Police Recognize 'Heroism' of DC Metro Employee Killed Intervening in Deadly Shooting Spree

A gunman opened fire near a Washington, DC, metro station on Wednesday morning, February 1, killing one and injuring three, police said.

Executive Assistant Chief of Police Ashan Benedict explained the sequence of events, saying that the shooter followed a person off a city bus and shot them. He then went into the Potomac Avenue metro station, shooting a man trying to buy a fare card. When the gunman engaged with a woman on the platform, a metro employee attempted to intervene and was shot and killed.

“We have four victims in total. We have two with leg injuries, one with a fragmentation injury to his finger, and the deceased.”

Officials said it was “unclear what the motive” was, but that they were “confident we have the shooter in custody.”

Video livestreamed by Mayor Muriel Bowser on Wednesday shows Metro Police, Metro Transit Police, and Mayor Bowser at the scene of the shooting updating the public.

Officials highlighted the potentially life-saving bravery of the transit worker, saying that “his heroism has to be recognized today.” Credit: Mayor Muriel Bowser via Storyful

Video transcript

ASHAN BENEDICT: Good morning. I'm Ashan Benedict, I'm the executive assistant chief of police with the Metropolitan Police Department. I'm joined here today by Mayor Bowser, Chief Anzallo, from the Metro Transit Police Department, and the general manager for the Metro Transit system.

Shortly after 9:00 AM, there was an altercation on a metro bus at 14th Potomac Avenue. There was an individual brandishing a weapon, engaging passengers on this bus. He followed one of the individuals off the bus. The intent of which he's trying to do is not clear at this point. But he shot at this individual, striking him in the legs.

That individual ran off and is now since been interviewed and transported to an area hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. We believe this to be a series of individual events, and I'm going to talk you through it. That's the first event. Our shooter goes down the escalator to the metro platform.

At that point, he engages someone who's attempting to buy a metro card. Again, another altercation occurs. He shoots this individual, also in the leg, brings him over the turnstile. Again, we're not sure the intent of all of this going in. That individual breaks free and has now been transported to an area hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

Our shooter goes down the escalator further to the platform. He engages with another individual, a female, a woman at this point, and has a gun brandished to his side. Attempts to either rob her, confront her, get into some kind of altercation with her. There's two Metro Transit employees that are watching what's happening. One of them attempts to intervene to protect this young lady. By doing so, he's immediately shot by our shooter. He remains on-scene and has been pronounced. His heroism has to be recognized here today.

A second WMATA employee engages the shooter and attempts to de-escalate this situation. And I believe he successfully does so because no one is shot after this individual was shot. Our shooter gets on the train, gets off the train. Again, it's unclear what the motive of all this is. But our first district officer has got a call for service at about 09:20, that call comes in after our metro bus shooting.

Our first district officer takes this individual into custody. We're confident we have the shooter in custody. We have four victims in total. We have two with leg injuries, one with a fragmentation injury to his finger, and our decedent. Everyone's, again, at area hospitals receiving treatment. And our Metro Transit employee, again, our thoughts and prayers go out to him and his family, and the heroic actions he took-- place here today. At this point, I'll turn it over to Mayor Bowser. Thank you.

RANDY CLARK: Thank you. Hi. Randy Clark, general manager of metro. Thank you, Chief, not only for your-- going through the entire incident that happened, but also MPD's quick response, I think it was just a couple of minutes when the first call came in, and our continuing collaboration with Metro Transit police.

I've seen an incredibly sad day here at Metro today. I appreciate the chief recognizing one of our employees. Quite frankly, I think, will be known as a hero. Tried to intervene and help one of our customers that was under a potential assault from the assailant. And more information be coming out on that over time. We appreciate everyone's kind of thoughts and prayers for the metro family today. Is a very tough day for us here.

Just quickly, this scene is still obviously active. As the chief said, this will take a little bit. Some people are interested in service. We'll have more information coming out on social media, and leave it at that. They should expect service to be, maybe, sometime mid to late afternoon. We'll be back open for service. We are operating a bus shuttle right now. We appreciate our customers' understanding and patience while the scene is resolved, and we handle activities inside of Metro.

