Five people have been shot in a Washington DC neighbourhood within walking distance of the White House, police said. At least one of those shot was at a gym and died, a witness said.
A shooting suspect was barricaded in the vicinity of the initial shooting on Thursday morning (Friday morning AEDT), the DC Metropolitan Police Department said. Law enforcement SWAT teams could be seen responding to a high floor of a nearby apartment building.
The shootings were reported in Logan Circle, about 1.5km north of the White House. Police urged people to avoid the area of the 1500 block of 15th Street, which includes a VIDA fitness centre, St. Luke’s Episcopal Church and residences and is around the corner from a Whole Foods supermarket. Much of the block was cordoned off. Schools near the scene were placed on lockdown.
James Spellman was at the gym a little after 8am (midnight AEDT) when he heard shots being fired. He said there were about 50 people in the gym at the time.
“Within seconds there was a man who fell to the ground, and a pool of blood came out,” he said. “One gym member rushed to help him. He was instantly dead. He had been shot in the neck.”
Spellman said he and other gym members ran out of the gym, and he said he heard more gunfire in the area of 15th Street. He said he heard about two shots fired in the gym and about five or six fired outside.
Streets around the area also were blocked off during a massive police response. The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said it sent agents to the scene to help. And the FBI said its Washington field office was helping local police with the investigation.
Witness Ryan Dubicki was in his nearby apartment around 8am when, he said, he “heard about five bangs”.
“They were really spread out so I thought it was construction,” he said. It was only a short time later that he looked out “and there were cops everywhere”.
His apartment building managers sent a notice that there was a possible active shooter.
The neighbourhood has seen violence before. In early August 2025, a onetime member of President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency was assaulted early on a Sunday morning in the Logan Circle neighbourhood by a group of teenagers attempting to carjack him and a woman, authorities said.
Days later, Trump fulfilled his threat to bypass local authority and imposed direct federal control over the city, sending in hundreds of National Guard members to reduce crime. That deployment continues today.
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