said. The suspect was pronounced dead at a hospital, D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier said. The pursuit was touched off by an armed carjacking in Prince George’s, according to a D.C. police official. According to several broadcast media accounts, the officers who followed the suspect into the District were from the Prince George’s County police and also from the Forest Heights, Md., police. Forest Heights is a town within Prince George’s County, and it has its own police department. In the 2800 block of Gainesville Street SE, one or more officers who entered the District from the county exchanged shots with the suspect, said Cmdr. Vendette Parker, who heads the D.C. police district where the shooting occurred. No officers were reported wounded. It was not clear whether a gun was recovered. Parker said that no D.C. officers fired any shots. Officials did not immediately specify where the carjacking occurred. But Dean Jones, the head of the Fraternal Order of Police lodge in Prince George’s, said he understood that it occurred in the Fort Washington area. Fort Washington is a few miles south of Forest Heights. The pursuit ended around 8 p.m., about a half-mile from the D.C.-Prince George’s border. A county police spokesman said county police policy in Prince George’s permits officers to pursue suspects into other jurisdictions. Such pursuits are permitted in cases of felonies, said Officer Michael Owen, the county police spokesman. One resident of the neighborhood where the chase ended said she had heard the sounds of the police pursuit and gunfight. “I started hearing sirens first,” she said, “then quite a bit of gunfire.” The woman said that it sounded as if shots were being exchanged. “You heard one gun firing constantly, then two guns firing back like simultaneously,” she said. Another neighbor said she heard as many as a dozen shots. The neighbors identified the area as Garfield Heights. The residential street where the shooting occurred lies between Suitland Parkway on the west and Naylor Road on the east. It is south of Alabama Avenue and north of Southern Avenue. Lynh Bui and Clarence Williams contributed to this report. |