So, again, thank you for people's thoughts and prayers about a really heroic individual at Metro today. And we'll be looking to try to work with all of our employees to get through this difficult time. Thank you.

MURIEL BOWSER: I just want to send my deep condolences to the Metro family. We don't know a lot about this shooter at this moment, other than we had a person with a gun who's created yet another tragedy in our city. We will work hand in hand with Metro to complete this investigation as we move forward. Any questions for the chief?

- Can you explain, was it the state manager that tried to intervene? And who was the second metro employee?

ASHAN BENEDICT: At this point, I don't have the identities or the rank structure of those individuals that have been involved. And I'm not going to put that out just yet. We want to work with our Metro Transit colleagues during this difficult moment. But we'll put that information out when it becomes available.

- The other metro employee that tried to intervene though, you said that the shooter then went on to the train. What happened after the shooter went on to the train?

ASHAN BENEDICT: Again, similar to the situation on the bus, he's walking around brandishing a firearm and just randomly engaging people in conversation. He's clearly agitated about something. We're just not sure at this point. That's going to take some time to get to the investigation to the bottom of that.

- And then it was 1D officers that were responding to the shooting that went down into the station. Where did they find the shooter?

ASHAN BENEDICT: They found him on the platform. He's standing there now alone. All of our victims and witnesses have since moved on. He's still armed at this point, and took him into custody.

- We've heard that there was an announcement made on the train for people to get down and the lights went off. Is that true?

ASHAN BENEDICT: I'm not aware of that at this moment. Next question.

- Could you go back over the numbers, exactly how many you have injured and deceased?

ASHAN BENEDICT: Sure, we have one decedent. It's our Metro Transit employee. We have two individuals that are suffering from leg wounds. And one individual with a fragmentation injury to his hand.

- Was the suspect arrested on the train? I wasn't clear on that.

ASHAN BENEDICT: The suspect was arrested on the platform.

- He had gotten off the train at another station?

ASHAN BENEDICT: No everything remained-- it started here and stayed here.

- But you said he got on the train.

ASHAN BENEDICT: Yes.

- The train didn't move?

ASHAN BENEDICT: The train didn't move. Yeah, the train stayed on. He got on it and got off. Other individuals actually tackled our shooter. And so we have a lot of witnesses to this event, and we have several victims. But I want to ask all the witnesses that have any information about what happened, even the slightest bit of camera footage or video footage or what they saw, what they heard, please call us at 202-727-9099. Or you can text us anonymously at 50411.

- Were the cameras in the station working?

- [INAUDIBLE] on the train attacked the shooter?

ASHAN BENEDICT: Yes.

- Could you go back and talk-- I mean, you talked about the heroism of all these individuals. Run that down for us and how you feel about these individuals who attacked this guy.

ASHAN BENEDICT: I wish we could have been there faster. Our officers were there within minutes of getting the call for service. But due to heroic actions of our citizens, our community, to disarm this shooter, I can't put a price on that. I think they saved lives. And that's to be commended. But the fact that our citizens have to intervene with armed gunmen is disturbing to me. We do the best we can each and every day, our officers are there within minutes. We got this shooter into custody. And now, we'll just let the investigation go forward. We have a question over here.

- Can you tell us who exactly took the gun from the suspect? Was it one of the passengers or bystanders who tackled him?

ASHAN BENEDICT: We recovered the weapon on the tracks. And I'll leave it at that.

- Can you tell me, is there surveillance video? Were the metro cameras in the station working? Have you reviewed any of that yet?

ASHAN BENEDICT: Yes, and I have reviewed them. Yes.

- Chief, to be clear--

MURIEL BOWSER: Hold up. Hold up. There's a question here.

- General manager Randy Clark and Mayor Muriel Bowser, what do you have to say to people who see a scene like this and don't feel comfortable riding the Metro?

