The apartments are located near Suitland Parkway and Alabama Avenue near the border with Maryland. Police did not describe a possible motive.

“It appears the individual was targeted,” said Cmdr. Leslie Parsons, Chief of the DC Police Criminal Investigation Bureau.

Homicides in the district have increased about 8% this year. The teenager killed on Thursday is the fourth person under the age of 18 killed since January. Two 16-year-olds were shot and killed in February and March, and a 16-year-old was killed in April. A dozen young people were killed last year, 11 in 2020 and 14 in 2019.

Gun violence has helped put crime at the top of residents’ concerns and political priorities. A Washington Post poll published in February found that 36% of respondents cited crime, violence or guns as the city’s top problem. That was twice as much as in a 2019 Post poll.

Recently, an independent DC agency released a report outlining a gun violence reduction strategy for the city, hoping the recommendations would reduce violent crime in the short term and begin to alleviate the socio-economic factors that drive violence in DC. over time.

Hours after the youth was shot in southeast Washington, DC Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) made an appearance in the northwest Shaw neighborhood to announce the arrest of members of a suspected drug gang.

Noting this case and the murder of young people across town, Bowser said, “People are tired of gun violence. We’re tired of mass shootings, and in a city like ours, we’re tired of neighborhood violence.