MURIEL BOWSER: This is what we're very focused on. We're focused on how we get guns, and how we get guns out of our city. Whether it's the Metro, it's the street, it's individual homes. We know that we have guns that are creating tragedies in our city and our nation, and we all have to be very focused on that. I know that we will work hand in hand with Metro to make sure that our officers are working this investigation and being just as supportive as possible.

RANDY CLARK: Thank you, mayor. The only thing I'd add on to that is we are working very hard. We've increased police patrols, I think, 25%, 30%, in the last six months/ we've hired mental health crisis intervention counselors. We're installing more video and upgrading our video systems. Which, again, this case will be a great example of the value of that. I think we're doing everything we can.

And I kind of I want to really reiterate what the mayor is saying, we have a gun violence problem in America. And sometimes, unfortunately, that comes into Metro. But this is not a Metro specific safety issue, it's American gun violence issue. And I think that's becoming increasingly clear all over America. Day in and day out, every one of you and your colleagues across the country cover these incidents. And sooner or later, our country has to come together and say, enough of this.

- Hey, Randy. Randy, you've been on the job for just over six months now. You've had your fair share of really, really bad Metro incidents on buses and on train platforms, but none were the life of one of your employees was taken. Can you just speak to how you're feeling. I'm watching you-- I can't imagine how tough it is right now.

RANDY CLARK: Yeah, I mean, it's obviously just a brutal day for us here at Metro. You know, I talked to some of this individual's colleagues quickly. People are hurting. And the people that work at Metro, or just like people that work at the city and others, they're public servants. They come to work every day to serve their community.

And to think that someone came today doing their job, then try to intervene and protect another person that lives here and lost their life is really sad. And I just hope that we can all reflect on that and give thanks to the people that work so hard for us in public service every day. And we have some mourning to do, obviously, at Metro.

- Just a quick follow up real quick. For the riders who need to take a train or a bus to get back home today, I've asked you this question before, what do you say to them when they see another instance of violence?

RANDY CLARK: Yeah, it's really hard, and I appreciate the mixed feelings on that. I'll be back on the train later today and tonight. The system, I still believe, is a very safe system. We have, the mayor, I think is probably more knowledgeable than me, has said we have a gun violence issue. And that is happening on streets, it's happening, unfortunately, metro. There were shootings in Florida and California just, again, the other day. I think it's a larger societal systemic issue. And we are, again, working really hard to make metro safe every day.

- Chief, it sounds like this guy had an altercation with somebody on the bus, and then just went into a rage and started attacking whoever he encountered. Is that what it sounds like, and how do you describe that?

ASHAN BENEDICT: This is going to be part of the investigation, sir. So we're not going to get any more details about the initial altercation. But as that becomes available, we'll make it available.

- Chief Benjamin, just to be clear.

MURIEL BOWSER: Benedict.

- You said that the citizens tackled the gunman on the platform.

ASHAN BENEDICT: Initial reports is that that occurred. Yes.

- So individual citizens took it upon themselves to go after this guy, and got him out of the way?

ASHAN BENEDICT: Yes, and we want to talk to those individuals. If any of those individuals were part of that event or witnessed that event, we want to talk to you. So please call us--

- You don't know who they are?

ASHAN BENEDICT: A lot of people are being interviewed right now, sir. So as we get that information, we need more witnesses. That's what I'm asking for. I'm asking for the public's help here.

- Where's the shooter now? Where's the shooter now?

ASHAN BENEDICT: He's in custody.

- Mayor Bowser, real quickly, the Metro employee who intervened, they were not Metro Transit police, right? They were just other employees there?

ASHAN BENEDICT: Yeah, we're not going to talk about any more of their employment history or anything of that nature.

- Mayor Bowser, can you tell us the status-- off-topic question-- of Jason Lewis after his--

MURIEL BOWSER: No off topics, Mark.

- All right, thank you.

MURIEL BOWSER: Let's be respectful.

ASHAN BENEDICT: All right. Thank you, everyone.

MURIEL BOWSER: I can talk to you off the beat, OK?

- Thank you, Susanne.